TOBLACH, Italy – A year ago Devon Kershaw (CAN) entered the 35-kilometer point-to-point Tour de Ski pursuit sitting in second, and primed for a run at the top-5. Just under an hour later, he was struggling to hold onto the large chase pack that had gobbled him up at the 20k mark. Ever since that day this event has been on his mind—through summer training camps, early fall racing, and right up until the start...
TOBLACH, Italy – The Dolomites were the site of brutal battles between the Austrians and Italians during World War I. Nearly 100 years later, members of European and North American countries once again waged war among these mountains in the depths of winter—this time, in a cross-country ski race. Perhaps appropriately, it was a Swiss athlete who rose above the fray here on Thursday, winning a 32-kilometer freestyle pursuit by skiing his own race and...
TOBLACH, Italy – Alex Harvey (CAN) advanced to a World Cup sprint final for just the second time in his career on his way to a 6th place finish in the Tour de Ski skate sprint. Harvey posted his best-ever sprint qualification result, throwing down the fifth fastest time in the morning time trial. He saw that as a good sign, and followed up by winning his quarterfinal. He told FasterSkier that he “didn’t have...
OBERSTDORF, Germany – That was more like it. Such was the prevailing mood in the Canadian National Ski Team camp after Devon Kershaw and Alex Harvey finished sixth and seventh in Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski here on Sunday. The day wasn’t perfect,
Canadians Devon Kershaw and Alex Harvey entered the Tour de Ski as legitimate contenders for the top-5 after both placing in the top-10 last season. Both men are capable of podium results in just about any race, a key to Tour success, but neither has broken through yet, though Harvey had an excellent prologue, placing sixth. After a rough ski day in the pursuit, they were looking to bounce back in the classic sprint in...
OBERHOF, Germany — There’s no shortage of grit among the top men on the Canadian cross-country ski team. Each year, Alex Harvey, Devon Kershaw, and Ivan Babikov train for hundreds of hours, climbing dozens of steep hills through sun, rain, and snow. The training has powered the athletes to some pretty impressive accomplishments this season. But even after all that preparation, Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski on Friday threw a challenge at the...
OBERHOF, Germany – Thursday’s freestyle prologue will probably not end up being significant in the grand scheme of the 2012 Tour de Ski, which includes eight more competitions and 100 kilometers of racing spread across two countries. But that doesn’t mean good results here didn’t give athletes a boost. Led by Alex Harvey’s sixth-place finish, the Canadian men are flying high after Stage 1 of the Tour. With Harvey just seven seconds away from the...
Oh yeah, there were some distance races in Rogla on Saturday too, huh? Once again, this will be short on the words; just some pretty pictures. The US women had another strong outing: Once again I’d note the continued downward trends for Holly and Kikkan and the generally flat trend for Liz. (Ida still has [...] Related posts:
Coming off a season in which Canada got its first-ever World Championships gold in the team sprint, the winners, Alex Harvey and Devon Kershaw, are the Canadians you’d expect to see in sprint finals. But while the duo certainly haven’t been slacking on the World Cup this year, in Rogla, Slovenia it was the women who impressed in a fast and furious one-kilometer skate sprint on Sunday. 2006 Olympic gold medalist Chandra Crawford returned to...
Alex Harvey and Devon Kershaw (CAN) posted the best North American results on Saturday with 10th and 16th, respectively. Andy Newell earned his first career distance points by skiing in 24th. The game plan for the Canadian men on Saturday in Rogla, Sweden was to be near the front and contest the bonus points on the third lap of the course. They’d never gone for intermediate premiums before, but wanted to experiment with the option...
Though the men’s 15 k classic mass start in Rogla, Slovenia was contested on a 7-lap manmade loop, the final distance race in Period 1 of the World Cup provided plenty of excitement. Petter Northug (NOR) delivered what is now almost an expected sprint-finish performance, and edged out Dario Cologna (SUI) and Alexey Poltoranin (KAZ) to the line with a powerful double pole. Though the last-second victory on Saturday was typical of Northug’s style, the...
The 2012 World Cup season is already a month old, and there has yet to be a mass start. That changes on Saturday in Rogla, Slovenia when women ski a 10km classic and men 14k. The races feature intermediary sprints for World Cup points—once for women at 5.2k and twice for men at 5.2k and 11.2k. In a new twist, points will be awarded to the top-10 at the intermediary marks, instead of just the...
When a starter of the men’s sprint final in Davos, Switzerland asked Devon Kershaw (CAN) what lane he’d like to take, he didn’t think the official was serious. “I was like, ‘Are you sure I get to pick second?’” said Kershaw. He didn’t know he’d won his semi-final, and had to double check the starter had the right guy. After deciding on a start lane, Kershaw finished 4th, which is one of the best World...
Davos, Switzerland — The Russians are coming. On a beautiful blue-sky day in Davos, Switzerland, Russian sprint-specialist Alexey Petukhov picked up his first win of the season in the 1.5 k sprint freestyle World Cup. Petukhov skied clear of the competition, leaving Swedes Teodor Petersen and Emil Joensson scrambling for second and third, respectively. While Petter Northug (NOR) crushed the field by nearly a minute in the 30 k on Saturday and was considered by many...
Davos, Switzerland – If you’re a ski fan anywhere, you were probably disappointed to find out that stars Canadians Devon Kershaw and Alex Harvey were sitting out of the 30 k freestyle World Cup in Davos, Switzerland, this Saturday. Both Kershaw and Harvey are talented skaters, and seem to be in good shape – both have already recorded top 15 finishes on the World Cup already this season. Last year, they finished in the top...
Despite cold rain pelting down on the city, Dusseldorf, Germany, was hopping Saturday afternoon. And rightly so, as even without Swedish sprint star Emil Joensson taking part, the best of the World Cup sprinters were on hand to tackle the rocket-fast course. The venue consisted of roughly 1900 meters of snow with an icy glaze on top. While the women did just one lap, the men were primed to race two loops of...
It was a big day for the two North American teams in Dusseldorf, Germany, with Kikkan Randall taking the victory for the United States, and Chandra Crawford just missing out on the podium and finishing fourth for Canada. There was plenty of other action out there for ski fans from the west side of the Atlantic. In addition to Randall and Crawford, nine North American skiers took to the streets of Dusseldorf for the fast...
With three straight days of racing in the only the second weekend of the World Cup, there were plenty of comments to go around. Here’s a look at what didn’t make it into the Ruka-Triple recaps from Kuusamo, Finland. (Note: It’s pretty heavy on the men’s side, especially with the Canadians, probably because they were chatty about their performances on Sunday.) On why athletes shouldn’t get too worked up about sub-par performances: “If you really...
Overall men’s results. World Cup standings.
For most of the 119 starters in the men’s 10 k freestyle, Saturday’s race was hardly a walk in the park. That is, unless you like to go out in windy, misty, rainy, sleety and snowy conditions and enjoy encroaching darkness. And if you love long, steep hills — three per lap to be exact — the course in Kuusamo, Finland, was for you. Fortunately, the conditions on the second day of the Ruka Triple...