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2018 Winter Olympics

Maddie Phaneuf on Finding Her Voice, Lobbying in D.C.

Young and empowered. Twenty-three-old Maddie Phaneuf, a 2018 Olympic biathlete and member of the US Biathlon’s national team, has been finding her voice this short offseason as she lobbied members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., on April 25. Phaneuf, along with 2018 U.S. Winter Olympians High Performance Team. While continuing to train and race with the national team, she planned to move from Lake Placid, N.Y., to her new training...

FasterSkier’s Canadian Breakthroughs: Collin Cameron and Zina Kocher

With the 2017/2018 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to Canadian athletes in any disciplines who had a major breakthrough at some level of competition. Previous categories: Collegiate...

FasterSkier’s Biathletes of the Year: Tim Burke and Rosanna Crawford

With the 2017/2018 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to outstanding North American biathletes on the international circuit. *** Rosanna Crawford, Biathlon Canada Rosanna Crawford had been close to...

Sunday Olympic Rundown: Bjørgen Dominates 30 k Classic; Diggins 7th

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Report Marit Bjørgen went out with a bang. Skiing in presumably the final Olympics race of her illustrious career, the most-decorated Winter Olympian in history simply skied away from a strong field less than 10 kilometers into Sunday’s 30 kilometer classic mass start, earning the 15th Olympic medal of her career (and eighth gold) in dominant fashion. Behind her, Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski (+1:49.5) and Sweden’s Stina Nilsson (+1:58.9) rounded...

Saturday Olympic Rundown: Niskanen Takes 50 k in Gutsy Solo Effort, Harvey 4th, Patterson 11th

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, International report who had publicly questioned the validity of the Russians’ performance in Sochi soon after the 50 k skate concluded, exclaimed of Larkov, “I’m not sure where he got the power to run up that hill like that.” A few seconds later, Harvey outlunged Sundby for fourth, +2:43.6 to +2:43.7. Holund was sixth (+2:50.1), Daniel Rickardsson of Sweden another minute back in seventh (+3:50.4), Czech Martin Jaks eighth (+4:10.5),...

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Full report Germany were the favorites coming into this men’s relay and Erik Lesser started them off with a near-perfect relay leg to sit in first place, but shooting collapses by Benedikt Doll and Simon Schempp left the team with bronze medals at the finish. On a windy, gusty day, the relay instead came down to a race between Norway and Sweden. Coming into the last shooting stage Fredrik Lindström of Sweden and Emil Hegle Svendsen of Norway were...

Thursday Olympic Rundown: Belarus Gold in Thrilling Women’s Biathlon Relay; US 10th Team in NoCo

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Full report Ranked just 10th coming into today’s women’s relay, the team from Belarus stole the show with Darya Domracheva skating across the line to claim the fourth Olympic gold of her career after strong efforts from Nadezhda Skardino and Iryna Kryuko, both of whom have stood on the World Cup podium before, and newcomer Dzinara Alimbekava, a 22-year-old newcomer with just 11 World Cup starts to her name. It was the first relay...

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, link to the 4 x 5 k women’s relay start list. It’s a wow-type list. The Norwegians, the Swedes and the Finns, all loaded lineups. And the Russians were seated fifth. Natalia Nepryaeva and Yulia Belorukova, both Russian skiers that have already medaled at these Games, led off the first two relay legs. They were a big unknown who pulled through for the bronze.   “It was really interesting...

Saturday Olympic Rundown: Norway Tops Women’s Relay, U.S. 5th; Kuzmina Dominates Mass Start

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, International report Full report Not even a miss in the final stage could keep Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina from her third medal of the 2018 Olympics, this time gold, in the women’s 12.5-kilometer mass start on Saturday at the Alpensia Biathlon Center. Kuzmina took charge early in the five-loop race, leading Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier into the range for the first prone shooting stage. There, Kuzmina cleaned all five targets quickly...

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Full report It was a disappointing opening to the Olympics for Johannes Thingnes Bø of Norway, who despite winning eight World Cup races this season started the Games with finishes of 31st and 21st in the sprint and pursuit. But on Thursday he showed why he was a medal favorite and won the 20 k individual race – only by 5.5 seconds, but that margin becomes impressive when you...

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Full report After the jumping round of the nordic-combined individual normal hill/10-kilometer Gundersen-start competition on Wednesday, Austria’s Franz-Josef Rehrl topped the standings thanks to a jump of 112 meters, just a meter farther than second place Jarl Magnus Riiber of Norway. The top American was Bryan Fletcher, who sat in 18th place after a jump of 97.5 meters good for 99 points. He started the 10 k cross-country skiing portion of the competition 2:06...

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Full report “Use this rage as energy!” Martin Fourcade wrote on Instagram after finishing eighth in the men’s 10-kilometer sprint on Sunday. Um, yeah. The French biathlon star defended his gold medal from the 2014 Olympic pursuit with just one missed shot in Monday’s 12.5 k competition, taking the lead after the third shooting stage and never giving it back. He finished with a comfortable enough margin to grab...

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Full report It was an improbable move: Norway’s Simen Hegsted Krüger attacked a few kilometers from the finish of the men’s 30 k skiathlon, and the rest of the field let him go. Krüger didn’t let up and at one point had a lead of 25 seconds with just about two kilometers to go, all the more impressive because he had crashed just meters into the race and broken a pole,...

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle due to a tainted food supplement came to light (her suspension later was reduced to six months) and the team again failed to reach the podium. “For our team this medal is particularly important,” Hönig said. “We still have the defeats of Sochi somewhere in the back of our minds. Well, I particularly do, so for me this is a gigantic moment. I believe having a medal...

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Full report The 2018 Winter Games kicked off Saturday with the women’s 15-kilometer skiathlon, which saw Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla take her second-career individual Olympic gold (third including relays) and first individual gold in eight years. Not far behind her, American Jessie Diggins achieved the best Olympic result for an American woman in cross-country skiing. After Kalla established herself as a leader early in the opening 7.5 k classic leg,...

Nordic Nation: Vordenberg’s Call to Action/Climate Challenge

Part 1, and here. Does your team already have a climate or climate activism project?  Let us know what it is and we can share it with our community! Contact Pete Vordenberg with questions, ideas and to register your team. pvatuphillskier@gmail.com (To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.)

Meet Kequyen Lam, Portuguese Olympic Skier (with Video)

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Tyler Mosher, who told Lam to “talk to Maria.”  “I talked to Maria Lundgren, and she forwarded me to Tony Chin,” he said of Lundgren, a British Columbia Ski Team coach, and Chin, one of the head coaches at the Nordic Racers Ski Club in Vancouver.   Through Chin, he met Ryan Olson, a masters skier. “Ryan Olson is pretty hardcore guy when it comes to skiing,” Lam said....

2018 Olympics Viewing Guide: When and How to Watch

This article has been edited to include a link to an updated and more detailed guide to NBC’s television coverage. You may have heard that the Olympics are coming up soon. Your favorite athlete’s social media platform is probably showing them sitting on an airplane, going through Olympic processing, or wearing Those Gloves right about now. Plus Noah Hoffman is blogging again, which is the surest sign yet that the Games of the XXIII Winter...

Comeau Just Can’t Quit Skiing: Back in the Sport and PyeongChang-Bound

Today, she’s Olympic-bound. But two years ago, Anne-Marie Comeau was stepping away from cross-country skiing. Comeau had raced at 2015 World Junior Championships, finishing 25th in the skiathlon, but by December of that year the Canadian was diagnosed with a shoulder injury that required her to take half a year away from skiing. She didn’t compete past the first weekend of NorAms, or at all in the 2016-2017 season, after deciding to devote herself to...