Showing signs of emerging from a slow start to the season, the Canadian men placed their big three of Devon Kershaw, Alex Harvey and Ivan Babikov in the the top-30 for the first time this season, just in time for the trip home to Canada.
The Canadian men bounced back from a rough sprint day to turn in solid results in the second stage of the Ruka Triple, a 10-kilomter individual start freestyle race. Alex Harvey led the way, finishing in 17th place. Teammate Ivan Babikov was 23rd.
The FasterSkier team breaks down last weekend's historic World Cup results, which included the first-ever podium for the American women in a relay.
GÄLLIVARE, Sweden – It’s always good to finish a race and be happy with the result. But the icing on the cake is when the entire sport seems to be behind your performance. And for the U.S. women after Sunday’s historic third-place relay finish, that was the case. As one team after another crossed the line behind them, they were hugged and congratulated – even by teams who surely wished the podium spot could be...
GÄLLIVARE, Sweden – When Alex Harvey said yesterday that Canada could win today’s 4 x 7.5 k World Cup relay, he wasn’t kidding. It might seem surprising after the results the Canadians turned in on Saturday, with just one racer breaking the top 20 in the 15 k skate. But Sunday was a new day, and relays always generate a little extra something for the athletes. “I love racing the relay,” Devon Kershaw told FasterSkier....
Devon Kershaw had a good start in Bruksvallarna, Sweden today. So did Daniel Richardsson. But in the end, for both the Swedes and the Canadians, it was steady pacing that garnered skiers a top finish: Johan Olsson bested Richardsson for the win, and Ivan Babikov placed third for Canada while Kershaw faded to tenth. At 4.6 k into the 15 k, interval-start skate race, the second competition in the opening series of FIS races, Richardsson...
Without a doubt, the Canadian World Cup team faced some challenges last season even though its results didn’t really show it. Sure, every team has its ups and downs and occasional tizzy, but Canada generally kept it under wraps. Devon Kershaw continued to podium one weekend after the next and ended up second overall in the World Cup. Simultaneously, most of his teammates also notched personal bests: Alex Harvey finished sixth overall, Lenny Valjas tallied three...
While it was great to hear from several top skiers on the Canadian and U.S. nordic ski teams on Friday, we weren’t able to fit everything into the recaps of the men’s and women’s time trials. Here are some extras and outtakes from the WinSport Frozen Thunder Classic, an unofficial sprint showdown between North American teams in Canmore, Alberta. (Original race stories with link to results: women) On pre-race problems: I was PO’ed because I...
Andy Newell didn’t have time to make a game plan. It all came kind of naturally. The 27-year-old U.S. Ski Team veteran (who also skis for the Stratton Mountain School T2 Team) was pretty busy worrying about whether he’d have enough time to warm up for the inaugural WinSport Frozen Thunder Classic on Friday, and how late that school bus he was following was going to make him. Turns out he had just enough time...
For someone who finished the World Cup last winter ranked second in the overall standings, Canada’s Devon Kershaw flies relatively well under the radar. While his own teammate Alex Harvey is treated as a “pseudo-god” in Quebec, Kershaw is rarely mentioned by name when European journalists ask Dario Cologna (SUI) or Petter Northug (NOR) whom they’re watching out for in the coming year. This relative anonymity, Kershaw says, is just fine by him. “It’s pretty...
You can say a lot about Marty Hall—and, in fact, most of it has probably already been said. The former coach of the American and Canadian national cross-country ski teams is an outspoken and prolific observer of the sport today, but that’s nothing new. He famously implied that the Russians were doping at the 1988 Olympic Games, and an Ottawa newspaper story upon his departure from the Canadian squad referred to him as the “opinionated...
Less than 2 months before the Sprint Québec presented by Québecor which will host the FIS Cross-Country World Cup presented by Viessmann (Press release) Québec City, Thursday, October 11, 2012 – December 6 to 9, winter will be on our doorstep and downtown Québec City will be dressed in its finest white for the Sprint Québec which will host the FIS Cross-Country World Cup. For the very first time in Québec City, the top cross-country...
2ND ANNUAL SPRAY DRAG RUNNING RACE October 20th, 2012 Alberta World Cup Academy in a running race up the Spray Lakes road! All proceeds go to helping support the team for their upcoming season… According to AWCA coach and race organizer Stefan Kuhn, “It’s basically all up hill … Starts on the river and we run all the way up then past the nordic center and up to the Spray dam, which looks over Canmore.” ...
Just over two weeks ago, the Canadian men’s cross-country ski team made the long journey to New Zealand in search of some low-altitude, on-snow volume training. According to head coach Justin Wadsworth, they Snow Farm – New Zealand – August 2012” to sum up their time there, which was mostly a laughing matter. In one scene, the four men stand stand on a treeless trail high above the landscape while taking a break during training....
Scattered throughout Canada on Sunday, four World Cup team members and their coaching and support staff started their long journey to the land down under – that is, New Zealand. Alex Harvey ate handmade chocolates and sipped a steamed drink while waiting for his 16-hour flight out of Québec International Airport, then got upgraded to business class, according to first time in 10 years, the U.S. Ski Team will not be training in New Zealand...
Justin Wadsworth, head coach of the Canadian National Ski Team, made a deal with his athletes two years ago: if they collectively produced four or more World Cup podiums, he would bring them to Hawaii for a summer training camp. The team surpassed that benchmark and delivered six podiums in 2010-2011 in addition to World Championships gold. Off to Maui they went in June 2011 for Canada’s first camp on the islands. Wadsworth raised the...
What do Vegard Ulvang, Bjørn Dæhlie, Marcus Hellner, Charlotte Kalla, Alex Harvey, and Devon Kershaw have in common? Aside from gold medals from the Olympic Games or World Championships? All of them, at one point or another, were coached by Inge Bråten, a fixture on the World Cup circuit who died last week at the age of 63. Bråten led his country’s national team from 1990 to 1994—a period in which Norway collected no fewer...
MONT SAINT-ANNE, Québec – To say that Devon Kershaw and Alex Harvey are close would be a massive understatement. When Kershaw decided to pack it in for the season, Harvey and some of his other teammates on the Canadian National Ski Team convinced him to reconsider. They found Kershaw on the start line Saturday as fired up as ever for the 50-kilometer classic mass start at Canadian Ski Nationals. After skiing together with a lead...
MONT SAINTE-ANNE, Québec — Alex Harvey had a lot going for him on Thursday. The hometown course and its accompanying fans, the helicopter and a little luck were just a few of the things in the 23-year-old’s favor in the 1.4-kilometer freestyle sprint final at Canadian Ski Nationals. Heck, organizers even pushed the weeklong event back in March to accommodate Harvey and his national team’s return. When Harvey nearly missed his quarterfinal on Thursday, they gave...
MONT SAINTE-ANNE, Québec — While Alex Harvey was the man of the day at Canadian Ski Nationals on Tuesday, Devon Kershaw, Lenny Valjas and the remaining World Cup crew (including Chandra Crawford, Dasha Gaiazova, Alysson Marshall and Kevin Sandau) also met a strong welcome after flying into Québec late Monday night and racing the next day. Cross-country ski fans, friends, family and media outlets came out to Mont Sainte-Anne to catch a glimpse of the...