Last week was a big one for the New England Nordic Ski Association (NENSA). On Wednesday, Aug. 8, in conjunction with a U.S. Ski Team U16 (under-16) camp, NENSA hosted rollerski events at the Olympic Jumping Complex in Lake Placid, N.Y., starting with agility courses designed by NENSA Competitive Program Director Justin Beckwith and Olympian and former nordic combined national-team coach Joe Lamb (complete with rollers, gates, jumps, backward skiing, and a grass runup). buy birth control...
For a mid-summer Wednesday Workout, we reached out to Craftsbury Green Racing Project head coach Pepa Miloucheva. In addition to sharing a running workout, Miloucheva told us what and who is new to the team based out of Craftsbury, Vermont. “All is good here in Craftsbury, everyone is healthy and training is going well,” she wrote in an email in early July. The nordic team joined last month’s U.S. Ski Team (USST) training camp in...
With the 2017/2018 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to the U.S. Continental Cup Skiers of the Year. Previous categories: Collegiate Skiers of the Year | Para-Nordic Skiers...
2018 U.S. Distance Nationals (Craftsbury, Vermont): 30 k classic mass start Jessie Diggins swept SuperTour Finals once again, after doing so 2016 SuperTour Finals the year before in Craftsbury, Vt. Back in Craftsbury on Tuesday, and coming off three-straight victories in the classic sprint, 10-kilometer freestyle mass start and mixed relay with her Stratton Mountain School (SMS) T2 Team teammates, Diggins, 26, pulled out her fourth-straight win in her last race of the season: the...
2018 U.S. SuperTour Finals (Craftsbury, Vermont): Mixed relays For the second-straight year at the SuperTour’s season-ending Spring Series, the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) T2 Team won the mixed relay, with three of the four athletes who raced on last year’s 4 x 5-kilometer mixed relay squad. Simi Hamilton, Sophie Caldwell, Paddy Caldwell, and Jessie Diggins combined for the win on Sunday in Craftsbury, tagging off in that order, with Diggins crossing the finish line first...
2018 U.S. SuperTour Finals (Craftsbury, Vermont): 10/15 k freestyle mass starts Jessie Diggins won her second-straight race in as many days at 2018 SuperTour Finals and Erik Bjornsen pulled out a victory in the men’s 15-kilometer freestyle mass start on Saturday in Craftsbury. Diggins, of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) T2 Team and U.S. Ski Team (USST), won the women’s 10 k freestyle mass start in 25:56.0 minutes, just 1.2 seconds ahead of her USST...
FIS Cross Country World Cup Finals (Falun, Sweden): 10/15 k freestyle pursuits Time of day | Final Distance World Cup rankings Men: Pursuit | Final Overall World Cup rankings | Women’s pursuit report | Men’s relay report In her last race of the season, Susan Dunklee returned to the podium. The American started fourth in Sunday’s 10-kilometer pursuit at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Oslo, then made her way into third by the final...
FIS Cross Country World Cup Finals (Falun, Sweden): 10/15 k classic mass starts Men’s report Day 2 of World Cup Finals in Falun entailed 10- and 15-kilometer classic mass starts on Saturday, and in the first race of the day, Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski pulled out a thrilling finishing-sprint victory over Norway’s Marit Bjørgen. After American Jessie Diggins led early in the first 2.5 k loop, Bjørgen set the tone from the front for most of...
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Oslo, Norway): Women’s 30 k freestyle mass start last race of the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea (a 30 k classic mass start), Bjørgen came from behind to win Sunday’s Holmenkollen 30 k and wasn’t able to let off too much before finish. She didn’t take the lead until less than a kilometer to go and put just enough time into her competition to take the win in 1:18:12.4...
(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from American Caitlin Patterson.) The 2018 Olympics were pretty successful for Finland, in terms of cross-country skiing: Iivo Niskanen won gold in the 50 k and Krista Pärmäkoski earned silver in the 30 k and bronze in the skiathlon and the 10 k skate. After the Games finished, the FIS Cross Country World Cup moved to Finland, but on the first day of competition – skate...
Eight points. That’s the number that separated Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla and Sweden’s Stina Nilsson in the Sprint World Cup standings before Saturday’s freestyle sprint in Lahti, Finland. Three sprints. That’s the number of World Cup sprint races that remained in the 2017/2018 calendar, one of which took place on Saturday. With one down and a classic sprint and skate sprint to go, Falla’s lead has grown to 28 points. It’s not much, with 150...
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Lahti, Finland): Men’s & women’s freestyle sprints Men’s report The defending world championships from the 2017 freestyle sprint prevailed again in Lahti on Saturday, with Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla winning the women’s 1.4-kilometer freestyle sprint final and Italy’s Federico Pellegrino coming out on top in the men’s 1.6 k final at last year’s World Championships venue. Falla’s rise to the final started with her qualifying in 12th, 7.96 seconds off the...
FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, team sprint, Bjørgen surpassed Bjørndalen’s medal total by one. She added gold to her collection on Sunday after taking the win in the women’s 30-kilometer classic mass start. All told, Bjørgen now has 15 Olympic medals, eight of them gold. She claimed the win in the final race of the Olympics in 1:22:17.6 hours. Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski claimed silver (+1:49.5) and Sweden’s Stina Nilsson earned bronze...
FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Report Marit Bjørgen went out with a bang. Skiing in presumably the final Olympics race of her illustrious career, the most-decorated Winter Olympian in history simply skied away from a strong field less than 10 kilometers into Sunday’s 30 kilometer classic mass start, earning the 15th Olympic medal of her career (and eighth gold) in dominant fashion. Behind her, Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski (+1:49.5) and Sweden’s Stina Nilsson (+1:58.9) rounded...
FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Full report The 2018 Winter Games kicked off Saturday with the women’s 15-kilometer skiathlon, which saw Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla take her second-career individual Olympic gold (third including relays) and first individual gold in eight years. Not far behind her, American Jessie Diggins achieved the best Olympic result for an American woman in cross-country skiing. After Kalla established herself as a leader early in the opening 7.5 k classic leg,...
If you read FasterSkier, two aspects of our coverage generates the most reader comments: doping violations and their adjudication, and team-selection criteria. Although here we are, two days away from the PyeongChang Olympics’ Opening Ceremony with At the time, U.S. Ski Team Head Coach told FasterSkier that the small team was by design. “With seven women and seven men, we have our start positions filled,” Grover said in 2014. “Seven and seven was the magic number...
About seven minutes into the women’s 10-kilometer freestyle mass start on Sunday at the World Cup in Seefeld, Austria, Jessie Diggins made her intentions clear. She wasn’t in it for a free ride — she was willing to pull, and not just take her turn up front, but actually try to string out the field and win this thing. As she led a group of 31 within 15 seconds of her at 3.3 k, Diggins,...
IBU Open European Championships (Ridnaun-Val Ridanna, Italy): Single mixed & mixed relays Susan Dunklee and Lowell Bailey teamed up for the final day of the 2018 International Biathlon Union (IBU) Open European Championships in Ridnaun, Italy, and raced to a bronze medal in the single mixed relay. The American duo, both of which earned individual medals at last year’s IBU World Championships, finished just 9.1 seconds out of first, which went to Norway’s Thelka Brun-Lie...
SEEFELD, Austria — By the time the women’s finalists toed the start line, fans lucky enough to find a spot directly against the fence lining the World Cup 1.3-kilometer freestyle sprint course on Saturday showed signs of sunburn on their cheeks. The Seefeld sun was high and bright, but not the only one radiating on the Tirol ski trails. U.S. skier Sophie Caldwell found Seefeld treating her well. And she herself was on the strike....
FIS Nordic Combined World Cup (Seefeld, Austria): Normal hill/10 k Two of the same men from Jumping | Women’s report Women’s final Men’s qualifier | Friday’s sprint and thus started first), and shot clean to take the lead after the third stage — where Varvynets missed one. Chevalier went on to clean the final stage for perfect 20-for-20 shooting and crossed the line first in 29:25.4. Varvynets finished second, 11.0 seconds back after missing a...