International Ski Federation – Page 2

FS News Roundup: Schumacher and Halvorsen win Awards; FIS Concludes Spring Meetings

FasterSkierMay 22, 2020

Last week U.S. Ski and Snowboard announced the recipients of two awards. Gus Schumacher of Anchorage, Alaska, and newly minted U.S. B-Team member, won the Beck International Trophy recognizing the top athlete in international competition. He shared the honor with alpine skier Mikela Shiffrin. Schumacher comes off a year during which he won the 10 k classic at World Juniors and anchored the men’s 4 x 5 k relay to their second consecutive Word Junior’s...

General News Racing US Ski Team World Cup

FIS Points, Part II: What’s a Point Worth

Gavin KentchMay 21, 2020

This article has been updated to clarify the relationship between the junior races now known as FIS Nordic Junior World Ski Championships and its precursor, the World Junior Nordic Championships and the European Junior Nordic Championships. There are, to briefly traffic in the obvious, 60 seconds in a minute. Sixty seconds in a minute; 60 minutes in an hour; 3,600 seconds in an hour. Skiers measure their lives in these increments; we track total yearly training hours,...

News Racing

FIS Points, Part I: Inside the Points List

Gavin KentchMay 11, 2020

First in a two-part series. Coming next week: The meaning of a single FIS point for national team selection. The recent news that David Norris was not named to the national team by the narrowest of margins, following the application of objective selection criteria tied to an athlete’s position on an overall FIS points world ranking list, has inspired FasterSkier to take a closer look at where these numbers come from. The goal of this...

Doping News Opinion

A Glance at Some Anti-Doping Numbers in Cross-Country Skiing

Jason AlbertMay 8, 2020

A year and more has elapsed since a doping scandal rocked the 2019 cross-country World Championships in Austria. Over that time, we have learned a bit more about what transpired at the micro-level. In the broader picture, those covering doping in sport often scour The World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) annual release of a voluminous document titled “Anti-Doping Testing Figures”. The data dump runs hundreds of pages. Looking for figures on the number of tests per...

General News

FIS Moves to Ban Fluorinated Ski Waxes for the 2020/2021 Season

FasterSkierNovember 23, 2019

News today from the International Ski Federation’s Autumn Meeting in Constance, Germany will disrupt modern race-ski prep methodology. The Committee for Competition Equipment which is tasked with defining the technical specifications of all equipment used across the spectrum of FIS sanctioned snow sports: Cross-country skiing, nordic combined, ski jumping, alpine, snowboard, freestyle, and freeski, is calling for a ban on the use of all fluorinated ski waxes for the 2020/2021 season. “The use of fluorinated...

Multimedia Nordic Nation Podcasts

Nordic Nation: Vegard Ulvang and the Will to Lead

Jason AlbertNovember 1, 2019

Vegard Ulvang at fifty six years old remains an icon in Norway. With Olympic and Championship medals, a World Cup Overall title in 1990, he’s in the lineage of Norwegian skiing royalty. Away from the tracks, Ulvang began and then sold a profitable clothing company. He fills his time making documentaries and television features. He is also, as you’ll hear at the top of the interview, committed to living a life of exploration, calculated risk,...

Doping General News

FIS and CAS Anti-Doping Division Sign Agreement

Jason AlbertJune 18, 2019

FIS recently signed an agreement with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) that ceded its adjudication power in doping cases to the CAS Anti-Doping Division or ADD. The CAS ADD is touted as a body able to make independent decisions when reviewing suspected doping violations. Prior to the agreement in early May, the most basic process for adjudicating a FIS initiated doping violation progressed within the organization. Once evidence for...

General News

Changes for Next Season’s World Cup on the Agenda (Updated)

FasterSkierJune 3, 2019

Here is a link to U.S. Ski Team Head Coach Chris Grover’s blog in which he discusses the changes discussed and adopted at the most recent FIS meetings. The International Ski Federation (FIS) held a FIS Calendar Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia last week. The FIS Cross-Country Committee provided the following changes and proposals which were voted upon by the FIS Council on June 2. Of note, it appears the final race of next season’s...

General News World Cup

World Cup Prize Money and the Distribution of Wealth

Jason AlbertApril 25, 2019

If you’ve read the International Ski Federation’s (FIS) website in the last few weeks and deviated from exploring the cross-country sub-site, U.S. alpine star Mikaela Shiffrin has been prominently featured. Her season was record-breaking. With 17 wins, she set a FIS World Cup record for alpine victories in a single season. With the fattening of her win total, was the commensurate growth of her bank account. She became the first World Cup...

General News Racing Regional / Local US Ski Team World Cup

Minneapolis to Host 2020 FIS Cross Country World Cup

FasterSkierSeptember 28, 2018

(Press release) The International Ski Federation (FIS) today officially confirmed that Minnesota will host a World Cup cross-country ski event in Minneapolis in March 2020. U.S. Ski & Snowboard and the Loppet Foundation will serve as hosts of the World Cup event, taking place at the new ‘The Trailhead’ facility in Theodore Wirth Park. “A Minnesotan who brought home a gold medal has now helped us bring home the World Cup,” said host committee co-chair RT...

Continental Cup General Interviews News Racing

Back in Bozeman, Flowers Switches Gears

Gabby NaranjaJuly 20, 2018

It wasn’t until recently that Erika Flowers learned the meaning of her middle name. At the time of her birth, her father had been cutting around Montana’s mountain slopes on Elan alpine skis. Though the brand’s company is based out of Slovenia, the definition of élan, according to Webster’s dictionary, is a vigorous spirit or enthusiasm. Whether Flower’s father, Pat, had researched the word’s meaning or whether the name had simply struck him, the skis...

Biathlon Doping General News Olympics Opinion Racing World Cup

What’s Happening as Russia’s Sochi Scandal Winds Down: An Editorial

Chelsea LittleFebruary 9, 2018

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, cleared 28 Russian athletes of doping charges. Many people seemed shocked by this development. The athletes had been disqualified from the 2014 Games by an International Olympic Committee (IOC) Commission. This was after more than 18 months of buildup in which the world learnt of systematic manipulation of the anti-doping process by the Russian state security apparatus at those Olympics. I was both shocked, and not shocked. When all...

Biathlon Doping News Olympics Racing World Cup

Many Battles Still To Be Fought in Russia Doping Saga

Chelsea LittleDecember 6, 2017

Yesterday, 2014 FIS Anti-Doping Rules, which went into effect on January 1, 2014 (before the Olympics started that February), state that the federation can take action against national ski teams, such as barring athletes from competition or assessing fines, if there is evidence of extensive doping within the team. Article 12.3.1 of the rules state that such action may be taken when “Four or more violations of these Anti-Doping Rules… are committed by Athletes or...

News Racing US Ski Team World Cup

Kalla Takes Second Distance Win in a Row; Diggins 5th, Bjornsen 10th

Gabby NaranjaDecember 3, 2017

If it hadn’t been for the steady bob of her yellow leader’s bib and an intermittent shadow from the sun’s glare cast by the trail’s treeline, Charlotte Kalla might have blended right into the snow: her white suit symbolic of Sweden smooth across the Lillehammer race course in Norway. As it were, the overall World Cup leader’s bib, her prize from Results |

Olympics Racing World Cup

IOC Posts Decision: Rodchenkov Swapped Out Legkov’s Sample Night After Olympic 50 k Gold

Chelsea LittleNovember 27, 2017

At long last, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has published its full decision explaining its reasons for disqualifying Russian cross-country skier Alexander Legkov from the 2014 Olympics and banning him from all future Games. In it: a description of how a second laboratory independently confirmed a finding from the McLaren Report that two of Legkov’s urine sample bottles from Sochi had been tampered with. The decision also reveals that Grigory Rodchenkov, the former Moscow anti-doping...

Canadian National Ski Team General Interviews World Cup

Qualified for First World Cups, Locke Sees It As ‘First Step’

Gabby NaranjaNovember 20, 2017

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...

General News Other Racing

Manificat Wins Two Out of Three at Saariselkä FIS Weekend

Gabby NaranjaNovember 19, 2017

There were plenty of options this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for cross-country skiers looking to get an International Ski Federation (FIS) race in before the official start of the World Cup season, now less than one week away. While some athletes headed toGällivare, Sweden, about 120 made their way to Saariselkä, Finland. This included several French skiers, including Maurice Manificat, Jean-Marc Gaillard, Coraline Thomas Hugue, and Anouk Faivre Picon. Those who made the trek to...

Doping News Olympics Racing World Cup

Lack of FIS Action on Banned Russians Causing Confusion: ‘It Shouldn’t Be This Difficult’

Chelsea LittleNovember 14, 2017

Note: On. Nov. 23, the day before the first World Cup race of the season, the the CAS decision that the provisional sanctions of the Russian cross-country athletes would expire on 31st October and can only be reinstated if there was more specific evidence of individual anti-doping rule violations.” In the CAS press release announcing the Oct. 31 deadline for FIS to bring a case against the skiers, the court only wrote that “a further provisional suspension may be imposed on the athletes...

Doping General Interviews News Racing US Ski Team World Cup

Brennan on Call with IOC and WADA: ‘It Feels Like They’re Dragging Their Feet’

Chelsea LittleOctober 29, 2017

As they may leave the organization and form their own union. Against this backdrop, the leadership of the IOC and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) organized a conference call earlier this month with athlete representatives from different national and international sports federations around the world. “It was actually a very last minute thing,” Brennan, U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s cross-country athlete representative, said in an interview. “It was unclear whether that was intentional or not, but...

Doping General Interviews News Olympics Racing US Ski Team

Shaw: Remove Conflicts of Interest in Sport, Ban Russia from PyeongChang

Chelsea LittleOctober 26, 2017

ZURICH, Switzerland—Tucked at the top of U.S. Ski and Snowboard’s list of proposals for policy changes at the recent International Ski Federation (FIS) Technical Meetings here was this: “Independent Doping Panel.” The idea was developed along with the Norwegians, who submitted an identical proposal. U.S. Ski and Snowboard President and CEO Tiger Shaw explained that at the moment, FIS decisions made on doping may be made by individuals who also serve other roles in the...

Newer Posts

Older Posts