Since 2008 when Sweden arrived on the World Cup scene with a full-scale, blue-and-yellow-wrapped wax truck, it didn’t take long for the other major cross-country ski nations to not only keep up with the Joneses but surpass them. 2009 saw Norway arrive and begin lording over the wax-truck world with a succession of vehicles. As only Norway might do on the nordic-resource amenities side of things — Norway out Norway-ed itself. Its World Cup...
Welcome to World Cup Windup, where we check in with the top-10 teams from last year’s FIS Cross Country World Cup tour before the season starts with the Ruka Triple in Kuusamo, Finland, on Nov. 24. *** Note: The following article has been updated to clarify that various World Cup organizers are responsible for paying travel and living costs for Continental Cup leaders (as well as Red Group athletes and paying for Nation’s Support: see...
(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Canadian coach Ivan Babikov on his team’s recent camp in Park City, Utah.) Two days after Andy Newell and Erika Flowers tied the knot in Bozeman, Mont., seven members of the men’s U.S. Ski Team and eight U.S. women’s team members jumped into an intensity training block at their respective dryland camps in Park City, Utah, and the Methow Valley in northern Washington. The 10-day camps...
Note: This is the first of a multiple-part series on the 2018 Winter Olympic selection criteria for the U.S. cross-country ski team. A selection criteria and procedures for nomination to the U.S. Olympic team. Briefly put, what does it take to get to PyeongChang? And what factors will U.S. Ski Team (USST) coaches and (Lahti in 2017. First comes objective qualification via performance on the World Cup. Second comes the potential use of discretionary picks....
Note: This is part of a series on the 2018 Winter Olympic selection criteria for the U.S. cross-country ski team. Read this cross-country athletes will be selected for the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, it’s useful to know some context about how selections are made in other sports. As described in a on the NBC Olympic site. That means that cross-country skiing was the very last set of 2018 U.S. Winter Olympic team criteria to...
Alaska Pacific University’s (APU) 25-year-old Scott Patterson isn’t easily distracted. His is a busy schedule with a repetitive cycle like something out of the movie “Groundhog Day”. In Patterson’s case, the routine goes something like this: wake, eat, train, eat, work, train, sleep … repeat. “My general plan is I try to put in about 25 hours a week,” Patterson said over the phone from his home base in Anchorage. Just so we’re clear, that’s...
(The following op-ed is an opinion piece submitted by an author unassociated with FasterSkier. Viewpoints do not necessarily reflect that of FasterSkier’s staff or sponsors. We fully support open dialogue and encourage the use of the comments section at the bottom of this page to express varying views. To submit an op-ed, email in its 2018 national team selection criteria. pneumonia. The World Cup start rights that were given to Patterson baffled the rest of...
You should be in Bend. Bend, Oregon. Right now. For all of my “shallow readers” in the audience, those unable to focus on any piece of written work longer than 140 characters (you know who you are), you can stop here. You’ve both learned everything you need to know and also everything your SnapChat-addled brain can handle, so you’re done. For those of you with attention spans longer than those of fruit flies, dig in,...
Shortly after the U.S. Ski Team (USST) medalist at the World Junior Championships, made the objective criteria that way.” Below are the eight A-team athletes and Ogden, who was renominated to the development “D” team, that met the USST’s objective criteria for team selection. A Team Men Simi Hamilton (Stratton Mountain School Elite Team) Andy Newell (SMS Elite) Women Sadie Bjornsen (Alaska Pacific University) Sophie Caldwell (SMS Elite) Jessie Diggins (SMS Elite) Kikkan Randall (APU) Ida Sargent (Craftsbury Green...
Monday afternoon, Noah Hoffman big-volume 2016/2017 training load and subsequent lackluster results, as well as his near off-the-grid month adventuring in Utah’s desert country. As of late Monday night, the 2017/2018 U.S. Ski Team (USST) nominations had not been released publicly. USST Head Coach Chris Grover declined to comment on the team’s newest iteration or Hoffman not being renamed to the team until a formal announcement is made through the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Association (USSA). Team...
QUEBEC CITY — Friday started off about as good as the Canadian men’s team could have hoped for, with five skiers finishing in the top 30 to qualify for the heats in the 1.5-kilometer freestyle sprint on the first day of World Cup Finals. According to Cross Country Canada, that’s the first time five Canadian men have qualified in a World Cup race. Racing one lap around the Plains of Abraham in the heart of Quebec...
At the start of the season, Sweden’s Stina Nilsson had three individual World Cup wins to her name. Now, after taking Friday’s freestyle sprint title — and only two races left on this year’s World Cup calendar — Nilsson has quadrupled that number. The 23-year-old Swede raced to her ninth victory of the season on Friday in Québec City, crossing first in the women’s 1.5-kilometer freestyle sprint in a time of 3:01.87. The closest competitor...
LAHTI, Finland—The Norwegian lineup for the women’s 4 x 5-kilometer team at the 2017 Nordic World Championships on Thursday was daunting: Maiken Caspersen Falla, Heidi Weng, Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, Marit Bjørgen. On paper and on snow, a rundown of names and accomplishments. Here during these Lahti championships the Norse foursome have hauled; Falla and Weng with a classic team sprint gold, Bjørgen a 15 k skiathlon gold, and Jacobsen’s hardware was a bronze in the 10 k classic. On Thursday...
LAHTI, Finland — Up until the final 100 meters of Thursday’s race, it looked as if the 2017 Nordic World Championships sprint title belonged to Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov. In fact, Ustiugov had won the qualifier in a time of 3:11.72 minutes, a commanding 2.7 seconds over Norway’s Finn Hågen Krogh. The Russian reigning Tour de Ski champion placed second in his quarterfinal by a mere 0.19 seconds. He was second again in his semifinal in a three-way...
Multiple race warmup and cool downs, managing hydration and caloric intake, moving at her max sprinting speed — more than once. It’s not often that American Liz Stephen feels the lingering effects of a World Cup sprint day. Her most recent memory was three years ago, when she qualified 22nd in Szklarska Poreba, Poland. But this weekend’s three-day competition series in PyeongChang, South Korea, challenged the distance specialist once again. With a smaller World Cup...
Answer the door when opportunity knocks: Russia’s Petr Sedov wins the men's 30 k skiathlon in PyeongChang, South Korea while U.S. skiers Noah Hoffman and Scott Patterson score top-tens.
FIS Nordic Combined Junior World Championships (Park City and Midway, Utah): Normal hill/5 k [UPDATED] In the individual normal hill/5-kilometer Gundersen on Saturday, the last nordic-combined competition of 2017 Nordic Junior World Championships, American Ben Loomis captured his first top 10 in his third Junior Worlds in ninth place. Eighteen-year-old Loomis jumped to 10th then picked off one place in the 5 k to finish ninth, 1:22.3 minutes behind the winner, Germany’s Vinzenz Geiger. Geiger...
(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Liz Guiney, Caitlin Patterson and Jessica Yeaton.) Sometimes just being there is half the battle, as the saying goes. No Maiken Caspersen Falla. No Stina Nilsson. On Friday at the site of next year’s Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, three athletes who had never made it to a World Cup podium before prevailed in the women’s 1.4-kilometer classic sprint. And right there was...
2018 is sooner than you think. The World Cup makes its pre-Olympic presence in PyeongChang, South Korea this week and the U.S. and Canadian teams are there.
Last weekend’s first-ever World Cup in Ulricehamn, Sweden, was one Canada will remember for a long time, after Alex Harvey won Saturday’s 15-kilometer freestyle individual start for his second-straight World Cup victory (after Men’s report | Men’s report |