PLANICA, Slovenia — Move over Norway and Sweden, there’s a another skier scouting and snagging World Cup wins — and she’s just over 5 feet tall and Finnish. Krista Pärmäkoski set out on a rugged 10-kilometer classic course on Sunday located directly in the Julian Alps, the highest mountain range in Slovenia. Any challenge the course summoned, however, the 27-year-old Pärmäkoski dished twice as hard in return. Though a bluish early morning light cast a...
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Planica, Slovenia): 10/15 k classic Men’s report Just when it looked like one of those Charlotte-Kalla days, Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski swooped in and topped the Swede’s time by 3.6 seconds in the women’s 10-kilometer classic individual start on Sunday for her first-career outright World Cup win. Outright meaning non-stage; Pärmäkoski has two World Cup wins to her name for setting the fastest time of day in 2016 pursuit races. But...
DRESDEN, Germany — Just over 15,000 people gathered at the Elbe River bank on Sunday, some donned in sunnies and carrying sauce-laden brätwurst from pop-up food carts, though all took pause around 11:14:59 a.m. It wasn’t to take in the Altstadt baroque-style buildings that make up the city skyline, nor was it to bask in the bright, mid-morning sun hovering on the horizon. A new attraction had come to the capital city, and all eyes...
IBU Biathlon World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): 12.5/15 k mass starts Kaisa Makarainen of Finland took her first win of the season and will start next weekend with the overall World Cup leader’s bib after she outsprinted Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier by 0.8 seconds to claim the win in the 12.5 k mass start. In a tight race for third, Veronica Vitkova of the Czech Republic edged out Rosanna Crawford of Canada for the final spot on the podium; the pair...
In Sophie Caldwell’s quarterfinal heat of the World Cup skate sprint in Dresden, Germany, she led from start nearly to finish. In the final 200 meters she was passed by Sweden’s Hanna Falk, but won a photo finish for second place and advanced to the semifinals. In that quarterfinal heat, the U.S. Ski Team member had finished just 0.24 seconds behind Sweden’s Falk. As the racing got even tighter in the semifinals and final, it...
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Dresden, Germany): Freestyle sprints Men’s report For her second-straight World Cup sprint, Sophie Caldwell of the U.S. Ski Team reached the podium in the women’s 1.2-kilometer freestyle sprint on Saturday in Dresden, Germany. Caldwell placed third in the final behind Sweden’s Hanna Falk, who won it in 2:11.02 minutes, and Maja Dahlqvist, also of Sweden, who placed second (+0.23). Caldwell and Dahlqvist both lunged in a photo finish for second,...
Note: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that U.S. Ski Team member Jessie Diggins was the top American in four consecutive U.S. nationals races in 2012, winning the freestyle sprint, 10 k skate and 20 k classic mass start outright and placing second to Canada’s Dasha Gaiazova in the classic sprint (but topping the podium as the first American). This week, Caitlin Patterson, of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, became the first...
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Anchorage, Alaska): Classic sprint Men’s report Caitlin Patterson did it. With a classic-sprint win on Monday, she successfully capped off an undefeated 2018 U.S. Cross Country Championships, as the top American woman in all four races over the past week in Anchorage, Alaska. Patterson, of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, qualified seventh then won the women’s 1.5-kilometer final by more than 2 seconds in 3:39.58 minutes. Finland’s Jasmi Joensuu, a junior...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — It turns out that Caitlin Patterson does have a weakness: Swedes. The 27-year-old Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) skier was denied her first outright victory of the week when she crossed the finish line second to Hedda Bångman, a former member of Sweden’s U23 National Team who now skis for the University of Colorado Boulder (CU), in the women’s 20-kilometer classic mass start at the 2018 U.S. Cross Country Championships on Sunday morning...
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Anchorage, Alaska): 20/30 k classic mass starts Women’s report Sweden’s Hedda Bångman denied Caitlin Patterson of her first outright victory of the week at 2018 U.S. Cross Country Championships, but Patterson as the first American racked up her third-straight national title in the women’s 20-kilometer classic mass start at Kincaid Park on Sunday in Anchorage, Alaska. Bångman, a 22-year-old freshman at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU), pulled off a 15.9-second...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — For the throng of spectators who lined up along the colorfully flagged sprint course at Kincaid Park on Friday, Mother Nature had donned a new look: an earl-gray sky and a rising sun, making the white snow-dusted base of the state’s Tordrillo Mountains (known locally as the “Ghost Range”) if ever so faintly distinguishable to the southwest. Less than 48 hours had passed since the opening race of the 2018 U.S. Cross...
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Anchorage, Alaska): Freestyle sprints Women’s report Caitlin Patterson racked up her second-straight national title at this year’s 2018 U.S. Cross Country Championships and Reese Hanneman topped the men’s freestyle sprint final on Friday at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska. In the first of two sprints at 2018 U.S. nationals, Patterson, the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) skier who won the Complete results *** NorAm Trials (Mont Sainte-Anne, Quebec): Classic sprints Canada’s...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — It was what most locals, or those familiar to the area, referred to as standard Anchorage weather: heavy, wet snow, temperatures reading around 31 degrees Fahrenheit, and a darkened sky that seemed to be brooding over whether or not to let the sun out of bed — the sky covered in a shroud of gray. With the Pacific Ocean just 600 meters to the southwest and Kincaid Park’s nordic venue, the host...
2018 U.S. Cross Country Championships (Anchorage, Alaska): 10/15 k freestyle Women’s report The Patterson siblings are crushing it on Day 1 of the U.S. Cross Country Championships at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska. Scott Patterson raced to a 55.2-second victory over Noah Hoffman in the men’s 15-kilometer freestyle individual start on Wednesday. Patterson is an Anchorage-based U.S. Ski Team (USST) member who trains with Alaska Pacific University (APU). Hoffman is a former USST member who...
VERNON, British Columbia — For the second consecutive year, the Sovereign Lake NorAm was combined with the SuperTour for an expanded field of racers. The warm, sunny, and windless conditions on both days were a welcome change from the previous season’s cold weather and falling snow. What didn’t change was the ‘south of the border’ feel to the leaderboard. The race formats were similar to that of the Davos World Cup, just nine time...
NorAm/SuperTour (Sovereign Lake near Vernon, British Columbia): 10/15 k freestyle VERNON, B.C. — The combined NorAm and SuperTour event at the Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre continued with individual-start distance races and continued with the theme of U.S. domination of the leaderboard. Ian Torchia, of Northern Michigan University (NMU) and the U.S. Ski Team D-team, started the day with a big victory in the men’s 15 k freestyle, finishing in 36:29.7 minutes and on the heels...
NorAm/SuperTour (Sovereign Lake near Vernon, British Columbia): Classic sprints On the opening day of the NorAm Continental Cup series in Canada (which doubled as a U.S. SuperTour), American Kaitlynn Miller of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) started Saturday with a nearly three-second win in the classic-sprint qualifier at the Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre, then went on to win her quarterfinal and semifinal before topping the final as well. Miller was the fastest women’s qualifier...
Another SuperTour season opened in West Yellowstone, Montana, one weekend later than usual this year but with a lot of the old standbys, including a twisty, technical freestyle sprint course and puzzling conditions for the classic distance race. In a crash-marred women’s final on Saturday, Dec. 2, Anne Hart of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) Elite Team avoided a tangle between Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg) and Caitlin Patterson, of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP),...
US SuperTour (West Yellowstone, Montana): 10/15 k classic mass starts The second day of SuperTour racing took place as originally planned at the Rendezvous Ski Trails in West Yellowstone, with 22-year-old Hedda Bångman, of the University of Colorado Boulder (CU), and 33-year-old Brian Gregg (Team Gregg) winning the women’s 10-kilometer and men’s 15 k classic mass starts, respectively, on Sunday. Bångman, a Swedish freshman on the second in Saturday’s skate sprint) in third (+4.6). Kyle Bratrud (CXC...