The World Cup made its final European stop in Falun, Sweden before the field heads across the pond to Quebec City for the final series. For the men, the weekend opened with a 1.4-kilometer freestyle sprint, a last test before the freestyle sprint in Canada. Heading into the weekend, Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo sat comfortably in the lead for the overall sprint standings with string of six back-to-back wins, not including a win at the...
*This article has been updated to include comments of Great Britain’s Andrew Musgrave By the time the camera panned past the 26-kilometer mark of the men’s 30 k skiathlon at 2019 World Ski Championships in Seefeld, Austria on Saturday, the original pack of 72 starters had dwindled to five: Norwegians Martin Johnsrud Sundby and Sjur Røthe, Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov, Finland’s Iivo Niskanen, and France’s Clement Parisse. The leaders had been unphased by Niskanen’s hot pace...
FIS Cross Country World Cup 10 k/15 k Classic Individual Start Cogne, Italy World Cup athletes returned to the Cogne race venue on Sunday for a men’s and women’s classic interval start race. In the women’s 10 k, Finland’s Kerttu Niskanen, won in a time of 27:24.8. Finishing just 3 seconds behind her for second place was Swiss skier, Nadine Fähndrich. Russia’s Natalia Nepryaeva claimed third, 12.6 seconds behind the winner. Racing for the U.S., Rosie...
FIS Cross Country World Cup 1.6-kilometer freestyle sprint Cogne, Italy Amidst sunshine and sporting rolled up sleeves on Saturday in Cogne Italy, American Jessie Diggins took the women’s 1.6-kilometer freestyle sprint win in nail-biter fashion. After making it into the semifinals and the final as one of the day’s lucky losers, Diggins outlunged Germany’s Sandra Ringwald by 0.11 seconds, claiming the victory in a time of 3:32.73. The 27 year old Afton, Minnesota native now has...
It was a weekend of sprinting in Lahti, Finland, with many World Cup athletes closing out Sunday having traversed the famed 1.4-kilometer 2016 World Championships sprint loop at top speed close to ten times. By the time Sweden’s Maja Dahlqvist got on course for the final lap of the women’s classic Team Sprint, she had already tallied nine–in Saturday’s freestyle sprint she made it through the qualifier, quarterfinal, semifinal and final (placing third), and on...
FIS World Cup Otepää, Estonia classic 10/15 k individual start Women’s Full Report | Men’s Full Report World Cup cross-country action returned to the Otepää race venue on Sunday, with athletes reconvening after Saturday’s classic sprints for the weekend’s distance classic event. In the women’s 10-kilometer individual start classic race, Norway’s Therese Johaug finished first in a time of 29:53.7 for the win. Sweden’s Ebba Andersson finished second (+48.4) while Russia’s Natalia Nepryaeva claimed third (+56.7). Skiing for the...
If Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo felt any nostalgia stepping out onto the men’s 1.6-kilometer classic sprint course in Otepää, Estonia–it is where he earned his first World Cup sprint victory back in 2017–it by no means slowed the 22 year old down. After winning Saturday’s qualifier in a time of 3:21.99, Klæbo went on to win both his quarter and semi. He eventually crossed the final first in a time of 3:20.05 to complete his...
IBU World Cup Ruhpolding, Germany 4 x 7.5 k / 4 x 6 k Relay In relatively calm weather on Friday in Ruhpolding, Germany the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup sent the men’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer relay on its way. Under overcast skies, a slight 5 mph wind and temps trying to break freezing saw Norway’s team of Lars Helge Birkeland, Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen,Tarjei Bø, and Johannes Thingnes Bø win in 1:09:54.3 hours. The...
If the Grand Prix were to host a ski race, it might look like the Team Sprint in Dresden, Germany. With 10 teams racing the 6 x 1.6-kilometer final and the racetrack style, three-lap loop situated in the city’s center, the tactics of a Formula One driver seemed employable on the relatively flat course. For most teams’ skiers, that meant patience; staying in one’s lane and in contact until the last lap. Norway’s Team I...
The final stages of the Tour de Ski (TdS) often bring drama: the attrition of some athletes leaving opportunity for others. Among the 45 male competitors who chose to start Saturday’s TdS Stage 6 of 7–a 15-kilometer classic mass start in Val di Fiemme, Italy–some may have been experiencing fatigue from racing the Tour’s previous five stages; others may have been finding their peak. For Italy’s Francesco de Fabiani, who started Saturday in bib number...
If there’s one skier on the U.S. domestic circuit who knows how to time his wins, it’s Kyle Bratrud. The 25 year old now has three U.S. Cross Country Championship titles to his name–his most recent coming on Thursday in the men’s 15-kilometer classic race in Craftsbury, Vt–with all of these wins simultaneously falling on Championship years. In 2015, while still a senior at Northern Michigan University, he earned his first national title by winning the...
FIS World Cup Tour de Ski Stage 5 15 k/10k Freestyle Pursuit Oberstdorf, Germany Men’s Report | Women’s Report Today’s Tour de Ski (TdS) Stage 5 15-kilometer freestyle pursuit in Oberstdorf, Germany began and ended simply enough: Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo wearing the Tour’s blue leader’s bib started first with a 15 second lead over second overall skier Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov. By 2 k into the race, the pair had linked up and ceded...
*Note: This article has been updated to include comments from U.S. Ski Team B-Tean member, Kevin Bolger Without the visual of the grey and white U23 marker next to his name on an FIS results sheet, it’s easy to forget Norwegian Johannes Høsflot Klæbo is still under 23 years of age. As the Tour de Ski (TdS) celebrates its 13th edition this year, the twenty-two-year-old Klæbo (he celebrated his 22nd birthday this October) is only...
DNS. It’s a rare acronym to crop up in the results portion of Sophie Caldwell’s FIS database. But after battling a cold for the first few weeks of the 2018/2019 season, Caldwell did not start (DNS) the Lillehammer freestyle sprint and also chose to sit out the women’s relay last weekend. By this Saturday in Davos, Switzerland, the 28 year old’s decision to rest and not race seemed to have paid off. She sprinted to...
For Norway, relays are often tallied not by wins, but how many wins have been missed. Back in 2009, Team Norway watched on as Team Sweden took the top spot of the podium for the women’s 4 x 5-kilometer relay event in Beitostølen, Norway. In the nine years after that second place finish in Beitostølen, the Norwegian women’s team has missed winning the World Cup relay–excluding team sprints–only one other time (FIS reports that as...
For this week’s Wednesday Workout, FasterSkier reached out to Martin Benes, the newest addition to the U.S. Para-Nordic coaching staff. Benes joined U.S. Para-Nordic this August, after five years working as the nordic skiing director and head coach at Sugar Bowl Academy in Norden, California. He is still currently living in California. Benes’s primary work is with the Para-Nordic national team: A-team members Oksana Masters, Kendall Gretsch, and Dan Cnossen, as well as B-team member,...
In sport, there’s the win and then there’s the story behind the win. In the sport of nordic skiing, some of these stories seem all too familiar, such as Sunday’s Norwegian victory in the men’s 15-kilometer classic pursuit. But even among the Norwegians in the sport of cross-country skiing, there are idiosyncrasies to the success. In the case of Didrik Tønseth, the Norwegian winner of Sunday’s 15 k pursuit in Lillehammer, Norway, the victory was...
“I have no secrets,” Alexander Bolshunov told FIS in regard to his back-to-back wins in Kuusamo, Finland. On Saturday, the Russian had won a drag race with Norway’s superstar Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo during Saturday’s classic sprint. Bolshunov had a commanding victory in Sunday’s 15-kilometer classic race. He stopped the clock with a winning time of 36:17.8 minutes. Early in the race, Bolshunov’s splits mirrored those of Norway’s Emil Iversen during which the two skiers’ times never deviated...
If there is anything Russia’s Yulia Belorukova, took away from the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic Winter Games, besides an individual bronze medal in the classic sprint, it’s that she is capable of sprinting with the best in the world. Leading up to the Games in Pyeongchang, the 23-year-old had yet to land on a World Cup podium. Even post-Pyeongchang, a World Cup win remained unchartered waters for the recent Olympic bronze medalist. But with the opening...
From an outsider’s perspective, it seemed Johannes Høsflot Klæbo of Norway would open his World Cup 2018/2019 season with the familiarity of a win. The first FIS cross-country race of the year, a 1.4-kilometer classic sprint in Kuusamo, Finland, saw the 22-year-old round the course’s final turn in first, holding off his closest competitor, Alexander Bolshunov of Russia, by close to two meters. Approaching the finishing stretch, Norway’s cross-country sprint king was still dictating the...