Last weekend’s first-ever World Cup in Ulricehamn, Sweden, was one Canada will remember for a long time, after Alex Harvey won Saturday’s 15-kilometer freestyle individual start for his second-straight World Cup victory (after Men’s report | Men’s report |
Looking up from the finish line on Sunday, Canada’s Len Valjas saw something he would never forget. Amidst a sea of waving Swedish flags, a trio of men ran toward him. Their arms were outstretched and a chorus of cheers escaped all three as they charged toward their teammate. Just a week ago, Valjas had celebrated his Johnsgaard, of Canada’s U25 Team, maintained his position within the middle of the lead pack. “Alex tagged me off...
FIS Cross-Country World Cup (Ulricehamn, Sweden): 4 x 5 k and 4 x 7.5 k Relays Women’s report Norway notched back-to-back team victories in the women’s and men’s relays on Sunday at the World Cup in Ulricehamn, Sweden, with Finn Hågen Krogh securing a win in the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay by 0.5 seconds over Sweden’s Calle Halfvarsson and Canada’s Lenny Valjas. With two kilometers remaining, nine teams were within 3.8 seconds of first. Krogh...
It’s not like winning is a new feeling for Canada’s Alex Harvey. After all, the Quebec-based cross-country skier said in a Cross Country Canada press release. “It is nice to be able to own a statistic like that, but I do it for the result and to be the best I can be each race. If that means that I win back-to-back then that is a bonus.” With Strong Performances, Canada Looks to Relay While...
U.S. SuperTour (Truckee, Calif.): Classic sprints [UPDATED] Less than a week after being men’s 30 k classic mass start champion at this year’s U.S. nationals — won Saturday’s SuperTour classic sprint as well. Lustgarten, of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, raced to a 1.58-second victory in the men’s A-final at the Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif., finishing in 3:03.4. Ben Saxton, of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) Elite Team, placed second, and Reese...
And you thought the weekend after the Tour de Ski would be boring. For fans of North American World Cup cross-country skiers, it was anything but, with Simi Hamilton coming excruciatingly close to a win in the men’s freestyle sprint on Saturday, Jan. 14, and placing second for his first podium of the season, followed by Canada’s first team-sprint victory since 2011 for Len Valjas’s first World Cup win. There was a lot of excitement surrounding two...
Sound check...check, check, check. Yup, air guitar time as Harvey and Valjas strum their Fischers after winning Team Sprint in Toblach, Italy.
FIS Cross-Country World Cup (Toblach, Italy): Freestyle team sprint Men |
The feeling was beyond déjà vu. Simi Hamilton remembered the exact moment so clearly: almost exactly Tour de Ski’s first stage in Val Müstair, Switzerland. After leaving the Tour after Stage 2, Hamilton competed in two OPA Cup races last weekend in Planica, Slovenia. There, he won the skate sprint and finished fifth in the 10 k skate. “That definitely increased my confidence and I felt much better about where I was fitness-wise and speed-wise...
FIS Cross-Country World Cup (Toblach, Italy): Freestyle sprints Men | Race report Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen posts a 22-second win for her first victory of the season and first time shooting without a miss in an individual race since the Ruhpolding sprint almost exactly a year ago. Dunklee leads North Americans in 33rd and qualifies for the pursuit, along with Canada’s Rosanna Crawford (55th), Megan Tandy (56th) and Julia Ransom (60th). Ski Classics press release. “It...
That’s a wrap, folks! With the 11th Tour de Ski coming to an end on Sunday with the infamous Alpe Cermis final climb in Val di Fiemme, we wanted to share some of the athlete and coach comments that didn’t make it into the race reports. Below are quotes from the last three stages of the Tour, all in Italy. *** Stage 5 (Toblach, Italy): 5/10 k freestyle Men’s report On pre-race feelings: “I think nerves were...
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Soldier Hollow): Classic sprints Jennie Bender of Bridger Ski Foundation and Kevin Bolger of the University of Utah won national titles in the classic sprints at 2017 U.S. Cross Country Championships at Soldier Hollow earlier Sunday afternoon. They each took narrow – but, for sprinting, relatively uncontested – victories, as each was in the lead coming into the stadium and led through the final 180-degree turn into the finishing straight. In the women’s race, Bender took the...
Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Noah Hoffman. There were moments in Sunday’s 9-kilometer freestyle climb up Alpe Cermis, the seventh and final stage of the 2017 Tour de Ski, that Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby appeared to be putting some serious time into Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov up front. In the first two kilometers, Sundby as the runner-up entering the day had gained three seconds on Ustiugov, who had won all but...
Six laps. Three climbs per lap. Fifteen-kilometer classic mass start. If you’re in it to win it, where do you make your move? That was the kind of calculating Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby was doing throughout Saturday’s Stage 6 mass start, the second-to-last stage of the 2017 Tour de Ski, in Val di Fiemme, Italy. Every time he rounded the 2.5 k loop, the man he needed to beat — Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov — was...
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Soldier Hollow): 10 k skate [UPDATED] Don’t bet against Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg) in a distance skate event. The 36-year-old took another national title in the 10-kilometer freestyle individual start at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, earlier today in the first event of the 2017 U.S. Cross Country Championships. Gregg’s winning time was 27:00.6 on a cold, slow-snow morning at SoHo. Chelsea Holmes (Alaska Pacific University) was second, 2.2 seconds back,...
Big wins, small wins – wins of all sizes and over all sorts of rivals. That’s how Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov has built his lead, over a minute and a half now, in the FIS Tour de Ski. For his fifth consecutive victory, Ustiugov started last in the field in the 10 k freestyle in Toblach, Italy. He knew exactly what he had to do: beat the pace set ten bibs earlier by Maurice Manificat of...
FIS Cross-Country Tour de Ski Stage 5 (Toblach): 5/10 k freestyle Men’s report Two U.S. women on the podium. Remember when that happened with Kikkan Randall and Sophie Caldwell back in 2015 World Championships, with Jessie Diggins and Caitlin Gregg in the 10 k freestyle? Well, it just happened again, this time with Diggins placing first and Sadie Bjornsen third in the women’s 5-kilometer freestyle individual start on Friday at Stage 5 of the Tour de Ski...
Canada’s Alex Harvey is still on the podium. Then there’s the U.S. women’s team, with athletes in fifth, 10th and 12th in the Tour de Ski standings after big-time performances in Oberstdorf, Germany. Harvey kept himself in third overall and ahead of Switzerland’s Dario Cologna with a strong pursuit finish on Wednesday, and Jessie Diggins led her U.S. teammates on consecutive days, notching second on Tuesday for a career-best skiathlon result and holding onto fifth...
Could Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov be the first cross-country skier to perform a seven-stage sweep? He’s certainly well on his way, after collecting his fourth Tour de Ski win in a row on Wednesday in the men’s 15-kilometer freestyle pursuit in Oberstdorf, Germany. Ustiugov’s four-stage streak alone is unprecedented. Until this year, no other nordic skier in the International Ski Federation (FIS) has been able to complete such a feat during the Tour. Not even Norway’s defending overall World...
FIS Cross-Country Tour de Ski Stage 4 (Oberstdorf): 10/15 k freestyle pursuits [UPDATED] Another win for Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (that’s four in four stage races at the 2016/2017 Tour de Ski), another second place for Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby, and another third place for Canada’s Alex Harvey. That was how the podium shook out on Wednesday in the Stage 4 men’s 15-kilometer freestyle pursuit, with Ustiugov winning by 37.2 seconds after starting 4 seconds back and...