For the Canadian World Cup Team, September entailed a trip to the Italian Alps for altitude training. Alex Harvey, Devon Kershaw, Lenny Valjas, Graeme Killick, and their coaches ventured to Livigno and Stelvio Pass, and joined the Norwegian men's team for some workouts.
In this episode of the FasterSkier podcast, Devon Kershaw speaks his mind from Oslo, Norway -- where he's living and training. From learning Norwegian to how many more years he plans to stay in the game, it's all here.
Prior to June 24, Canada's Ivan Babikov was training in Canmore, prepping for the upcoming World Cup season. Then "boom", he's retired and named Cross Country Canada's national-team coach. We caught up with coach Babikov while he was in Quebec, where he is helping lead the national team's first camp of the summer.
Longtime Canadian World Cup skier Ivan Babikov is retiring to take on coaching responsibility for his former teammates Devon Kershaw, Lenny Valjas, Jess Cockney, and Graeme Killick. "Ivan has been in our system and his job is to execute the plans," Cross Country Canada High Performance Director Tom Holland explains.
On Friday, Cross Country Canada announced its veteran skier Ivan Babikov has retired from racing to help coach the Canadian World Cup Team. Babikov will work specifically with Devon Kershaw and the men’s World Cup level athletes based in Canmore, Alberta, while also serving as B-Team coach.
It's a big day for national-team nominations as Canada released its list of top-tier cross-country skiers -- with six men and one woman on the World Cup A and B teams -- for the 2016/2017 season.
Coaching at the international level beings expectations, personalities to manage, not to mention the nitty gritty of booking plane tickets and travel logistics. When Justin Wadsworth stepped away from Canada's National Team head coach position this past March, it gave an opportunity for three core skiers from his tenure -- Kershaw, Harvey, and Babikov -- to reflect on where they have been.
Photos from the third day of racing at Canadian Ski Nationals in Whitehorse, Yukon, where Alex Harvey notched his second-straight individual win of the week and Dahria Beatty rose to the top of the women's freestyle interval start.
Norway's Martin Johnsrud Sundby is taking home all the hardware: two Crystal Globes and the Ski Tour Canada overall. After starting with a 39-second deficit to Russia's Sergey Ustiugov on Saturday, Sundby rose and Ustiugov faded. Canada's Alex Harvey finished fifth overall for his best result in a World Cup tour.
After placing third in Wednesday's skiathlon, Finland's Matti Heikkinen claimed his first victory since 2011 on Friday in the men's 15 k skate. Canada once again had four in the top 30, with Alex Harvey leading the team in fourth. “I think it’s one of the best races of my life here," Harvey said of Canmore. Noah Hoffman led the U.S. in 23rd.
Stage 6 of the Ski Tour Canada featured a brutal course for both the women's 15-kilometer and the men's 30 k skiathlons. It was simply survival of the fittest as the classic loop featured a grueling 1.2 k climb while the skate leg was punctuated by dicey soft-snow corners navigated at high speed.
Norway's Martin Johnsrud Sundby won the Ski Tour Canada's brutal Stage 6 skiathlon on Wednesday, putting him third overall in the Tour, while Petter Northug remains in second despite losing precious time to Tour leader Sergey Ustiugov. Canada's Alex Harvey jumped a spot to fourth overall, and his teammates Ivan Babikov and Graeme Killick posted season-best results.
Norway keeps them coming. Norwegian young gun Emil Iversen took Stage 2 of the Ski Tour Canada, the men's 17.5 k classic mass start in Montreal, ahead of an all-star cast, including teammate Petter Northug, Russia's Sergey Ustiugov, and another Norwegian, Martin Johnsrud Sundby. Canada's Alex Harvey skied up to ninth for sixth overall in the Tour.
On a 1.7-kilometer technical course with hustling and jostling, U.S. sprinter Simi Hamilton proved he had the tactics and the lungs to ski with the world's best on Tuesday. He placed third in the Ski Tour Canada's opening skate sprint, 0.09 seconds behind Russia's Sergey Ustiugov in first and 0.01 behind France's Richard Jouve in second.
With fewer than two weeks remaining until the Ski Tour Canada visits Gatineau, Montreal, Quebec City, and Canmore from March 1-12, we spent some time breaking down the provisional North American picks and estimated costs for Canadian nation's group skiers at the season-ending World Cups.
Ivan Babikov's a World Cup racer, not a marathon specialist, but on Saturday, Feb. 20, he'll be one of the favorites at the 2016 American Birkebeiner in northern Wisconsin. He decided to do the race a week ago. “I remembered how crazy the Birkie is and how much people there care," he said. "This is their local Olympic Games, so I’m pretty pretty psyched to be going."
Martin Johnsrud Sundby won his third-consecutive Tour de Ski by a record-breaking 3 minutes and 15 seconds and another Norwegian, Finn Hågen Krogh, bested a tight chase pack for second overall. Russian Sergey Ustiugov captured third, and Alex Harvey led the North Americans in 14th at the end of the eight-stage Tour.
Martin Johnsrud Sundby showed he's still got it, winning Saturday's 15 k classic mass start ahead of Norwegian teammate Niklas Dyrhaug and Kazakhstan's Alexey Poltoranin, for nearly a 1 1/2-minute head start in Sunday's final climb. Alex Harvey notched seventh on the day for 12th overall heading into the final stage.
Despite starting 26th in Sunday's final stage of the Tour de Ski, nearly 10 minutes back from the leader, Noah Hoffman is excited for the opportunity ahead of him. "You couldn’t design something that could be more to my strengths," he said of the infamous 9 k freestyle hill climb up Alpe Cermis.
Finn Hågen Krogh knows a lot about ups and downs, and has formed somewhat of a pattern at this year's Tour de Ski. However, the Norwegian had one of his career-best races on Friday, winning the 10 k freestyle by 3.6 seconds ahead of teammate and overall Tour leader Martin Johnsrud Sundby. Noah Hoffman placed 19th to lead the U.S., and Canadian Alex Harvey finished 37th and is now 15th in the Tour.