Visitor numbers are up for the West Yellowstone Ski Festival and the Rendezvous Ski Trails are open in their entirety, but the snow is a little denser than usual. "It's definitely a little odd for here," groomer Doug Edgerton said of the manmade-like conditions that are 100-percent natural. "Historically, we’re cold and dry."
With nearly 90 percent of its senior team still eligible for U23 World Championships, NDC Thunder Bay is hungry for some international starts, and new head coach Timo Puiras has a feeling it's going to be a good season.
Selected to head up the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Program just three years ago, John Farra is already thinking medals for his team at the Sochi Paralympics in March, and believes they'll be on par with the Russians by the 2018 Games.
There's a skiable groomed loop in Eastern Canada, and FS contributor Stephanie Drolet drove an hour north of Quebec City to check it out. This year, Laval University opened the 1.3 k manmade track at La Forêt Montmorency a couple weeks earlier than usual and expect to keep it open into April 2014. In English and French.
During his recent visit to California for a training camp with his Black Jack Ski Club, former Canadian National Team Head Coach Dave Wood met up with FasterSkier's Nancy Fiddler and shared some intimate thoughts on the sport. "You can’t improve by just going to Europe to race,” Wood says. “You have to figure out a way to cut 45 seconds over 15 kilometers before going.”
Earlier this month, Devon Kershaw packed his bags for Europe, where he'll spend essentially six months between the World Cup, Tour de Ski and Olympic competitions. It was tough, he said, but an opportunity he couldn't pass up between seeing his girlfriend, Kristin Størmer Steira, and training with the Norwegian men's team in Val Senales, Italy.
For the last several days, skiers from all over Canada and the U.S. have converged on Canmore, Alberta, to ski the seasonal anomaly that is Frozen Thunder: a 2.2-kilometer loop of real snow skiing, harvested from last winter and saved over the brief Canadian summer under a thick coat of sawdust.
With the opening of Frozen Thunder in Canmore, Alberta, Perianne Jones of the Canadian World Cup Team shares an "easy-does-it" workout for getting back into on-snow training.
The Pierre-Harvey National Training Centre has expanded this season with more women than men on its senior roster. Alex Harvey and Dasha Gaiazova are back from the World Cup team, and CNEPH has big goals for its younger athletes.
At first glance, one might not see much of a difference on the Canadian World Cup Team: mostly the same faces looking fit as usual. But head coach Justin Wadsworth said there's a lot that's gone on behind the scenes this training season, especially in monitoring recovery and priming his athletes for what he hopes to be their best seasons yet. A new camp in Truckee was part of the plan.
With week one of the U.S. Ski Team's two-week training camp in Park City, Utah, in the bag, head coach Chris Grover shares what his athletes have been up to and how they've trained with dozens of other U.S. skiers.
With Fast and Female catering to young female skiers for the last eight years, Andy Newell and Simi Hamilton finally came up with an option for boys: Speed Camp. On Sunday afternoon, the same time as Fast and Female's Champ Camp, the U.S. Ski Team hosted its first all-male camp for juniors at Soldier Hollow.
FasterSkier caught the US Biathlon team during one of their hardest workouts of the training season in Lake Placid, with the added bonus of watching German gold medalist Andrea Henkel rollerski around with them.
Fewer than two weeks after straining a muscle in her foot, which prompted an immediate trip to the Lake Placid hospital, Jessie Diggins is out of the boot, without pain and classic striding in Park City, Utah. "It just seemed to be an out-of-the-blue thing," she said. "I actually had no warning."
There's a reason APU ventures to Park City each summer, and it's all about transitioning and revving up for the season ahead. “Whether it's the altitude or not, I think everyone here has gotten two weeks of incredible training,” U.S. Ski Team and APU skier Holly Brooks said. “It's hard to say from a physiological standpoint, but I think it's been a really productive camp either way.”
In advance of his club’s facility playing host to the third annual North American Women's Training Alliance (NAWTA) camp in July, APU Nordic Director Erik Flora broke down film of last year's World Cup races in Sochi. He was studying every undulation of the race courses, with a goal to replicate the Olympic venue.
The U.S. men and Canadian World Cup skiers are right at home way down under at the Snow Farm near Wanaka, Zealand, and they haven't wasted any time with getting down to business while rehabbing some injuries.
Two days after arriving in New Zealand, Andy Newell romped the men's field in the opening sprint of Winter Games NZ, winning his qualifier and each heat thereafter for the overall win. That's a good indicator for one of the world's best sprinters after a summer of mostly rollerskiing, running and biking.
Last weekend, Team Hardwood held its annual Midget Camp; it's goal: to get as many young kids as possible to fall in love with cross country skiing. With a total of 8 midget-aged athletes, 4 volunteers from Team Hardwood’s senior racing team and our Head Coach Ron Howden, one volunteer says mission accomplished.
Tad Elliott's headed back to Wisconsin for another "Train Like A Birkie Champion" camp, this time with his mountain bike. Organizer Bill Pierce added a mountain-bike component to this year's three-day camp (Sept. 6-8) to appease Elliott and all the citizens/masters that train for more than just the Birkie. Pierce is also hoping to raise $4,000 for the Birkie Skier Development Fund.