As I pulled into the parking lot in Lake Placid at 8:30 on a Saturday morning, two hours before the launch of my ski jumping career, I was feeling an appropriate amount of trepidation. Not none, but not a jaw-clenching, heart-thumping terror, either. More like pre-race nerves. I got out of the car, carried my backpack up to the lodge, and took a look around. I could see four ski jumps: the two gigantic Olympic...
Drew Goldsack may be a recent addition to the Alberta World Cup Academy but he’s not stranger to hard training. After 8 years on the Canadian National Team, Goldsack joined the Alberta World Cup Academy, a recently instated Canadian Training Centre and he’s enjoying every minute of it. Being on the AWCA has reunited him with former National Ski Team coach Mike Cavaliere and former teammate Chris Jeffries. “Working with The Alberta World Cup Academy...
Since the Olympics, Kikkan Randall has had anything but a relaxed spring and summer. Her activities have included the International Ski Federation (FIS) Congress in Turkey, a visit to Norway to spend time training with Marit Bjoergen, and a three week training camp in New Zealand. Randall’s latest stop has finally brought her a little closer to home. While the Ontario High Performance Camp in Barrie, Ontario, was still far from Alaska, at least she...
How do you get dozens of youngsters to try out a sport like ski jumping? For the staff of the New York Ski Educational Foundation (NYSEF), that’s not just an idle question to ponder. It’s crucial for the club to attract large numbers of kids to try out the sport if they want to turn out athletes with hopes of ever competing at an elite level. From the outside, ski jumping seems like it should...
FasterSkier is planning an interview with recently-appointed U.S. Ski Team Sports Dietician Adam Korzun later this month. If you have any questions about nutrition for which Google is no help, shoot them our way, and we’ll do our best to get you an answer! You can send your queries to us at info[at]fasterskier.com, or just leave them in the comments below.
Josh Smullin is the XC Ability coach for the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club. He races for Team Rossignol. School has started and the weather is about to get colder. You will soon be spending more time indoors in close quarters with germs and the combination of these stressors increases your likelihood of getting sick. I want to give you a few guidelines to follow that can increase your chances of staying healthy this fall. The...
Earlier this summer FasterSkier ran an
Jessie Diggins recently graduated from Stillwater High School in Minnesota, where she earned three individual state championship titles, among other impressive national and international results. Diggins skis for CXC Team Vertical Limit. One might wonder why an endurance athlete like a skier or runner would ever bother lifting weights. Isn’t specific strength enough? Shouldn’t skating without poles, single-sticking and double-poling build all the muscles a skier would need? The truth is, general strength does more...
Whenever nordic skiers are being stereotyped, you are almost sure to hear the word granola, often accompanied by words like crunchy, and nature. So what better to bake than a food that will fulfill all the world’s stereotypes about us? Because granola can be made with just about anything, the recipe is wide open to your interpretation. Substitute craisins for raisins, throw in your leftover almonds, replace the fiber with chocolate – go nuts!
NORWAY – Bringing young athletes from all the ski disciplines onto one team is the recipe for excellence in the future. “Team Morgendagens Helter” is 5-year talent development project organized by the Norwegian Ski Association and backed by major sponsor Statoil, designed to share training strategies and increase the pool of experience across the different ski disciplines.
The harder the race, the greater the chance you’ll see Ivan Babikov at the top of the result sheet. So it’s no surprise that he uses a brutally difficult training session to prepare himself for the winter. In an interview from his home in Canmore, Babikov said that this workout – a variation on bounding intervals – was a holdover from his younger days training in Russia. In Canada, Babikov said, most athletes do their...
Kara Doescher and Ben Grasseschi provide overviews of the PNSA/Far West Nor Cal Nordic Camp near Mt. Lassen. Kara is a high school skier from Corvallis and Ben coaches for the Auburn Ski Club. Nor Cal Nordic Camp, by Kara Doescher As a high school skier the Nor Cal Nordic Camp was my first XC ski training camp. It was a wonderful experience, I really learned a lot, and I met some great new people....
A group of handpicked Norwegian junior skiers in the Norwegian Ski Association’s talent development group are treated to their own mentors among the World Cup racers, as well as team camps that blend athletes from all the ski disciplines. The result is major motivational boosts.
Attendance may have been small at last weekend’s camp, but the coaching was of gold-medal caliber. Seven master skiers, all women, braved the heat Friday through Sunday, learning from and training with Olympian Nina Gavrilyuk at Lakewoods Resort in Cable, Wisconsin. Skiing for the Soviet Union (until 1991) and Russia, Gavrilyuk won four Olympic gold medals and one bronze over the course of a long and highly decorated competitive career. She also earned 11 World...
There aren’t many people who can spend more time in work boots than cycling shoes and still harbor reasonable hopes of keeping up in a bike race with Tour de France veterans. But count American nordic combined skier Billy Demong as one of the few members of that group. Over the past few years, Demong has been an avid bike racer during the off-season. This summer, though, he’s been more focused on remodeling his house...
AURE, NORWAY – Cross country skier Petter Northug (NOR) leaves Aure and the rest of the events at Toppidrettsveka. Northug completed two of four events. Toppidrettsveka started out as an elite Norwegian week of competitions, camps and challenges that evolved into an international week of camps and competitions in the northwest part of Norway. The past two years it has featured World Cup roller ski events, and this summer acted as test events for the...
If I know it’s going to be a big day, I make sure I have a solid breakfast. People always say that it’s the most important meal of the day and that’s true. When you wake up in the morning, you probably haven’t eaten in at least 8 hours. Your glucose stores will be depleted, which are the main energy source of the body. A lot of people tell me, “I’m not hungry,” or “I...
Where do you start when you have one day to teach all that is cross-country skiing? The Central Cross-Country Ski Association (CXC) gave it a shot, hosting a youth camp for children ages 8 through 11 at Lakewoods Resort in Cable, Wisconsin on Monday, July 26. The day’s schedule was a busy one, as the campers bounced from one exercise to another, including ski-specific warm-ups, bounding, light strength, plyometric strength, swimming, Ski Erg races, laser...
Barrie, ON – Team Hardwood, one of Ontario’s most successful cross country ski racing clubs, is host a gathering of winter Olympians, National Ski Team members, and 50 of the top junior cross country ski racers in the province at the annual Ontario High Performance dryland training camp, being held at Hardwood Ski and Bike, Barrie, ON, from August 12-15th, 2010. The objective of the “Hitting Your Stride” camp is to show and teach promising...