American distance skiing

The Long Way In: Zak Ketterson and the Patience It Took to Reach the Olympics

Matthew VoisinFebruary 5, 2026

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. On Monday, a clear winter morning in northern Italy, Zak Ketterson skied intervals while his teammates enjoyed a point-to-point on an idyllic pre-Olympic winter day. The sun was out. The snow was good. He was working. “I did some hard intervals,” he said later. “So it was still nice...

Feature Olympics

Lauren Jortberg and the Long Way Around to the Olympics

Matthew VoisinJanuary 29, 2026

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. By the time Lauren Jortberg made the U.S. Olympic Cross-Country Ski Team, the achievement arrived not as a burst of disbelief or relief, but as something quieter and stranger: a moment that required processing. “It is a lot to take in,” she said, speaking from Seefeld, Austria in the...

Feature US Nationals

A Narrow Door, Held Open: The Men’s 20 k Freestyle at U.S. Nationals

Matthew VoisinJanuary 9, 2026

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. There are moments in endurance sport when the noise falls away—not because the stakes are small, but because they are too large to announce themselves loudly. The men who gathered on the start line at Mount Van Hoevenberg on Thursday afternoon understood that kind of quiet. The banners said...