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Hans Christer Holund

Friday Rundown: Beitostølen FIS Opening Race and More

  Welcome to The Rundown, your quick primer of need-to-know information about the day’s racing. We’ll be updating this digest as the day goes on with additional results, photos and quotes. The Rundown is NOT a race report; stay tuned for complete race reports later today with interviews from the day’s top racers. *** FIS cross-country Beitostølen, Norway: 10 k/15 k classic The race results are in from today’s 10-kilometer individual start classic FIS race in Beitostølen, Norway....

Big Results for Geraghty-Moats, Harvey at Summer GP, Toppidrettsveka

Two North Americans posted impressive results at nordic events in Germany and Norway over the last week, with Vermont native Tara Geraghty-Moats racing to first overall in the first-ever Women’s Nordic Combined Summer Grand Prix and Quebec’s Alex Harvey placing second, fifth and 10th in three races at the Toppidrettsveka rollerski series. Geraghty-Moats 1st and 2nd at Inaugural Women’s NoCo Grand Prix Brand new to nordic combined as well as the jump hill in Oberwiesenthal, Germany, Geraghty-Moats...

Johaug, Krüger First to Top in Lysebotn Opp; Harvey 10th, Torchia 13th

The Blink Ski Festival’s famed Lysebotn Opp hill climb returned on Thursday, and with it, a familiar name landed at the top of the results.  After serving  last year’s Lysebotn Opp in 33:18.3, telling NRK at the time that “it’s been long since I’ve been in this good a shape in July.” Kalla’s 2017/2018 season went on to be one of her best. She racked up 10 individual wins, including a gold medal in the Olympic...

Bolshunov, Gjeitnes Win Blink Classics Distance Races on Opening Day

A predictor for the winter ski season ahead? Could be. Either way, Norway’s Blink Ski Festival, or as it’s called in Norway, Blinkfestivalen, remains the ultimate in rollerski racing and returned for the 12th year in a row on Wednesday. The festival opened with elite men’s and women’s distance rollerski races, known as the currently training with the British national team in Norway. Following the Blink Classics on Wednesday, the Blink Ski Festival will turn to the...

Bolshunov Breaks Through in Falun; Harvey Second in Pursuit

It is a wrap. The 2017/2018 World Cup season concluded Sunday in Falun, Sweden with the men’s 15-kilometer freestyle pursuit. The World Cup Finals featured a three-race mini tour with a 15 k class mass start and Sunday’s pursuit. Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov, a spry 21 year old, began the pursuit with a 38-second lead over second starter, Johannes Høsflot Klæbo of Norway. Emboldened with confidence after It has been a revival year for Cologna: he...

Sunday Rundown: Diggins and Harvey 2nd, Bjornsen 3rd in Falun Pursuit; Dunklee 3rd in Oslo (Updated)

FIS Cross Country World Cup Finals (Falun, Sweden): 10/15 k freestyle pursuits Time of day | Final Distance World Cup rankings Men: Pursuit | Final Overall World Cup rankings | Women’s pursuit report | Men’s relay report In her last race of the season, Susan Dunklee returned to the podium. The American started fourth in Sunday’s 10-kilometer pursuit at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Oslo, then made her way into third by the final...

Cologna Captures First Holmenkollen 50 k; Harvey 9th, Patterson 16th

OSLO, Norway — Thumping house music. Thousands of raucous fans, who, if not waving Norway’s flag, had their faces painted in their national colors of red, blue and white. If the American Super Bowl translated to cross-country skiing and snow, the Norwegian Holmenkollen is as close as it gets.   Saturday saw the 116th edition of the annual 50-kilometer men’s event, a race that totals roughly 6,574 feet of climbing for those who complete it...

Saturday Rundown: NCAA Champs; Holmenkollen 50 k; Kontiolahti Relays

NCAA Skiing Championships (Steamboat Springs, Colorado): 15/20 k freestyle mass starts On the fourth and final day of NCAA Skiing Championships at Howelsen Hill in Steamboat Springs, Katharine Ogden skied to her second-straight national title, Ian Torchia became an NCAA champion and the University of Denver (DU) won its 24th NCAA National Championship. Ogden, a Dartmouth College freshman, raced to a 38.4-second victory in the women’s 15-kilometer mass start, finishing in 43:22.0 minutes for her...

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, stated his plans to retire after the 2019 World Cup Finals in Québec City. “I was just so motivated to be around to see the first Olympic medal for men get hung around a [Canadian] neck. That’s what drove me every day,” Kershaw reflected. Coming into the 2018 Winter Games, Harvey, 29, was the favorite for a country that has yet to claim an Olympic medal...

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, reigning 15 k classic world champion, Niskanen said that he has embraced a selective peaking strategy. For the last two years he has focused on two championship classic races: the 15 k in Lahti, and Saturday’s 50 k.   “Two years after Sochi, I trained so hard and tried to do too many things and have too much races and I got easily sick,” Niskanen said....

Saturday Olympic Rundown: Niskanen Takes 50 k in Gutsy Solo Effort, Harvey 4th, Patterson 11th

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, International report who had publicly questioned the validity of the Russians’ performance in Sochi soon after the 50 k skate concluded, exclaimed of Larkov, “I’m not sure where he got the power to run up that hill like that.” A few seconds later, Harvey outlunged Sundby for fourth, +2:43.6 to +2:43.7. Holund was sixth (+2:50.1), Daniel Rickardsson of Sweden another minute back in seventh (+3:50.4), Czech Martin Jaks eighth (+4:10.5),...

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Full report It was an improbable move: Norway’s Simen Hegsted Krüger attacked a few kilometers from the finish of the men’s 30 k skiathlon, and the rest of the field let him go. Krüger didn’t let up and at one point had a lead of 25 seconds with just about two kilometers to go, all the more impressive because he had crashed just meters into the race and broken a pole,...

Harvey Second to Cologna in Seefeld 15 k; Bjornsen 9th, Hamilton 12th

SEEFELD, Austria — A gray sky shadowed over the Tirol ski trails on Sunday. A similarly cool tension built on the course as slightly more than 100 racers warmed up for the mass start of the men’s 15-kilometer freestyle mass start. With five minutes to spare, spectators hurried to stake their spot, some carrying steaming-cheese-fondue-filled baguettes from the Le Gruyère cheese tent: Switzerland’s stamp on the Austrian snow. For those on site, the Le Gruyère...

Cologna Wins Tour de Ski; Harvey Solves the Alpe Cermis for Third Overall

The 2018 Tour de Ski is a wrap. On Sunday in Val di Fiemme, Italy, the final Stage 7 hill climb was a mirage of sorts as Switzerland’s Dario Cologna soloed in for his fourth overall Tour de Ski (TdS) victory. The stage, a 9-kilometer freestyle pursuit “final climb” ascends an alpine ski-area slope for the final three k’s as it climbs 425 meters from race start to finish. Not once did the 31-year-old Cologna...

Cologna in Control with TdS Pursuit Win; Harvey 4th, Bjornsen 22nd

The Tour de Ski (TdS) theater was treated to a solo-skier drama during the Stage 3 men’s 15-kilometer freestyle pursuit on Monday in Lenzerheide, Switzerland. On New Year’s Day, it was a homegrown skier, Switzerland’s Dario Cologna, who stole the show winning the race in 34:56.6 minutes. Cologna is a three-time Tour de Ski winner, who until Harvey showed he’s a master of gamesmanship and crushing sprint efforts after a distance effort. Sometimes leading, sometimes...

Tour de Ski Rundown: Diggins 3rd; Harvey 4th; Østberg and Cologna Tally Win No. 2

Tour de Ski Stage 3 (Lenzerheide, Switzerland): 10/15 freestyle pursuits Men’s report In the first three stages of the Tour de Ski (TdS), three different American women have reached the podium. Jessie Diggins became the latest in Monday’s New Year’s Day 10-kilometer freestyle pursuit in Lenzerheide, Switzerland. Heading into Stage 3, the last one in Switzerland before the Tour moves to Oberstdorf, Germany, Diggins ranked third overall in the TdS. She started the men’s 15...

Tick-tock. An appropriate intro in a place like Switzerland — a nation and culture known for accurate timepieces and punctuality. Depending on how you look at it, for 31-year-old Swiss skier Dario Cologna, one of two things has been on-the-dot: his three year slide in results since winning the 2014/2015 World Cup overall and his battle with both injuries and an ascendant Martin Johnsrud Sundby; Or his rejuvenated Lenzerheide, Switzerland Tour de Ski (TdS) Stage...