APU Nordic Ski Center – FasterSkier

Ben Ogden’s Olympic Silver, 50 Years After Bill Koch — A Trailside Reflection

Jim GalanesMarch 6, 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. This essay by Jim Galanes was written on the evening of the Olympic Men’s Classic Sprint in Val di Fiemme, when Ben Ogden won silver to become the first American man in 50 years to medal in an Olympic cross-country skiing event. It was drafted from the race course...

Feature US Nationals

Calculations and Consequences: The Men’s Classic Sprint at U.S. Nationals

Matthew VoisinJanuary 10, 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. The last day of the U.S. National Cross-Country Ski Championships in Lake Placid arrived the way honest days in this sport often do. The snow at Mt. Van Hoevenberg had been churned and scoured by a week of racing and changing weather, its surface no longer pristine but revealing,...

Feature US Nationals

Where the Margins Speak: U.S. Nationals Opens with Questions, Not Answers

Matthew VoisinJanuary 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 a January afternoon in Lake Placid, Mt. Van Hoevenberg did what it has always done best: it asked skiers to be honest. The 10-kilometer classic individual start is not a format that rewards theater. It doesn’t care how good you looked in warm-up, how confident you sounded the night...

Feature SuperTour US Ski Team

Novie McCabe’s Winding Trail to the Olympic-Season Start Line

Matthew VoisinDecember 3, 2025

When Novie McCabe spoke with FasterSkier early last month, she was looking out the window of her place in Anchorage, waiting for winter to finally take hold. “We’re patiently waiting on snow,” she said. “But today might be the day.“ Outside, the ground was still in its in-between phase—too brown for grooming, just white enough that fish-scale skis could work if you were stubborn and optimistic about it. Alaska in November often asks skiers to...

US Ski Team

Holding Her Own: Rosie Brennan’s Quiet Mastery of Independence on the World Cup

Matthew VoisinNovember 18, 2025

The first flakes had finally settled on the branches behind Rosie Brennan’s window in Anchorage. “Yeah, finally,” she said, turning from the screen toward the light outside. “God, it was slow to come, but we are getting there.” Snow matters in November for any cross-country skier. Still, for Brennan—now entering her fifteenth season on the U.S. Ski Team—it has always represented something deeper: familiarity, grounding, the landscape she moves through on her own terms. Independence,...

General Interviews News Olympics Racing US Ski Team World Cup

Kikkan Randall: The Exit Interview (Part I): Looking Back

Gavin KentchMay 11, 2018

Kikkan Randall competed in her first World Cup race in 2001, and her last in 2018. In between, she won 14 World Cup races, three Sprint Cup Crystal Globes, three World Championships medals, and one Olympic gold medal accompanied by one very enthusiastic broadcast call from Chad Salmela. She appeared in television ads, received the Skis to the City from the mayor of Anchorage, and had an ice-cream flavor named after her. And long before...

General Interviews Juniors Other Racing

Under 23 Questions: Thomas O’Harra

FasterSkierFebruary 5, 2018

In an effort to showcase the North Americans who competed at last week’s International Ski Federation (FIS) 2018 Nordic Junior/U23 World Championships in Goms, Switzerland, we asked those qualifying athletes several questions about themselves — actually, we had them fill in the blanks. Here we have 21-year-old Thomas O’Harra, of Alaska Pacific University, who represented the U.S. at his first U23 Worlds (after competing at three Junior Worlds). Last week in Goms, O’Harra placed 43rd in...