Disclaimer: The author skied both days and was one member of the large S2S organizing committee. This may seem like a conflict of interest, but also allows a more detailed look behind the curtain at how a new event was built. When the moment comes to create a new destination ski marathon, how would you compile all of your dreams and mould them into a single cohesive weekend? A group of Canadian skiers was faced...
“You need some Gordie Howe elbows out there today” said the commentator on the live feed at one point during Friday’s Team Sprint in Whistler. You know, just in case you needed a reminder that this is Canadian Nationals. Alongside his legacy as one of hockey’s greatest players of all time, leaving his mark on the sport as an indomitable force with both his goal scoring and dynamism on the ice, Howe was known as...
Racing at the joint Canadian Nationals/US SuperTour Finals resumed on Wednesday, showcasing some of the best racers in North America facing off for a classic sprint. As the Whistler Olympic Park was home for cross country skiing during the 2010 Vancouver Games, the classic sprint course on Wednesday was one that played host to an important stepping stone in North American skiing history. In that competition, both American and Canadian skiers solidified the inroads they...
Carrying the momentum from the first day of racing into a second distance event, athletes lined up once more at the Whistler Olympic Park for a 10 / 15-kilometer interval start classic. Over 130 men and 90 women participated in the open categories, representing clubs across Canada and the United States. Adding a springtime layer of complexity to remind us that we are officially past the equinox, temperatures in Whistler hovered above freezing while a...
This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and the A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage please contact info@fasterskier.com. An iconic venue, Lahti’s ski jumps rise out of the pine forest from atop the rolling hills, tucked between the many lakes of the region in southern Finland. After...
Canucks celebrate best Olympic relay result since 2002 BEIJING, Chn—The Canadian women’s relay squad skied to its best result Olympic result in two decades, finishing ninth on Saturday at the Zhangjiakou National Cross-Country Ski Centre. Skiing on a mission for eighth spot, the women’s team of Katherine Stewart-Jones, Dahria Beatty, Cendrine Browne and Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt mixed together their best relay result on the sport’s ultimate stage since the 2002 Games, skiing into the top-10...
This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and the A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage please contact info@fasterskier.com. Thursday morning saw the third women’s cross-country race in the Zhangjiakou stadium. On the docket, a 10-kilometer individual start classic with two laps of a challenging 5 k course. After a...
Canada’s Dahria Beatty was beaming after cracking the top-20 for the first time in her two trips to the Olympic Winter Games, finishing the women’s individual start 10-kilometre classic cross-country skiing event in 18th spot. Feeding off career-best Olympic performances in her first two starts, the 27-year-old put down a memorable performance, skiing twice around the demanding five-kilometre loop in a time of 30:00.2. “I definitely feel like I am in the best shape of...
Stay tuned for in-depth race coverage, coming soon. The third women’s cross country ski competition of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games featured a 10-kilometer interval start classic competition. Starting as the second athlete in the seeded group in bib 36, Therese Johaug (NOR) set a high bar, her tempo quick and her breathing labored as she worked every meter of the course to finish in 28:06.3. The next two seeded bibs, both of Finland,...
Three Canadian women ski into elite group of 30 on grueling race day in Beijing By Chris Dornan on behalf of Nordiq Canada BEIJING, Chn — Cendrine Browne and her teammates set the tone for the Canada’s cross-country skiers at the 2022 Winter Games after putting down her best-ever Olympic performance, skiing to 20th place in the women’s 15-kilometre skiathlon race on Saturday in Beijing, China. Competing in her second Olympic Games, the 28-year-old from Prévost,...
Canada was successful in delivering the team to Beijing and getting them on snow in Zhangjiakou. The decision to go above and beyond in isolating athletes before a carefully planned drive to a charter flight worked, although other countries also succeeded with a more laid-back approach. What can fans expect from the Canadian team in Beijing? It all comes down to qualifying and performing. Qualifying Canada had an Olympic quota of four women and three...
The Canadian Prep Camp in Sovereign Lake and SilverStar, BC prior to the 2022 Beijing Olympics sounds like a nordic skier’s heaven. A two-week ski vacation with 100 kilometres of perfectly groomed snow. A private room above a great coffee shop (pain au chocolate!) and next door to some great beer. January weather just below freezing with enough falling snow to make every day a hardwax day. Two weeks of what locals call superhero snow. A...
CANMORE, Alta.—Eight Canadians are readying themselves to head to Europe in the coming weeks to open the highly-anticipated Olympic and Paralympic season while bringing the maple leaf to the World Cup cross-country skiing start line. Nordiq Canada will send a dynamic group of four women and four men who are determined to climb up the international rankings in the first three weeks of World Cup action before returning to Canada for the holiday break followed...
The story line from today’s near-to-the-end chapter of this World Cup season will not include the words high-tempo. News came from FIS earlier that Therese Johaug, winner of all the individual distance medals at the 2021 World Championships, was sitting out the weekend due to an inflamed wrist. Add to the injury list Sweden’s Frida Karlsson, who is recovering from an injury sustained in the World Championship 30 k classic. For her part, Karlsson placed...
This World Championship coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and their A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage please contact info@fasterskier.com. A blanket of fresh snow lay on the ground while the frozen rocky peaks of the Bavarian Alps peaked through the clouds. Finally, Oberstdorf, Germany looked like a wintery...
This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and their A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage please contact info@fasterskier.com. If you had any question about the strength and depth of the Swedish sprint team, look no further than the qualification list from today’s classic sprint in Falun. Led...
As part of an ongoing webinar series, Nordiq Canada held a webinar titled Group vs Individual Training. Senior National Team athlete Dahria Beatty, National Team coach Erik Bråten, Para Nordic head coach Robin McKeever, and sports psychologist Jon Coleman were on the panel. For any person interested in learning about the yin-yang of individual versus group training sessions, the video, which runs nearly an hour, is well worth a viewing. Bråten, originally from Norway, was hired...
As always, it was a reset: a new day at the start of a World Cup race. On Sunday, the ribbon of snow in Falun, Sweden offered an opportunity for a sixty-six women field to race head to head in a 10 k mass start freestyle race. With a course that some noted was softened in difficulty by eliminating the infamous Moderbakken climb — which has become a feared incline on the World Cup circuit...
Not the backdrop one might expect from Scandiavia in mid-winter, rather, green grass, bare ski jumps, and a ribbon of snow were found in Falun, Sweden. However, what was lacking in snow was made up for by a densely packed crowd of cheering fans, erupting as athletes flew by in the women’s classic sprint. An occurrence that might meet our expectations is that the Swedish women showed up on home turf. Johanna Hagström won the...