HomeTag

Erik Bjornsen

Start of a New Season (as Seen on Social Media)

Happy May! With the start of a new training year, FasterSkier scanned social media for a sense of how nordic skiers kicked off Day 1 (and the days before) of the 2017/2018 season. Kikkan Randall of the U.S. Ski Team (USST) and Alaska Pacific University (APU) “sneaking in some secret Mom training” while pushing her son Breck on April 30: View this post on Instagram Excited to kick off a new training season tomorrow! (Sneaking in some secret Mom training...

Friday Rundown: Spring Series Mixed Relay (Updated)

U.S. Distance Nationals (Fairbanks, Alaska): Co-ed mixed relay On Friday, two dozen teams from close to 10 different clubs hit the Birch Hill Recreation Area trails in Fairbanks, Alaska for the co-ed mixed 4 x 5-kilometer (5 k classic + 5 k classic + 5 k freestyle + 5 k freestyle) relay event. In the first classic leg, it was Sophie Caldwell skiing for the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) Elite Team and Kikkan Randall skiing for Alaska Pacific University’s...

‘More Than Perfect,’ Harvey Caps Season with Second Place in Pursuit, Third in Overall

Canada’s Alex Harvey has had one heck of a season. In January, he reached the top of a World Cup podium for the first time in three years. The following weekend, he helped Canada to its first-ever relay podium and two weeks before that, won the men’s team sprint in Toblach, Italy, with his teammate Len Valjas. A little more than a month later, he earned his first individual World Championships gold. The 28-year-old Harvey kept the ball rolling...

Sunday Rundown: Harvey 2nd in Quebec Pursuit; 2nd in Distance World Cup

FIS Cross-Country World Cup Finals (Quebec City): 10/15 k freestyle pursuits Even after Sunday’s 15-kilometer freestyle pursuit, Alex Harvey had a busy day ahead of him with three different podiums to stand on: one for placing second on the day, another for placing second in the Distance World Cup, and yet one more for finishing the season in third in the Overall World Cup. It was a suitable ending for Harvey’s storybook three-day venture in...

Klæbo Rockets to First Distance Win in Quebec Mass Start; Harvey 4th

QUEBEC CITY — As 75 men jogged out into the center of the World Cup area assembled on the Plains of Abraham for the men’s 15-kilometer classic mass start on Saturday, one man in particular stood out. Alex Harvey, wearing the red suit of the Canadian national team, led the group out. He wore bib No. 1, but if you couldn’t see that from a distance, it didn’t matter. Essentially everyone knew who he was. The official...

Saturday Rundown: Quebec City, Oslo and Lillehammer (Updated x4)

FIS Cross-Country World Cup Finals (Quebec City): 10/15 k classic mass starts During Saturday’s 15-kilometer classic mass start at World Cup Finals, Canada’s Alex Harvey was in it until the end. But so were Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo and Niklas Dyrhaug, and Russia’s Alexander Bessmertnykh, to name a few. Sitting in second with a few hundred meters to go, Harvey was primed to make his move on Dyrhaug, who was leading at the time. But then...

Harvey Delivers Again at Home, Wins First Race of World Cup Finals in Quebec

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...

For the second-straight year, the World Cup’s season-ending races will be held in Canada, with Québec City hosting 2017 World Cup Finals, this Friday through Sunday. Canada initially announced a according to a press release. On Thursday, FasterSkier confirmed that the list included the Women | U.S. selection criteria, and

Brandsdal Outduels Klæbo for Drammen City Sprint Win

DRAMMEN, Norway — The stage was set around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday when a homegrown Norwegian made good in front of a spectator-lined 1.2-kilometer classic course smack-dab in the middle of Drammen’s city center. It was a day of contrast that began with blue skies and ended with a deep chill and falling snow as thumping music pounded and the gothic Bragernes Church loomed. In between, the clouds amassed and the classic tracks stayed firmed for...

Wednesday Rundown: Drammen & Lake Placid (Updated)

FIS Cross-Country World Cup (Drammen, Norway): Classic sprints Just three days after 2017 Nordic World Championships ended in Lahti, Finland, World Cup cross-country skiers were back to their regular-season grind with 1.2-kilometer classic sprints on Wednesday in Drammen, Norway. In the men’s race, Norway stole the day with Eirik Brandsdal notching his first World Cup win since 2015 in Drammen, but Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov broke up the team’s total domination of the final with a...

Down to the Wire: Norwegian Men Win Lahti Relay with Russia Nipping at Their Heels

LAHTI, Finland — There were three medals up for grabs during Friday’s 4 x 10-kilometer relay at 2017 Nordic World Championships on Friday. Yet after the scramble leg, two distinct races: Norway and Russia’s dance for gold, and what eventually became a four-way tango between Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany for bronze and silver. Russia’s Andrey Larkov and Norway’s Didrik Tønseth first strung out and then smoked the field late in their leg. By the tag...

Friday Rundown: Bailey 2nd in PyeongChang; Lahti Relay & NoCo Team Sprint (Updated)

IBU World Cup (PyeongChang, South Korea): Men’s 10 k sprint US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey kept his clean-shooting streak alive with another one of his personal best results on Friday, racing to second in the men’s 10-kilometer sprint at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea. Bailey started 81st and hit all 10 targets in the two-stage race to cross the finish line in first, 4.7 seconds ahead of France’s Martin Fourcade,...

Amidst Finnatics, Niskanen Strides to 15 k Gold; Bjornsen Notches 18th at World Champs

LAHTI, Finland — Through the first seven medal races of 2017 Nordic World Championships, the hometown Finns came close. There was Niskanen was primed to pass Iversen for what appeared to be a golden performance. Instead of a cheer concluding the sprint, a collective exhale deflated the crowd: Niskanen and teammate Sami Jauhojärvi ultimately settled for bronze. While it wasn’t the result they had hoped for, it remained the 25-year-old Niskanen’s first World Championships medal. Another...

Wednesday Rundown: Lahti 15 k Classic & NoCo

FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Men’s 15 k classic After narrowly missing the victory in Results *** FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Nordic Combined large hill/10 k Germany’s Johannes Rydzek racked up win #3 in as many nordic-combined competitions at the 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland, winning the individual large hill/10-kilometer Gundersen start on Wednesday. The last individual competition of the championships began with Austria’s Mario Seidl jumping the farthest at 132.0 meters and earning 137.3 points....

Hopes Dashed for Finland and Norway, Russia Claims Team Sprint Gold

LAHTI, Finland — The breath taken out of a nation. Throughout the lifetime of a sporting fan, high-stakes races or games offer the chance for seared-into-the-neurons moments, things you remember for an eternity with the distinct recollection of where you were and what you were doing when the news came down. But those are exceptionally rare moments. And depending on what side of the equation you’re on, they can be mile high or a mile...

Sunday Rundown: Lahti and Osrblie (Updated x2)

FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Classic team sprints Defending champions Norway repeated gold in the women’s team sprint, with Heidi Weng and Maiken Caspersen Falla crossing the finish line first in Lahti, Finland. On the second-to-last loop, it looked like Russia could have something to say about that. Yulia Belorukova put in a furious sprint up the course’s biggest climb, and then beat Weng to the exchange. But her teammate Natalia Matveeva could not match the pace when Falla...

Finally a World Champion: Pellegrino Comes Up Big in Lahti Sprint

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...

FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Freestyle sprints Men’s report [UPDATED] Two medals for the U.S. on Day 1. That’s exactly what happened Thursday in the first medals race of 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland, where American Jessie Diggins raced to second and her U.S. teammate Kikkan Randall third in the women’s 1.4-kilometer freestyle sprint final, right behind Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla, who took gold. While Falla crossed the finish line first in...

Lahti Qualifiers, Press Conferences, Pre-Sprint Stats, and Photos

LAHTI, Finland — Yesterday’s lick of blue sky winter sun was fleeting, as Lahti woke to overcast skies and buzz that new snow was imminent. Race time temps hovered around 24 degrees Fahrenheit, but with 78-percent humidity and a brisk wind — some would say ripping —  blowing out of the west, it felt wind-brief cold. Wednesday’s kickoff events were an opportunity for volunteers, camera crews and even hundreds of local Finnish school children who...