With the ascent comes the end. On Sunday the 2018/2019 Tour de Ski (TdS) Stage 7 9-kilometer skate pursuit brought the Tour de Ski to a close atop Val di Fiemme’s Alpe Cermis. The basic Alpe Cermis stats are stout: the slope approaches a 30 percent grade in sections, and averages 12 percent, and climbs 420 meters in 3.5 k. It’s a lung-buster. After the 60.67 k seven-stage Tour that began on Dec. 29...
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Anchorage, Alaska): 20/30 k classic mass starts Women’s report Sweden’s Hedda Bångman denied Caitlin Patterson of her first outright victory of the week at 2018 U.S. Cross Country Championships, but Patterson as the first American racked up her third-straight national title in the women’s 20-kilometer classic mass start at Kincaid Park on Sunday in Anchorage, Alaska. Bångman, a 22-year-old freshman at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU), pulled off a 15.9-second...
The 2018 Tour de Ski is a wrap. On Sunday in Val di Fiemme, Italy, the final Stage 7 hill climb was a mirage of sorts as Switzerland’s Dario Cologna soloed in for his fourth overall Tour de Ski (TdS) victory. The stage, a 9-kilometer freestyle pursuit “final climb” ascends an alpine ski-area slope for the final three k’s as it climbs 425 meters from race start to finish. Not once did the 31-year-old Cologna...
The question wasn’t whether – it was when. Defending Tour de Ski champion Heidi Weng started the day with a two-second deficit to Norwegian teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg. But as one of the best climbers in the World Cup field, it was fairly certain that at the top of the Alpe Cermis, Weng would be crowned the Tour winner again. The move came after about six and a half kilometers of the nine-kilometer skate pursuit...
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...
Sweden’s Stina Nilsson didn’t fancy herself a favorite for this year’s Tour de Ski title, despite having won four stages and wearing the leader’s bib to start out today’s final race. And after about six kilometers of the 9-kilometer climb up the Alpe Cermis, everyone knew why. Heidi Weng, a Norwegian who had started 19.2 seconds behind Nilsson, had slowly gained ground on the Swede in the flat sections leading up to the climb itself....
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...
It’s time for the International Ski Federation’s (FIS) 11th Tour de Ski. The 2017 edition takes place in three countries and four different venues. Racers will compete in seven stages over the course of nine days. The grueling Alpe Cermis — a 9-kilometer freestyle hill climb in Val di Fiemme, Italy — will be featured again as the final race to determine the overall Tour de Ski (TdS) results. Directly leading up to the multi-stage event, currently out...
An APU skier and University of Alaska-Anchorage professor shares the story of his experience at last month's Marcialonga. "The Italians are famous for their snowmaking, but it's still impressive to see a 70 k long white stripe of manmade snow that runs along an otherwise brown valley," the author recalls.
The women’s overall podium at the 2016 Tour de Ski on Sunday was all red. Norway swept the top three, with Therese Johaug taking the overall title from Ingvild Flustad Østberg on the final climb, and Heidi Weng retained third. For the U.S., Jessie Diggins locked up 10th, Sadie Bjornsen was 14th and Liz Stephen posted the third-fastest time of day.
Martin Johnsrud Sundby won his third-consecutive Tour de Ski by a record-breaking 3 minutes and 15 seconds and another Norwegian, Finn Hågen Krogh, bested a tight chase pack for second overall. Russian Sergey Ustiugov captured third, and Alex Harvey led the North Americans in 14th at the end of the eight-stage Tour.
Despite starting 26th in Sunday's final stage of the Tour de Ski, nearly 10 minutes back from the leader, Noah Hoffman is excited for the opportunity ahead of him. "You couldn’t design something that could be more to my strengths," he said of the infamous 9 k freestyle hill climb up Alpe Cermis.
Always the bridesmaid no more; Heidi Weng ended a streak of 37 World Cup podiums without a win on Saturday at Stage 7 of the Tour de Ski, beating out her teammates Ingvild Flugstad Østberg and Therese Johaug in the 10 k classic mass start. American Sadie Bjornsen placed ninth and Jessie Diggins 17th to head into the final stage in 12th and 10th, respectively.
Ivan Babikov felt faster than 12th on the day up Alpe Cermis, yet that's where he ended up for 31st overall in the Tour. Canadian teammate Devon Kershaw ended the final stage in 35th -- not where he wanted to be, either.
Martin Johnsrud Sundby of Norway overtook teammate Petter Northug at the base of the Alpe Cermis hill climb to win the final stage and secure his second Tour de Ski title in the process.
Norwegian star Marit Bjørgen has never won the Tour de Ski. On the one hand, who cares - she's won everything else, mostly several times over. But she'd like a win and thinks that if she can have a minute lead on teammate Therese Johaug going into the final climb, she can do it. Read the rest of our Tour de Ski preview inside!
Martin Johnsrud Sundby led the final stage of the Tour de Ski and never looked back as he skied to his, and Norway's, first victory in the event's history. Sundby, who has skied in every Tour de Ski, called his feat a "dream come true" and, overcome, said, "I have a great feeling, deep into the soul." Chris Jespersen of Norway, skiing in his first Tour de Ski, captured second place. Of his effort on the big climb, he said, "towards the end I thought, 'Now I die.'”
Noah Hoffman wrapped up his first Tour de Ski with a strong performance on the Final CLimb, placing 17th on the day. Kris Freeman, on the other hand, completed what he says will be his last Tour.