The NorAm opened with three races in four days in Canmore, Alberta, with two distance races on short loops -- one of which the men double poled. Kevin Sandau won the first two men's races, and another Alberta World Cup Academy skier, Dahria Beatty won the women's skate mass start and classic sprint on days 2 and 3.
Noah Hoffman recently returned from his on-snow camp at the Snow Farm in Wanaka, New Zealand. While Hoffman was the only U.S. Ski Team member to make the trip, he told FS he logged valuable-and-productive ski training.
Chris Klebl earned his first Paralympic medal in impressive fashion, winning gold in Sunday's cross-country 10 k sit-ski race on the last day of the Sochi Games. Brian McKeever took his third gold of the week, 10th total, the most of any winter athlete in Paralympic history.
Brian McKeever and Graham Nishikawa came back from all odds after McKeever went down in Wednesday's sprint, then surged ahead for gold -- his first with Nishikawa alone, second of the Sochi Paralympics, and ninth total. "That was stressful,” McKeever told Cross Country Canada. “Once the cuss words were out, the only thing you can do is get back up and race."
Canadian Brian McKeever skied to his eighth gold medal and first of the 2014 Winter Paralympics on Monday, winning the visually impaired 20 k classic with the help of two guides, Erik Carleton and Graham Nishikawa -- a first for the 34-year-old Paralympic champion.
The 2014 Winter Paralympics officially kick off Friday with the Opening Ceremony in Sochi, Russia, and the Canadian Para-Nordic team is raring to be one of the most dominant teams at the Games, shooting for third in the overall medal count.
With the Winter Olympics set to kick off in earnest with the Opening Ceremony on Friday night, the Canadian National Cross-Country Team is ready to go in the mountain village of Krasnaya Polyana, where it's been training for the last few days. This is the story of how their team grew by two just a few weeks before the Olympics, shortly after the official nomination.
Canada’s Olympic Trials kicked off on Wednesday at the Canmore Nordic Centre with the first of two freestyle sprint races. With perhaps only two spots per gender on the Olympic team up for grabs, there is little room for errors for racers wanting to qualify for the Olympics.
Extraordinary performances are becoming ordinary for the North American contingent this year as new stars emerge, historic results accumulate, and expectations continue to grow. FasterSkier was on site in Davos, Switzerland, where five USST members raced to the top 30 in Saturday's distance races and six made the heats in Sunday's sprints.
Poland's Justyna Kowalczyk and Kazakhstan's Alexey Poltoranin got off to a strong start this weekend, winning two of three opening FIS races in Muonio, Finland. Americans Kris Freeman and Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess made it into the top-30s, and several other North Americans competed.
If you noticed the slew of photos from a ski race in the Yukon last week, you weren't dreaming. The second-annual JP Grand Prix, hosted in a backyard in Whitehorse, was held on Friday complete with live music, a barbecue, TV crew and, yes, snow. Welcome to the world's coolest ski race.
You waited long enough and probably didn't even know it was coming, but here it is: a montage of your favorite top Canadian skiers (at least the ones at Canadian Nationals) talking about their seasons in a nutshell.
Brian McKeever continued to impress this season, and Colette Bourgonje and Mark Arendz further showed the strength of Canada's Para-Nordic squad. New to skiing, Tatyana McFadden stood out as the top American female.
On the last day of racing at 2013 Canadian Nationals, American Torin Koos and his Swiss girlfriend Bettina Gruber were the big winners in the 50- and 30-kilometer freestyle mass starts, respectively. Brent McMurtry ended his ski career on a high note, and Zina Kocher took the Canadian women's title.
Heidi Widmer, 22, rolled to her first individual gold and second title in as many days of racing at Canadian Nationals, while the 33-year-old IPC World Cup extraordinaire Brian McKeever won his first Canadian championship just days after flying from Sochi, Russia. Caitlin Gregg and Eliska Hajkova of the U.S. took first and second overall in the 5 k freestyle, and Canadians swept the men's 10 k podium.
For the second time this season, the Nishikawa siblings pulled out a NorAm victories on the same day at the World Junior/U23/Senior World Sprint Trials in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Emily won the women's 15 k skiathlon by 9.1 seconds and Graham took the men's 30 k by 3.7 seconds.
Entering his third straight season with the Canadian Para-Nordic World Cup Team, Erik Carleton has already made some big decisions this year. Among them, he had to choose whether to race the Alberta Cross Country World Cup in Canmore or go for gold at the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) World Cup opener in Vuokatti, Finland. It must be tough to be Carleton, a competitive-nordic racer who doubles as a Para-Nordic guide for Brian McKeever, arguably the...
A day after flying into Finland, Brian McKeever and Erik Carleton of Canada nabbed gold in the first race of the IPC World Cup finals in Vuokatti on Thursday, the 1.2 k visually impaired sprint. On Tuesday, McKeever and Carleton drove straight to the airport after competing in the 15 k freestyle event at the Canadian Ski Championships. Carleton placed second on Monday in the 10 k classic and eighth on Tuesday. McKeever was 15th...
FasterSkier Adaptive Skier of the Year Adaptive Skier of the Year (men): Brian McKeever (CAN) McKeever continued his dominance of the adaptive skiing circuit, collecting three cross-country golds at the IPC World Championships and a silver in biathlon. All this hardware came without longtime guide, brother Robin McKeever, who suffered an injury not long before the start of the Championships. Long-time friend, and Erik Carleton took over, and McKeever did not miss a beat. McKeever,...
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Biathlon and Cross-Country World Championships are currently underway in Khanty Mansisk, Russia. With four of eight race days completed, Russia has stood out as the dominant force, leading the overall medal count with 25. Ukraine is second with nine. The Canadian team has won four medals – though they are all of the gold variety. Veteran Brian McKeever has led the way with two of those wins, skiing in the...