This year’s World Junior/Youth Championships are off to a start this week in Torsby, Sweden. The first races were in the individual start format: 12.5/15 kilometer Junior and Youth Men’s races were held yesterday and 10/12.5 km Junior and Youth Women’s races were held today. There will be three more races in both divisions in the next five days including sprint, pursuit, and relay races. After last year’s World Junior Championships in Canmore, Leif Nordgren took...
In the final biathlon World Cup before the Olympics, Canadian biathletes Zina Kocher and Brendan Green showed strong form by both placing 14th in the IBU World Cup pursuit in Antholz, Italy. There were no U.S. finishers. Only two U.S. biathletes qualified for yesterday’s pursuit -Tim Burke in 31st and Haley Johnson in 59th – but Burke did not start the pursuit race and Haley Johnson did not finish. The U.S. biathletes have cited travel and race exhaustion as reasons to take this...
The third of ten races in the FIS Marathon Cup took place at the foothills of the Dolomite Mountains in Obertilliach, Austria. Now in its 36th year, the Dolomitenlauf is touted as one of the first Worldloppet races and it is the largest nordic ski event to be held in Austria. Over 2000 participants from more than 20 nations took part in the races. On Friday the Dolomitensprint, which is advertised as the oldest cross...
Minneapolis, Minnesota – Brian Gregg and Rebecca Dussault gave CXC Team Vertical Limit a second consecutive day on top of the podium. Dussault repeated continued her winning ways, skiing to a convincing 17 second win in the women’s 10km classic. Gregg, 2nd in yesterday’s freestyle race, took the victory in the 15km classic, edging Martin Banerud by five seconds. Bryan Cook (CXC Team Vertical Limit) matched his place from yesterday, taking the final podium spot,...
With bright sunshine and temps in the teens, no one could complain about the weather for the St. Michael’s EISA Carnival weekend at Sleepy Hollow. It was an open Carnival which meant participation numbers were high, and each event saw over 90 racers. Only Friday’s distance event was a scoring race for NCAA points, while Saturday’s sprint relay was purely for fun, speed and – as one racer hoped – “world domination”. Saturday’s course for...
The University of New Mexico won the overall Utah Invitational in Soldier Hollow today. “Considering all of the illness we have been battling this week, this is a great win,” said Lobos head coach Fredrik Landstedt. “One of our top men’s racers, Tor-Hakon Hellebostad, did not race all weekend and Polina Ermoshina was struggling with illness all week and still skied.” Colorado’s Buffaloes were the fastest cross country team for the second weekend in a...
Minneapolis, Minnesota – Matt Liebsch and Rebecca Dussault led CXC Team Vertical Limit in a dominating performance this morning as the US SuperTour continued in Minnesota. Liebsch, winner of last year’s American Birkebeiner, posted a convincing win at the head of a trio of CXC skiers. He completed the 10km freestyle race in a time of 22:23, 38 seconds faster than teammate Brain Gregg. Bryan Cook completed the CXC Team Vertical Limit sweep just 4.2...
Rybinsk, Russia – The Russian men’s team swept the podium, and placed six in the top-10 in the 30km pursuit, Artem Zhmurko won his first-ever World Cup race, following up on his strong 9th last weekend in Otepaa. Zhmurko won a tight sprint consisting of seven men. He also claimed an addition 25 World Cup points by winning one intermediate sprint, and finishing second in another. “I’m so happy about my first place!” said Zhmurko. ...
Rybinsk, Russia – Justyna Kowalczyk (POL), one of the few top World Cup skiers racing in Rybinsk, extended her overall World Cup lead by winning every bonus sprint and the race. The 15km pursuit featured two intermediate bonus sprints with 15,10 and 5 World Cup points awarded to the top three at each location. Kowalczyk bested Russian Irna Khazova each time to take home an extra 30 points. Khazova ended up 5th, while teammate Olga...
With the two sprint competitions in Antholz, Italy coming to an end, ended for the bigger part of the US team. Only Haley Johnson and Tim Burke managed to qualify for tomorrow’s pursuit competition. For the coaches this kind of a result is nothing to worry about after three hard weeks of racing . “With the Olympic trials at the beginning of January and the hard weeks since then, the team definitively needs some rest....
Magdalena Neuner (GER) won her second race of the week in Antholz, Italy, overcoming a single miss to claim victory in the 7.5km sprint. Neuner has been able to overcome poor shooting with her dominating skiing in recent weeks, but today she was solid on the range, and ended the day with a 13.2 second victory over teammate Andrea Henkel. Sandrine Bailly (FRA) took 3rd, 28.6 seconds back. Both Henkel and Bailly shot clean. “I...
Rybinsk, Russia – Vesna Fabjan (SLO) joined renowned teammate Petra Majdic as a World Cup winner, capturing the women’s freestyle sprint in Russia. Fabjan, who finished on the podium for the first time this season after five years on the World Cup circuit, posted the fastest qualifying time, edging Magda Genuin (ITA) by .62 seconds. Her teammate Katja Visnar was 3rd in qualifying, 3.32 seconds back. Genuin matched her qualifying place in the heats, skiing...
Rybinsk, Russia – The Russian men swept the freestyle sprint on home soil behind a strong performance by Nikolay Morilov. Morilov was followed by Alxei Petukov and Nikita Kriukov. “I’m happy that the race was tough today,” said Morilov. ” But the track is very familiar for us as we spent a week here in October practicing this very route and are very grateful to the Demino skiing center for the conditions they provided us...
Seventy-five skiers took part in the first annual SportHill Crescent Lake Challenge freestyle nordic ski race and citizen tour on Sunday, January 17th. The top male finisher, Eric Martin of Bend, covered the 22 kilometer course in 1:09:54. The top female, Sarah Max of Bend, completed the distance in 1:21:10. Prize money was awarded to the first three male and female finishers. Participants hailed from Bend, Eugene, Portland, Corvallis, Alaska, and California. Race director, Jim...
Torin Koos (USST) is known for his sprinting, and it was a sprint- like margin that gave him the victory in the 15km classic individual start race in the Methow Valley SuperTour. Koos beat out Brian Gregg (CXC Team Vertical Limit) by a mere nine tenths of a second in wet sloppy conditions. Chris Cook (Steinbock Racing), who finished 4th, described the race on Twitter. “Tough day today, raining sloppy no track classic course.” Drew...
Otepaa, Estonia – Hanna Falk, the 20-year-old Swede who has taken the World Cup sprint scene by storm this season won her second race of the year, edging Sprint Cup leader Petra Majdic (SLO), in the classic sprint today. Majdic led the Final right from the gun, and set a blistering pace over the winding Otepaa sprint course. Falk locked in behind her early on, and top-qualifier Aino Kaisa Saarien (FIN) moved up even with...
Ruhpolding, Germany – The biathlon relay format is one of the most exciting races in the Nordic disciplines – with four skiers and eight shooting stages, there is constant drama. To win a relay, a team needs all four skiers to be on. And they need to be on in both skiing and shooting. Today was no different, and Russia turned in a performance of impressive proportions. Breaking away on the first leg, the team...
They were not the ideal conditions in which to start the college racing season. The morning of the 5/10km classic races at Lake Placid held 31-33 degree temperatures with intermittent spitting rain, snow, and sleet. The race was run on the Olympic 5km course, a challenging loop which starts to climb at .5 km and doesn’t let up for the next 3 kms, before sending racers down a series of fast turns and spitting them...
flyingpointroad.com Saturday’s Sprint: While the talk was mostly about the crazy men’s qualifier round, the performances of the day came from two J2 women who stepped up to earn the top two spots in the overall women’s race. Stratton Mountain School’s Heather Mooney (Peru, VT) won both the qualifying round and the heats, while Corey Stock fought from a lower qualifying position to grab 2nd in the final. Green Mountain Valley School’s Elena Luethi earned...
