Kikkan Randall is back! Logging hours with her APU teammates in Anchorage and with the U.S. Ski Team at camps, the three-time Sprint Cup winner is looking forward to packing her Aeropress and heading back to the World Cup after a season off last year while pregnant with her son, Breck.
"Normally, if she is guilty, it is very clear that she should receive a 4-year ban," FIS President Gian Franco Kasper said in an interview with Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, while admitting that he had seen no evidence from the case.
An eight-year member of the Norwegian national team, Øystein Pettersen insists: "There are sides of Norwegian cross-country skiing that are not so positive. Eating disorders, overtraining, stress, pressure, the equipment arms race and much more. But doping, this is not part of the Norwegian cross-country sport."
After scoring his first World Cup points last season, Whitehorse native Knute Johnsgaard is enjoying training more with Canada's senior national team. But he particularly appreciated a trip back home to the Yukon to chase wild sheep around on mountain ranges.
A contrite and devastated Therese Johaug announced that she had tested positive for clostebol, an anabolic steroid. It was an ingredient in a lip cream she used after getting a severe sunburn at a high-altitude training camp. Her team doctor had told her that the cream contained no prohibited substances.
To double pole or not to double pole: sometimes it's not even a question for strong-enough skiers. We spoke to a few well-informed individuals on FIS's 83-percent rule and gathered their opinions.
On Friday, the FIS Cross Country Committee passed a new rule requiring that classic pole lengths not exceed 83 percent of an athlete's height. "The rule is intended to keep future athletes from double poling races (and micro-skating) with poles that are close to the head-height limit," explains U.S. head coach Chris Grover, chairman of the FIS Subcommittee for World & Continental Cups.
Martin Johnsrud Sundby blamed his poor performance at 2015 World Championships on stress from his positive doping test, while WADA's scientific director is now commenting that asthma drugs are performance-enhancing at high doses. In addition, Russian hackers released athlete medical records from a WADA database.
Martin Johnsrud Sundby is beginning the appeals process, seeking to overturn his doping ban by way of the Swiss Supreme Court. Meanwhile, other Norwegian skiers -- healthy ones -- were allegedly recommended to use nebulizers as well.
FIS rules did not require a provisional suspension for Norway's Martin Johnsrud Sundby after his urine samples came back with high concentrations of salbutamol. And after their hearing panel concluded he had broken no rules - a finding later reverse by the Court of Arbitration for Sport - FIS could only publicize the case with Sundby's permission. They say he refused.
On Tuesday, the IOC Executive Board responded to the McLaren report and listed provisional measures for international sports federations moving forward. Fortunately for FIS and the IBU, they're not on the same timeline as summer sports, and will convene at a meeting in just over two weeks in Rio.
News broke Wednesday that Martin Johnsrud Sundby, the three-time defending overall World Cup and Tour de Ski champion, had been handed a two-month sanction and disqualified from two races (and his 2015 Tour de Ski and 2015 overall World Cup titles). "I went into the 2015/2016-season knowing I was innocent, and also that I was acquitted," he said in a press conference. "I think the verdict is totally unreasonable."
Martin Fourcade, the most successful biathlete of the last several years, resorted to Twitter to ask his international federation about the ten positive tests by Russian athletes allegedly hidden by the Russian Ministry of Sport. He didn't get a response. Meanwhile, the IOC moved forward with re-testing anti-doping samples from all Russian athletes at the 2014 Olympics, and also called for any major events scheduled to be held in Russia to be moved.
The latest documentary by Hajo Seppelt alleges that Natalia Zhelanova, the anti-doping assistant at Russia's Ministry of Sport, tipped off skiing and biathlon teams before sample collection. Did WADA's ADAMS system, where federations are encouraged to pre-register their planned tests, allow this to happen?
All right, so the top Norwegian women are training more than 900 hours per year. What does that mean for everyone else? We chatted with Jodi Hawley, an exercise physiologist who formerly worked with the Canadian National Team for cross-country skiing.
Want to know everything about the training and physiology of the top Norwegian women? A new paper tells all, using training diaries and test data from Marit Bjørgen, Therese Johaug, Heidi Weng, Ingvild Flugstad Østberg, Ragnhild Haga, and Maiken Caspersen Falla.
For Throwback Thursday, we're reposting a November editorial calling for WADA to investigate doping in winter sports and irregularities at the Sochi Olympics. How many of our questions have been answered in the last six months?
Germany's 27-year-old sprint specialist Denise Herrmann made a big announcement on Wednesday: she's going to be a biathlete. "The switch to a new discipline will be a big challenge, I am aware of that, but I am confident that I can do it with diligence, courage, and determination!" Herrmann wrote.
Charlotte Kalla is trying the Petter Northug model and will train outside of her country's national team this season, instead collaborating with her coach Magnus Ingesson at Piteå Elit. Meanwhile, after a year of focusing on Ski Classics, Johan Olsson and Daniel Richardsson are back to the national team.
It's been 15 years since the U.S. hosted a cross-country World Cup. In that time, Canada has hosted such international races on home snow multiple times, most recently with the eight-stage Ski Tour Canada. The cost of hosting World Cups is high and the benefits are sometimes hard to measure. FasterSkier explores how Canada has pulled it off and why the U.S. avoids the risk.