If you’ve never heard of Momentum Northwest, you’re not alone. The nordic program is a new push from the Seattle community to bring back nordic skiing to the Pacific-Northwest’s largest city. Led by Sam Naney, the program hopes to develop into one of the countries best junior nordic programs.
Holly Brooks was the one well-known name left off the U.S. Ski Team's nomination list for 2014/2015, and that's by her choosing, she says. Rather than retire, she's hoping to tweak her training to get back to podium contention, especially in marathons and distance races.
USSA has announced its nominations to the 2014/2015 U.S. Ski Team, with A-team returners Kikkan Randall, Jessie Diggins, Andy Newell, and Liz Stephen, plus the additions of Sadie Bjornsen, Sophie Caldwell, and Simi Hamilton to the A-team.
The 4 x 5 k relay made its way back into U.S. nationals for the first time in about 16 years, but with a new twist of two men and two women per team. APU showed its strength and depth early on, and its winning anchor, Kikkan Randall said she's hoping the format makes it into the World Cup. She's not alone.
With Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan shouting encouragement, Kikkan Randall won her second straight race in front of a home crowd on a sunny Sunday at Kincaid Park.
Kikkan Randall was the woman to beat on Saturday, and she lived up to the billing by winning the 10 k freestyle individual start -- the first race of SuperTour Finals -- by 2.2 seconds over Liz Stephen. An early leader, Caitlin Gregg notched third, 20.9 seconds back.
FasterSkier is on-site at the SuperTour Finals and U.S. Distance Nationals in Anchorage, Alaska, and teaming up with the Anchorage Daily News to bring you images and reports from the events, which start Saturday with the freestyle individual starts at Kincaid Park. Here's the ADN preview.
The 46th annual Engadin Ski Marathon took place this past Sunday. Though the 42-kilometer skate course follows a valley downhill, losing a total of 150 meters (nearly 500 feet), that fact alone did not guarantee an easy race — on the contrary, most top finishers claimed this marathon to be one of their toughest.
Kikkan Randall was the top American in today's World Cup freestyle in Lahti, Finland skating her way to 21st place. Noah Hoffman was the top American man, finishing 24th on the icy course.
Last season, Aino-Kaisa Saarinen was down and out. Little by little she has built back her fitness and self-confidence, with a secret ingredient: fun. After winning silver in the Olympic 4 x 5 k relay with her teammates from Finland, Saarinen thanked the U.S. women for inviting her to train with them in 2012 and said she had learned that you can't be so serious all the time.
A strategic decision to switch to new skis at the 10-kilometer mark let the pack get away from Liz Stephen, and she never caught up. The story was the same for Holly Brooks and Kikkan Randall, all of whom had been advised to make the exchange by the U.S. coaching staff.
Medal hopefuls to start the day, the U.S. women had to reconcile with ninth place in Saturday's Olympic 4 x 5 k relay, a result they said didn't reflect their best day but one which indicated they were still very much a team, united in success as well as on off-days.
Sadie Bjornsen quickly realized that today's 10 k classic wasn't going to have any easy sections, as temperatures soared into the mid-50s and the snow softened and slowed down. She thought of the Eagle glacier and pushed through to 18th - just a few seconds from the top 15. Her teammates packed in from 32nd to 35th.
“All of cross-country skiing in the U.S. is really excited for this moment,” said Holly Brooks, who trains with Kikkan Randall in Anchorage and is one of her teammates at the Olympics.
The first three of the 36 cross-country skiing medals at stake at the Sochi Olympics are up for grabs Saturday, as racing begins here with the women's 15 k pursuit. Four Americans and three Canadians are entered in the event, which will have the athletes racing four 3.75-kilometer laps on trails at the Laura Cross-Country Ski and Biathlon Center --a massive Olympic complex installed at the top of a ridge in Russia's Western Caucasus Mountains over the last five years.
Of the 18 North Americans that competed in Sunday’s 1.3-kilometer freestyle sprints at the Toblach World Cup, nine made the rounds. Many of them chatted with FasterSkier about the day and final race before the Olympics.
The Toblach World Cup 10-kilometer classic individual start on Saturday provided a few takeaways exactly one week out from the Olympics. Bjørgen made a statement with a definitive win, Kowalczyk missed the podium for the first time in a 10 k classic since 2009, and the U.S. women put four in the top 20, five in the top 22, in a classic distance race.
The U.S. Cross-Country and Nordic Combined teams officially announced their athlete selections for the 2014 Winter Olympics, which start in just over two weeks in Sochi, Russia.
Early Saturday morning, Kikkan Randall's parents sat groggily in front of a pair of laptop computers in an East Anchorage condominium. Their daughter was seconds from starting a ski race 5,000 miles away, in a resort town in the Czech Republic. But their live stream of a Eurosport TV channel was showing ski jumping instead. "OK, come on," Kikkan's mother, said impatiently.
Jessie Diggins and Liz Stephen had a plan. Norway’s Kristin Stormer Steira was starting four seconds ahead of Diggins; Stephen was starting two seconds back in Friday’s 15-kilometer pursuit in Toblach, Italy. The result? Two top-10 performances.