Ben Ogden – FasterSkier

Davos Team Sprint: Could It Be Anyone But Norway?

Luke DykowskiDecember 13, 2024

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. Friday night in Davos: A fast course, fireballs, and a remarkably flexible field for the Men’s Team Sprint Finals. After qualifying, the evening’s would-be winner was uncharacteristically unclear, with four nations represented in...

Feature News Racing World Cup

Schumacher Fifth in 20-K Skiathlon–Norwegians Sweep Podium

Ken RothDecember 8, 2024

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. Today’s race—the 20 kilometer Skiathlon— marks the last day of competition in Lillehammer, Norway. On the men’s side of the racing there has been complete dominance of the weekend by Norway, with only...

Feature News Racing World Cup

Ogden Top Qualifier in Lillehammer Sprint, Klaebo Remains Wondrously Predictable

John TeafordDecember 7, 2024

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. The World Cup cross country season is a long and winding road—few athletes experience seasons that end the way they began. American, Ben Ogden, had his 2024 World Cup campaign interrupted by...

Feature News Racing World Cup

“We Wanted More . . .” Team USA’s Hard Look at a Low Day

FasterSkierNovember 30, 2024

BONUS ARTICLE: This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you would like to see more articles like this one, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. In the early morning hours of any FIS World Cup race day, messages are bouncing back and forth among a team of diligent FasterSkier writers, doing their best to craft illuminating articles on the race coverage flitting across our screens. And on...

Feature News Racing World Cup

Niskanen Secures Victory at Home as Ruka Launches World Cup Season

Kennedy LangeNovember 29, 2024

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. Ruka, Finland is an area known for challenging race courses and rapidly changing conditions. As the women’s field wrapped up the morning race, the men took on the course under snowfall and near-freezing...

Feature News World Cup

Can jet-setting ski racers be climate activists? Schumacher, Diggins lean into “imperfect advocacy.”

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 25, 2024

MINNEAPOLIS — After Gus Schumacher’s upset win at an international cross-country ski race here last week, one of his first moves was not to celebrate at a bar, but instead, to stand in front of the crowd and talk about climate change. With hundreds listening to the panel discussion from the grandstand, Schumacher, his teammate Jessie Diggins and activist and author Bill McKibben passed a microphone back and forth. The subject, for Schumacher, is immediate...

Feature News US Ski Team World Cup

For U.S. Skiing, Minneapolis is a High-Water Mark

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 16, 2024

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. MINNEAPOLIS — The last time cross-country ski racing’s most elite race circuit, the World Cup, traveled to the United States from Europe, Jessie Diggins was nine years old. At the time, in 2001,...

News The Devon Kershaw Show World Cup

The Devin Kershaw Show: Canmore is a wrap. On to Minneapolis.

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 14, 2024

We’re back, with our fourth? Fifth? episode in the past week. It’s been a whirlwind, but we’re still here to wrap up the last day of World Cup racing in Canmore. Amazingly, Nat is posting this podcast from a moving airplane between Calgary and Toronto, with Victoria Carl and Katharina Hennig sitting a few rows up. We’ll be back with more action from Minneapolis, including a show with a live audience late Sunday afternoon at...

Feature News US Ski Team World Cup

Vermont Talent Jack Young Breaks Through in First-Ever World Cup start

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 11, 2024

CANMORE, ALBERTA — Jack Young’s home in Vermont is two miles from the Canadian border. So it makes sense that he skied like he was right at home in Canada on Saturday, in a smoking fast finish in his first-ever race on the World Cup—the top-level circuit that saw him lining up against a bevy of Olympic medalists. Young, 21, placed 11th in the qualifying round of Saturday’s sprint race in Canmore, and 23rd in...

Community Feature News

Homecoming

John TeafordFebruary 4, 2024

At the edge of the parking lot at the Wild Wings Ski Touring Center stands a strategically placed, much used, and much loved snow pile. Getting up speed by dropping down the short slope in front of the main building, young skiers catch air off the top of the pile, daring each other to ever-bigger, ever-trickier leaps. They’ve been doing it for years. Ben Ogden, Sophie Caldwell, Simi Hamilton, Katharine Ogden, Bill Koch, Fin Bailey....

Feature News World Cup

Norway Reigns Over Close-Fought Relay

Ben TheyerlJanuary 21, 2024

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. This weekend in Oberhof framed the Men’s World Cup’s hierarchy in stark terms. Coming into Sunday’s 4 x 7.5 k Men’s Relay, five different Norwegian skiers had combined to sweep both Friday’s classic...

Feature News World Cup

Norwegian Sweep—Minus Klaebo—in Oberhof Classic Sprint

Ben TheyerlJanuary 19, 2024

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. It was a rare day on the World Cup, but patterns, established and emerging, were apparent too. The rare part: Friday in Oberhof marked the first time in six years that Johannes...

The Devon Kershaw Show US Ski Team World Cup

The Devon Kershaw Show: Davos delivers flamethrowers, snow squalls and U.S. podiums

Nathaniel HerzJanuary 4, 2024

We’re in deep to the Tour de Ski now, after a couple of legitimately rad days of racing in Davos, Switzerland. Mikael Gunnulfsen of Norway joins us to talk about the stunning performance of Henrik Doennestad, and of course we catch you up on the latest successes of Americans Jessie Diggins and Rosie Brennan and, oh yeah, Gus Schumacher. Get at us at nat@fasterskier.com and devon@fasterskier.com. We’ll be back once the athletes hit the top...

Feature News Tour de Ski World Cup

Revelations at Tour de Ski: Ogden and Hyvarinen!

Ken RothDecember 31, 2023

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. On Day Two of the Tour de Ski (TDS) in Toblach, Italy, the world had a chance to see what the realignment of the men’s cross-country ski world could look like, and whether...

Feature News Tour de Ski World Cup

Ogden’s First Podium—Third in Tour de Ski Sprint

Ken RothDecember 30, 2023

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. It looks like it must be pretty fun to be part of Team USA right now. Two American women (Jessie Diggins and Rosie Brennan) sit in the top three of the World Cup...

The Devon Kershaw Show US Ski Team World Cup

The Devon Kershaw Show: Recapping a soggy, fluoro-free weekend in Trondheim

Nathaniel HerzDecember 18, 2023

Eli Brown, a member of the U.S. Ski Team’s waxing and ski service staff, joins us this week to talk about his job and the new enforcement of the rules banning fluorocarbons on the World Cup circuit. We recap another strong weekend for American athletes, along with all the hijinks that happened in Trondheim, Norway at the test event for next season’s World Championships. The World Cup takes a break next weekend before the Tour...

Feature News World Cup

Klaebo Sweeps Trondheim Weekend, Ogden Eighth in 10 k Classic

John TeafordDecember 17, 2023

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo (NOR) looks like he’s having fun: winning at will (and in multiple disciplines), crossing finish lines without having broken a sweat (no demonstrative sprawling in the snow at finish lines...

Feature News World Cup

Musgrave! Brit Takes Second in Trondheim Skiathlon

Ken RothDecember 16, 2023

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. On Saturday in Trondheim, Norway, the first Skiathlon of the year was held. Competitors skied a 10 kilometer Classic leg followed by a 10 kilometer Freestyle leg. In the men’s race, the prevailing...

Feature News World Cup

Klaebo Ignites Hometown Trondheim With Sprint Victory

Ben TheyerlDecember 15, 2023

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. The World Cup’s all-time winningest sprint racer probably didn’t need a home-field advantage, but Trondheim native, Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo, got one as the World Cup pulled into the warm, wet, sea-side city on...

The Devon Kershaw Show US Ski Team World Cup

The Devon Kershaw Show: Stars are born in Ostersund, with guest Luke Jager

Nathaniel HerzDecember 12, 2023

Multiple U.S. podiums. Near-misses. Coaches barging into the classic track. This past weekend was pretty fun. We get up-and-coming Alaska star Luke Jager to join us for a recap and go through it all. Reach us with your questions, comments and feedback at devon@fasterskier.com and nat@fasterskier.com. We’ll be back next week after Trondheim.

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