We’re back, with some incremental improvements to our audio production and full stoke for a new season of the Devon Kershaw Show. On this first episode of the new season, Devon and Nat break down the winter’s opening races in Sweden, Finland and Norway, and prime the pump for the World Cup kickoff in Finland next weekend. As always, email us at devon@fasterskier.com and nat@fasterskier.com.
This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and 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. Women’s 10K Interval Start: Today began a new chapter in World Cup racing as women and men competed at the same distances on the same course for the first...
This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and 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. Ruka Men’s 10K Classic Individual Start Ruka presented less challenging conditions this year compared to last year for the athletes. Temperatures were in the high teens (-8.0 Centigrade) with...
Last week, U.S. Ski & Snowboard announced team nominations for 2021 FIS Nordic Junior and U23 World Ski Championships, which will be held in Vuokatti, Finland, in early February. The athletes selected were as follows: U23 World Championships Team Women: Hailey Swirbul (APU Nordic Ski Center/El Jebel, Colo.) Sophia Laukli (Middlebury College/Yarmouth, Maine) Alex Lawson (Middlebury College/West Burke, Vt.) Hannah Halvorsen (APU/Anchorage, Alaska) Renae Anderson (Loppet Nordic Racing/Golden Valley, Minn.) Alternate 1: Leah Lange (University...
Not two weeks ago, despite the pandemic, it appeared the FIS World Cup had dodged the proverbial positive-test bullet. The Ruka, Finland round of the World Cup went down with fantastic racing, and, as far as we know at the time of dropping this episode, no positive Covid-19 cases among the athletes in Ruka. The cracks began to appear shortly after the racing in Finland concluded. Several of Norway’s star skiers independently withdrew from World...
The first weekend is in the books, and we can cross off a top 10, top 5, and technically a top 3 off of the to-do list. Being behind the scenes and waxing in the wax truck is a whole different perspective. It is far more stressful but also incredibly fun. I am mainly a part of the glide team and will help with testing, picking, and applying waxes for any given day. The conditions...
Yesterday Norway announced it would cease sending skiers to the World Cups in Davos, Switzerland and Dresden, Germany due to Covid-19 concerns. Rumors swirled that Sweden would make a similar decision. Twenty-four hours later the Swedish Ski Federation announced they too would withdraw from December’s competitions. “We learned some lessons about the implementation of a World Cup competition in Ruka. We have found that it went well. But we may also have been lucky. As it stands,...
Sturla Holm Lægreid (NOR) crushed his competitors in the IBU biathlon World Cup opener on Saturday and earned his first World Cup victory. On Sunday, turbo junior Helene Fossesholm (NOR) posted the second-fastest time of the day in the 10-kilometer pursuit at the FIS Nordic World Cup opener. “It hasn’t quite sunk in yet. I never imagined I would win,” Lægreid said after his race, which took place in in Kontiolahti (FIN). The 23-year-old dominated the 20-kilometer individual competition,...
FOMO: Fear of missing out. FOMO through the lens of envy is probably not the way to thrive. FOMO through the lens of seizing the day, on the other hand, has a lovely ring to it. Chad Salmela: biathlete, skier, running coach, forever linked with “HERE COMES DIGGINS”, husband, and parent. He is also the lone member of his family of four without a Finnish passport, although he has Finnish ancestry. His wife, Mimmu, hails...
This is a new project from FasterSkier and the podcast title pretty much says it: Devon Kershaw will be sharing his thoughts and insights of the 2019-2020 World Cup with us. It began this morning, Sunday, December 1, very early for me and not so early for Devon who is based in Lillehammer, Norway. Devon is a former longtime Canadian National Team member, a World Champion, and commentator for Eurosport at last year’s Seefeld, Austria...
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Lahti, Finland): 10/15 k classic Men’s report Racing at home in Finland, Krista Pärmäkoski picked a good time to collect the second World Cup victory of her career, and again in a 10 k classic. Pärmäkoski’s first win came in the 10 k classic in Planica, Slovenia, earlier this season. In second was Russia’s Natalia Nepryaeva, who picked up her first World Cup podium. The current U23 standings leader, Nepryaeva’s time was 20.9...
FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Olympic cross-country and biathlon cheat sheet, and not long after, we received a comment from a reader asking for a uniform cheat sheet. We, too, found ourselves sometimes befuddled. During Saturday’s skiathlon, this reporter found himself looking for the emblematic stars on the U.S. Ski Team’s new unis. There were stars, think Diggins and Kalla, just no obvious stellar-like branding on the USST suits. So for you and for us,...
Welcome to World Cup Windup, where we check in with the top-10 teams from last year’s FIS Cross Country World Cup tour before the season starts with the Ruka Triple in Kuusamo, Finland, on Nov. 24. FINLAND Overall in Nations Cup Last Year: Third, by just 106 points over Russia Women’s Ranking 2016/2017: Third Men’s Ranking 2016/2017: Fourth Who’s Back: World Cup overall title runner-up Krista Parmakoski, fifth-place Matti Heikkinen, and eighth-place Kerttu Niskanen; Iivo...
A World Junior Championships and World U23 Championships skier for Finland who had racked up top-10 finishes in her country’s competitive national-championships field, Krista Niiranen moved to the American Southwest last year. “I had been studying law in the University of Lapland in Finland, but for the last season I transferred to the University of New Mexico and represented the UNM Ski Team,” she explained. Niiranen made a splash on the SuperTour and NCAA circuits,...
The single mixed relay is a relatively new format, and one that is not yet contested at World Championships or the Olympics. And so when a single mixed relay (two athletes) and a ‘normal’ mixed relay (four athletes) are held on the same day, the U.S. Biathlon World Cup team’s policy has always been clear: prioritize the mixed relay, and get the World Champs and Olympic team the most practice possible for their big days....
NCAA Skiing Championships (Jackson, N.H.): 15/20 k freestyle mass starts On the final day of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Skiing Championships in northern New Hampshire, the University of Utah pulled out a 16.5-point victory over the University of Colorado-Boulder (and finished 17.5 points ahead of the University of Denver) in the team standings, and the Petra Hyncicova, achieved their second-straight titles in as many nordic races this week. On a frigid Saturday morning in Jackson,...
The opening World Cup races came to a close this Sunday, with Finland's Iivo Niskanen taking the overall win in the men's 15-kilometer classic race for the second time in a row. The Finnish skier held off the likes of Norway's Martin Johnsrud Sundby in order to secure the victory. "This was a really important victory, because last year was so difficult," Niskanen said during a T.V. interview.
Kikkan Randall returned to World Cup racing on Saturday, with baby in tow. The verdict on her performance: neither as good as hoped for, nor worse than history would predict. On Saturday, the three-time Sprint World Cup champion competed in her first World Cup competition since 2014. Randall took the 2015/2016 season off while pregnant with her son, Breck. In her return to racing, she finished 52nd – 19.75 seconds off Krista Parmakoski of Finland’s qualifying time in...
What does Craftsbury's Caitlin Patterson pack first when she head's to Europe, for example for the first period of World Cup racing this season? "Metaphorically, I pack my camera first. Physically the camera doesn't go into the bottom of my bag, that would be my ski boots."
In Finland to get in some race time before the World Cup begins, Ida Sargent of the U.S. Ski Team and Craftsbury finished ninth in the classic sprint in Muonio. Teammate Caitlin Patterson placed 16th and Sargent 19th in the 5k classic the next day.