On April 26, Devon Kershaw posted a photo on social media of Alpina boots hanging on a line. The next day, he spoke on the phone with FasterSkier from his new home in Lillehammer, Norway, after a day of running around outside with his 15-month-old daughter, Asta Isabel. Kershaw was tired, but in a good way. For the first time in 17 years, he was ready for a new challenge, a new focus and much...
In Rossland, British Colombia, most residents can reach the town’s lone alpine hill by car in five minutes, the cross-country trails in seven. Tucked high in the Monashee Mountains, hemlock and fir outnumber some 3,500 locals, most of whom know each other by name. And over the past two decades, Rossland, which was fourth in the juvenile boy’s classic sprint. “That sat heavily with me all summer because I knew, I believed that I was capable of being...
This is the third preview in a quick-and-dirty series about Canadian national-training centres. We asked coaches to send their 2012/2013 rosters and tell us what’s new for the coming season. We will be publishing additional reports over the next few weeks. Teams are presented in no particular order. Team: Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA) Coaches: Chris Jeffries (head coach/women’s coach), Mike Cavaliere (racing director/men’s coach), George Grey (women’s assistant coach), Stefan Kuhn (universal coach/men’s assistant), Jeremy Hecker (summer intern), Rob Soffer (strength...
VERNON, British Columbia — Mike Cavaliere had a pretty distinct idea of what he wanted the Alberta World Cup Academy to look like when he developed the training center just over four years ago. With several AWCA athletes zipping around in the Canadian national team’s unmistakable neon jackets and four Olympians assisting them at last weekend’s NorAm opener at Sovereign Lake, things appeared to be going as planned. If anything, Cavaliere, a 2006 Olympic coach...
If you’ve been paying attention to skiing in North America over the past 10 years, you should know the name George Grey. While he has never shushed the crowd in Oslo, or wailed on a ski air guitar, the low-key Grey has been one of Canada’s best male skiers over the past decade. At 32 years old Grey has been a fixture on the Canadian World Cup team, earning 78 starts in locations from Canmore,...
CANMORE, Alta.—When two-time Olympic cross-country skier George Grey hits the start line for Saturday’s 50-kilometre skate-ski race at the Haywood Ski Nationals, it will be his final competitive trip around thefamed Canmore Nordic Centre. After racing on the World Cup for nearly a decade against the top athletes on the globe, and competing in the Torino and Vancouver Olympics along with five World Championships, the 31-year-old Grey, of Rossland, B.C., has decided to retire. “For...
The 2011 Haywood Canadian National Championships began Saturday, and the drive to crown the next Canadian national champion starts now! Held in the Canadian ski mecca of Canmore, Alberta, the premiere event in Canadian skiing features seven days of intense junior and senior racing action. The racing opens with a Team Sprint on Saturday, March 12, followed by a middle-distance freestyle on Sunday, March 13. The athletes then enjoy a day of rest, and the...
The decision by Canada’s Alex Harvey to skip Friday’s World Championships relay left a train of his disappointed teammates passing through the mixed zone after the race. Of all four athletes, Len Valjas probably summed it up best: “It’s probably a good call—it just sucks for us.” Each of the Canadian starters had his own take on the situation, ranging from relative indifference to stern disappointment. But while it was clear that many of them...
Much to the Americans’ and Canadians’ chagrin, the men’s 4 x 10 k relay at World Championships on Friday did not unfold as it often does. “At the start, they usually jockey for a bit,” Canadian leadoff skier Stefan Kuhn told FasterSkier. “But one Swede, Daniel Rickardsson, was thinking otherwise today, because he had two bad races. So he wanted to prove a point.” Instead of a tactical first leg, where many of the teams...
With a squad consisting of Alex Harvey, Devon Kershaw, Ivan Babikov, and Len Valjas, Canadian Head Coach Justin Wadsworth thought his team would have a chance at its second World Championship medal in three days in Friday’s men’s relay. But those chances have just taken a hit. According to Wadsworth, Harvey, who won gold with Kershaw in Wednesday’s team sprint, will skip the relay, worn out by a tough race and a long day in...
Two-thirds of the way through Sunday’s World Championships pursuit, Alex Harvey was taking a page out of Johan Olsson’s book. Harvey, the 22-year-old Canadian, had launched a surprise, solo attack reminiscent of the move made by Olsson, a Swede, in the same race at the Vancouver Olympics last year. The Swedes took two medals in that event, with Olsson getting bronze. And for a while, it looked like the Canadians were on their way to...
Perianne Jones is now two for two. The Canadian National Ski Team (CNST) member and Vancouver Olympian put on a powerhouse display of classic skiing Saturday morning, winning the 2.7 k classic event on the second day of racing at Western Canadian Championships in Kelowna, B.C. Jones won the second race in the mini-tour by a little over 20 seconds, an amount almost unheard of in such a short event. Andrea Dupont of the Rocky...
The Canadians will field an experienced 11-person roster for the World Championships in Oslo, Norway at the end of February, and all 11 will also ski the World Cup in Drammen, Norway, the week before. The roster is almost identical to the Olympic roster from last year – 9 of the 11 skiers competed in Vancouver, and all 11 have at least one World Cup start. According to Cross Country Canada (CCC)’s selection criteria, the...
January 14, 2011 – Cross Country Canada is pleased to announce the World Senior Championship Team 2011 – selection synopsis to follow. The following athletes have been selected to the 2011 World Championships Team competing in Oslo, Norway from Feb.22-March 6. – Devon Kershaw (Ona-Wa-Su/NST) – Alex Harvey (Club Nordique M.S.A/NST) – Dasha Gaiazova (Rocky Mountain Racers/NST) – Chandra Crawford (Canmore Nordic/NST) – Stefan Kuhn (Canmore Nordic/NST) – Perianne Jones (Nakkertok/NST) – Ivan Babikov (Foothills...
Sunday marked the final day for the Nor-Am races at Thunder Bay, Ontario, which also doubled as Canadian World trials for Junior Worlds, U23 Worlds and the 2011 World Championships in Oslo. However, both the men’s and the women’s winners had already secured their tickets earlier in the week.
With the victories in Thursday’s distance events at the Nor-Am races in Thunder Bay, Dasha Gaiazova and George Grey secured their spots on the Canadian World Championships team.
One of the intentions of the tour format introduced to elite-level cross-country ski racing in the past few years is to allow sprinters and distance specialists to compete on a level playing field. That balance hasn’t been achieved yet at the World Cup level: None of the winners of the four editions of the Tour de Ski, men’s or women’s, have been pure sprinters. But in this weekend’s three-stage mini-tour held in Rossland, BC, organizers...
Veteran Lars Flora (APU) posted his first win of an already-successful 2011 season, capturing the top spot in the men’s 10km skate in the second day of the Rossland NorAm mini-tour. Flora edged Canadian World Cup skier George Grey by 2.1 seconds on a fast 5km loop, while fellow Canadian Drew Goldsack was third, +6.9. With a winning time of just under 22 minutes, Flora thinks it may have been his fastest 10k ever. “I...
So far this year, Drew Goldsack has been tearing it up on the NorAm sprint circuit. Goldsack, a member of Canada’s senior development team, had won every sprint he entered coming into this weekend’s mini-tour in Rossland, British Columbia. But while he had proven that he was the North American not on the World Cup circuit, he hadn’t had the chance to test himself against his teammates in Europe. Until now. On Friday, Goldsack was...
Following on the heels of two North American podiums in Dusseldorf, Canadian and American distance skiers turned in a mixed bag of results in the 10/15km individual start classic race in Davos, Switzerland. The top distance skiers from both countries, with the notable exception of all-rounder Kikkan Randall, skipped the Dusseldorf sprint weekend in order to prepare for the longer event at altitude in Davos. Devon Kershaw (CAN) led the way, skiing to an impressive...