Daniel Richardsson, Olympic gold medalist for Sweden, was injured in a car crash in central Sweden on Sunday and taken by ambulance to Hudiksvall Hospital. Richardsson had reportedly stopped to help a friend change a flat tire on the side of a highway when a motor home approached the two men at high speed and ran into both of them, killing the friend and damaging a ligament Richardsson's knee.
Burke Mountain Academy senior Warren Taylor recounts his third trip to Sweden and Norway for the school's annual Scandinavian training camp, with stops in Sollefteå, Östersund, Bruksvallarna, Sognefjell, and Oslo.
Athletes hit a breaking point on Thursday before the last three stages of World Cup Finals in Falun, Sweden, where they threatened not to race on courses they deemed too dangerous. In successfully pressuring FIS and the race organizers to make the requested changes to the trails, athletes hope they've drawn a firm line between what they will and will not compete on in the future.
Emil Jönsson (SWE) bounced back from World Championship disappointment to win the Lahti freestyle sprint, and wrap up his third overall Sprint Cup victory.
Nikita Kriukov did it again at World Championships, winning gold for Russia, this time in the 6 x 1.5 k freestyle team sprint with Alexey Petukhov on Sunday. Sweden took second and Kazakhstan was third, edging Canada's defending champs by 0.03 seconds for bronze.
It was a feel-good day for the top three in the men's 1.5 k classic sprint at World Championships on Thursday, with Russian Nikita Kriukov claiming his first gold and Norway's Petter Northug and Canada's Alex Harvey making the podium in second and third, respectively.
No one has ever raced skied the sprint course at World Championships at full speed before in a pack of six before. There is not yet a standard script written for these 1.2 k and 1.5 k loops, and when athletes don’t know what to expect from their competitors in a tactics-drive sprint heat, an exciting race is sure to follow.
It's been almost a year since Teodor Peterson last stood atop a podium, but on Saturday in Liberec, Czech Republic, he finally had the race he was looking for. He out-lunged Emil Jönsson and Pål Golberg for the classic sprint win; Andy Newell was sixth for his best classic result in three years.
FasterSkier contributor Gerry Furseth recently asked a few top European World Cup skiers about their favourite places to race internationally. Of course, there's some bias (since the interviews were done in Canmore), but several athletes didn't hesitate to reveal their top picks.
Emil Jönsson (SWE) destroyed the field in World Cup sprinting action, breaking away in the final 200 meters of every heat for his second consecutive win. Anders Glöersen (NOR) was second and Nikita Kriukov (RUS) took third.
Nobody really knew what to expect when Québec City hosted its first World Cup last weekend. Between the spectators, course and conditions, everything was a bit of a surprise. International athletes and coaches sum up their experiences.
Emil Jönsson (SWE), known for his high-speed is working to improve his technical efficiency. And he believes the rest of the ski world has something to learn from the upstart Americans.
Emil Jönsson (SWE) had a single goal for the day — stay on his feet. After crashing out of the last two sprint races, Jönsson avoided mishap and skied to the win over teammate Teodor Peterson and Alexey Petukhov (RUS)
Friday's World Cup team sprint did not go as Alex Harvey or Devon Kershaw had planned with a late crash derailing their podium run. The two settled for fifth in the men's final, Lenny Valjas and Jesse Cockney placed 10th, and all the Canadians were looking forward to Saturday.
Emil Jönsson needed this. He had been sick for too long, without a top 10 result since December and mostly out of contention for a World Cup podium since the end of last season. Two weekends ago at the freestyle sprint in Szlarska Poreba, Poland, the Swede was 62nd. That was behind him. This was Lahti, Finland, where he won the classic sprint last year. With some of the trickiest descents on the World Cup,...
During Stage 7 of the Tour de Ski in Toblach, Italy, spectators standing at just the right spot on the race course could have witnessed something surprising enough to make them choke on their cappuccinos: two Swedish fans screaming at the top of their lungs for Kikkan Randall, the American cross-country ski racer. The scene made little sense, until one realized that the fans were the parents of Emil Jönsson, the star Swedish sprinter and...
OBERHOF, Germany – Emil Jönsson is neither black nor 6’5”, but athletically, he’s cross-country skiing’s Usain Bolt—the sport’s fastest man in a drag race. Since last March, though, the World Cup circuit has been suffering from an acute absence of the Swedish speed-demon, with a hamstring injury and a cold limiting Jönsson to a single sprint start before the 2012 Tour de Ski. As evidenced by his podium finish in that race in Davos, Switzerland,...
At 25 years old, Anna Haag is already a star for Sweden. She followed up her two silvers from Vancouver (in the 15 k pursuit and team sprint) with a strong showing as the second leg for Sweden’s silver medal-winning relay in Oslo. She is currently living and training in Davos, Switzerland, where she and her boyfriend—Swedish sprint standout Emil Jonsson—have an apartment at about 5,000 feet above sea level. She hit the ground running...
The day before Wednesday’s World Cup city sprint in Stockholm, Swedish sprinter Emil Jönsson took a phone call from one Carl XVI Gustav—his king. “It was a strange thing—it does not happen every day,” Jönsson told SVT, the Swedish television channel. “He called and told me that I should ski for king and country.” When the king tells you to go fast, you do it—especially when you’re racing around, of all places, the Royal Palace....
If Josef Wenzl wants to race at the 2011 World Ski Championships in Norway, he probably can do it without a bodyguard. But that’s only thanks to the last-minute heroics of the sprinter Anders Gloersen (NOR). Wenzl, a German, squandered a sure podium finish for himself and the top Norwegian pair in Sunday’s team sprint in Dusseldorf, crashing out on the final corner and taking John Kristian Dahl along with him. Gloersen ended up being...