Weeks of altitude training clearly paid off for Matt Liebsch (Borton Volvo XC United) in the first race of the year. The pride of the Midwest won the SuperTour 9 k freestyle on Friday morning on a fast but challenging point-to-point course looking like he had gas left in the tank.
Ready or not, the 2013 SuperTour season is fast approaching. Here’s what you need to know about the domestic race scene this year. At this point, we’ve pretty much said everything we can about the twelve senior ski programs in the U.S. We ran a series throughout the summer highlighting each team’s past accomplishments and goals for the future. Read back through ‘em for comprehensive rosters and standalone previews (scroll down for links). Now that...
Note: This is the seventh preview in a quick-and-dirty series on U.S. elite teams. We asked coaches to send their 2012/2013 rosters and tell us what’s new for the coming season. We will be publishing additional reports over the next few weeks. Teams are presented in no particular order. Team: Methow Olympic Development (MOD) Coach: Scott Johnston Roster: Sam Naney What’s new: Brian Gregg as a training partner. Gregg will spend much of the summer...
Note: This is the fourth preview in a quick-and-dirty series on U.S. elite teams. We asked coaches to send their 2012/2013 rosters and tell us what’s new for the coming season. We will be publishing additional reports over the next few weeks. Teams are presented in no particular order. Team: Central Cross Country, known as CXC Team Coaches: Igor Badamshin (head coach), Andy Keller (assistant) Roster: Karl Nygren, Brian Gregg, Doug Debold, Adam Martin, Eric Wolcott; Jennie Bender, Caitlin Gregg, Nichole Bathe...
Note: This article has been updated to reflect the correct time between Holly Brooks and Alysson Marshall, and include quotes from Pate Neumann. One was a native. Another was a ringer. Both Brian Gregg and Holly Brooks found themselves at the front of the pack in the first of the The Bellingham Herald. It was Gregg’s second year on the competitive-open team. “The other guys on the team are really fast and it is fun...
With the news that Jason Cork will be joining the U.S. Ski Team staff as the
JAY, Vermont — At the outset of the hill climb up Jay Peak on a blistery Wednesday morning, the four-race fight for the overall SuperTour Finals win had come down to two skiers: Kris Freeman (SSCV/USST) and Noah Hoffman (SSCV/USST). In the end, Freeman claimed the title just as he did in Sun Valley last spring: on a brutal pitch that left him and just about everyone else completely spent at the finish. Hoffman finished...
The field strength may have paled in comparison to the World Cup, or even a Scando Cup event, but a win is a win and a podium a podium, especially on European snow. A group of American skiers posted strong results over the weekend in two days of Swiss Cup racing, led by Becca Rorabuagh’s win in the 10k classic on Sunday. Rorabaugh was also 3rd in Saturday’s 10k freestyle while Tad Elliott, fresh off...
All American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. HAYWARD, Wis. – For the first half of Saturday’s 50-kilometer skate race at the 39th American Birkebeiner, Tad Elliott mostly looked down. The 23-year-old U.S. Ski Team member was hanging in there, but it wasn’t easy. Reaching for a water bottle around 24 k, he mustered the strength to ask his Salomon support staff where the frontrunners were. Last year’s runner-up, Benoit...
SuperTour racing resumed on Saturday at Wirth Park in Minneapolis, Minn. with a 10 k individual classic—the first of five events in the inaugural Tour de Twin Cities. Skiing in front of friends and family on his home course, Matt Liebsch (Team Strong Heart/Team Birkie) took his first win of the season by 0.4 seconds ahead of Sylvan Ellefson (SSCV/Team HomeGrown). Karl Nygren (CXC) finished third (+3.5). This was Liebsch’s first effort above threshold since...
The second stop on the SuperTour featured another exhasting double-header—a skate sprint prologue in the morning followed by a 5/10 k freestyle at noon. Mike Sinnott (Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation) had another strong sprint day with a win in the prologue, and was followed by Torin Koos (BSF/Rossignol) and Leif Zimmermann (BSF) in second and third, respectively. Sinnott’s win—his second so far this season—puts him in a nearly-untouchable 28-point lead in the overall SuperTour...
SuperTour competitors got a Thanksgiving respite from racing on Thursday in West Yellowstone, MT, but are gearing up again for tomorrow’s 10/15 k individual-start freestyle. Athletes will have to watch their turkey consumption, as too much tryptophan would not be ideal for tomorrow’s grueling course, which features two loops of a 5 k for women and three for men. Wednesday’s Sprint Showdown was the first domestic race of the season, which is always a highlight...
With four separate races run in West Yellowstone on Wednesday, there was a lot going on. Here are bits and pieces of what didn’t make the official race report cut: On Getting the Season Started “At the start of the season you never quite know where you’re at, it takes a bit of time to get into the race season. We typically try to have our athletes start in good shape.” Chris Jeffries, Alberta...
While most of the spotlight was focused on Lake Placid this weekend, about 60 skiers from around the country toed the line in Duluth, MN for the first ever North Shore Rollerski Marathon on September 17. Topping the podium for the 26.2 mile point-to-point tour of Lake Superior’s north shore were Duluth native Andre Watt (Rossignol), who won a close race against Central Cross Country’s (CXC) Brian Gregg, and Jennie Bender (CXC), who beat runner-up...
For the last two years, the U.S. Ski Team (USST) and U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) have been pushing American athletes to compete more in Europe, citing a need for experience in the cutthroat racing environment there. Belying that push, however, were thousands of dollars in prize money awarded to the winners of the sprint and distance disciplines of the SuperTour, the four month-long domestic race series. Those bonuses—$2,000 for each one, for men...
Kris Freeman (USST) will be the odds-on favorite to win Saturday’s U.S. national championship in the 50 k classic. But the way his last two seasons wrapped up, just making it to the start line in Sun Valley, ID, is a victory in and of itself. In late March, 2009, Freeman was recuperating from surgery on his legs to relieve the debilitating symptoms of exertional compartment syndrome; he had been forced to end his season...
The 38th annual American Birkebeiner, held in sub-zero and single-digit temperatures with record particpation, saw two sprint finishes to crown the men’s and women’s Birkie freestyle champions and a pair of UVM alums ski to sizable victories in the Birkie Classic on Saturday. Norwegian Tore Martin Gundersen won the 50K Birkie Freestyle race with a time of 2:00:32.8, furiously outsprinting his nearest opponent, Benoit Chauvet of France, by less than a second. Twenty seconds later,...
CXC dominated both the men’s and the women’s fields Sunday. Garrott Kuzzy (CXC) won the men’s 15K mass start skate race at Michigan Tech Sunday, leading a whole group of CXC racers along with surprise comeback kid Adam Kates (Big Thunder). Caitlin Compton (CXC) won the women’s 10K skate, over a minute ahead of teammate Maria Stuber.
Noah Hoffman hadn’t won a major domestic race in…well even he wasn’t sure…maybe the Owl Creek Chase two or three years ago, Junior Nationals…? But the youngest member of the US Ski Team, who has had considerable success racing in Europe, left no doubt about who would stand on the top of the podium on a cold snowy day in Lake Placid. This was in fact his first significant US victory since the Owl Creek...
Just before the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) named its team traveling to the 2011 World Championships in Oslo, Brian Gregg got a voicemail from U.S. Ski Team Head Coach Chris Grover. Gregg, a strong domestic skier on CXC’s Team Vertical Limit, was ranked eighth nationally, and had a shot—albeit a small one—at being selected to the group heading to Worlds. But the news from Grover was disappointing: Gregg’s results had been good, but...