The University of Colorado was crowned champions of the RMISA college racing scene this season after championships were held in low-snow Anchorage, Alaska, on the back of the UAA Invitational. Mads Stroem and Rune Oedegaard of CU and Emilie Cedervaern of the University of New Mexico dominated the proceedings.
Kikkan Randall's been home for just over a week, and in a phone interview on Tuesday, she said she was ready for the break. "It wasn’t an easy decision to leave the racing circuit ... but with Falun being my big goals, I wanted to really try to make a drastic change," she says.
Decisions on the World Cup circuit, like when to stop when the going's good or whether to stay in Europe when things aren't going exactly according to plan, aren't easy. But they have to be made. APU Head Coach Erik Flora explains the thought processes behind some recent U.S. Ski Team member moves.
Last Monday, 150 bright-eyed kids got a chance to ski with 23 top US athletes at the 4th Annual Lickety-Splits Ski Camp for Kids. The camp offered the opportunity for kids to spend the afternoon playing games and learning to ski from some of the best skiers in the country. Tyler Kornfield, the founder of Lickety-Splits, noted “This year’s camp was the best yet. Since the beginning, we have had between 100 and 140 kids [per year]...
The Anchorage community lost an extremely influential coach, skier and volunteer on Dec. 12 when Nordic Skiing Association of Anchorage President Lars Spurkland unexpectedly passed away.
Part of the joy and the pain and, ultimately, the poetry of a lifetime of skiing is how the sport focuses one’s attention on natural processes that are both cyclical and unpredictable. This year Southcentral Alaska caught its first real snow on Oct. 20, and early season skiing has been great, but not in the usual ways or places.
Norway's Celine Brun-Lie chatted with FasterSkier while wrapping up her camp with the U.S. Ski Team and APU on Eagle Glacier. She flew home Tuesday, but not before flying around Alaska, visiting cabins, eating salmon, seeing moose, lots of moose -- and training 20-plus hours for each of the last two weeks.
Anchorage and Eagle Glacier are happening places these days, with the North American Women's Training Alliance (including Norway's Celine Brun-Lie and 13 top U.S. skiers), a couple of French biathletes and the U.S. men's team, which recently arrived for its first unified training camp in Alaska.
What could be more fun than going for a trail run or backcountry ski with a primal purpose, like bringing home dinner? Lex Treinen shares his love of what he calls "old school biathlon," a hunting-and-gathering workout off the beaten path.
Unlike most of the SuperTour field that likely crashed and burned after the last day of the U.S. domestic season in Anchorage, APU's Lex Treinen packed up the hot tub and headed to Homer for the three-part Ski to Sea race last Sunday. Treinen won it, and his brother placed second.
Scenes from the front of the pack during the women's three-lap, 30-kilometer classic mass start at U.S. Distance Nationals last Friday at Hillside trails.
Aku Nikander was somewhat an unknown in the men’s 50-kilometer classic mass start on Friday at U.S. Distance Nationals. As far as Noah Hoffman was concerned, he was the guy that stood between him and a shot at his second individual victory of 2014 Spring Series.
Sadie Bjornsen rose to the occasion for the final race of the season on Friday, going hard even when she had hoped she wouldn't have to, working with Liz Stephen to drop the pack, then attacking to leave Stephen behind in the final kilometers of the 30 k classic at U.S. Distance Nationals.
Photos from Tuesday's 4 x 5 k mixed relay, a new event at U.S. Distance Nationals, which was held at 5 p.m. in Anchorage and included 26 teams, 18 of which were vying for a national title.
Gus Schumacher, 13, doesn't have any qualms about racing up -- even if it is against Andy Newell. He's met Newell and several other U.S. Olympians in person at the World Cup, but says it's an amazing experience to race them at home at SuperTour Finals.
With Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan shouting encouragement, Kikkan Randall won her second straight race in front of a home crowd on a sunny Sunday at Kincaid Park.
Kikkan Randall was the woman to beat on Saturday, and she lived up to the billing by winning the 10 k freestyle individual start -- the first race of SuperTour Finals -- by 2.2 seconds over Liz Stephen. An early leader, Caitlin Gregg notched third, 20.9 seconds back.
On a sunny afternoon in Kincaid Park, several World Cup skiers, including three Olympians and three Alaska Pacific University members, took the time to chat on camera between training and testing on Friday.
FasterSkier is on-site at the SuperTour Finals and U.S. Distance Nationals in Anchorage, Alaska, and teaming up with the Anchorage Daily News to bring you images and reports from the events, which start Saturday with the freestyle individual starts at Kincaid Park. Here's the ADN preview.
Last season, Aino-Kaisa Saarinen was down and out. Little by little she has built back her fitness and self-confidence, with a secret ingredient: fun. After winning silver in the Olympic 4 x 5 k relay with her teammates from Finland, Saarinen thanked the U.S. women for inviting her to train with them in 2012 and said she had learned that you can't be so serious all the time.