VERNON, British Columbia — Throughout Saturday’s NorAm Cup Teck Sprints, Jessie Diggins made a point to look back. There were a lot of things the current SuperTour leader and Central Cross Country (CXC) skier was working on, but keeping her distance ranked near the top. “I’ve had problems where I’ll get stepped on or pushed over or something,” said Diggins, who claimed her second classic sprint victory in the 1.2 k event in as many...
Jessie Diggins (CXC/USST) continued her early season dominance in the 10 k classic in Bozeman, MT on Sunday. Her 35.7-second victory over Maria Graefnings (University of Utah) was her third-straight win of the weekend. Kate Fitzgerald of APU finished third (+1:06.7). “I really had a lot of fun today,” said Diggins. “Sometimes when people say ‘have fun out there’ I think it’s more likely that the race is going to hurt like crazy. But today’s race...
It seems that Central Cross Country (CXC) is the team to bet on this year; at least one woman from the Midwestern squad has been in the top two in every race on the SuperTour thus far. Together, Jessie Diggins and Caitlin Gregg have taken up half of the podium spots available in the past six races, and on Saturday they continued their dominance by going 1-2 in both the morning skate sprint prologue and...
Jessie Diggins (CXC/USST) has her eyes set on bigger and better things down the road, but that has not stopped her from turning in an impressive series of races in West Yellowstone. On a cold, sunny morning in Montana, Diggins hammered through the 5km classic race in a time of 14:58.2, good for a 13.7 second victory over Kate Fitzgerald (APU). Jennie Bender (CXC) concluded the opening SuperTour weekend with another strong race, taking third,...
With four separate races run in West Yellowstone on Wednesday, there was a lot going on. Here are bits and pieces of what didn’t make the official race report cut: On Getting the Season Started “At the start of the season you never quite know where you’re at, it takes a bit of time to get into the race season. We typically try to have our athletes start in good shape.” Chris Jeffries, Alberta...
The 2011-2012 SuperTour kicks off Wednesday morning with a two-round, individual-start sprint in West Yellowstone, MT. Racers will first cover the 1.5 k point-to-point course on classic skis, then recover for a bit before heading out again on skate equipment. The fastest combined time of the day for men and women takes the win. The most noticeable feature of the course is the finish, a steep climb that will leave athletes spent at the end...
While most of the spotlight was focused on Lake Placid this weekend, about 60 skiers from around the country toed the line in Duluth, MN for the first ever North Shore Rollerski Marathon on September 17. Topping the podium for the 26.2 mile point-to-point tour of Lake Superior’s north shore were Duluth native Andre Watt (Rossignol), who won a close race against Central Cross Country’s (CXC) Brian Gregg, and Jennie Bender (CXC), who beat runner-up...
For Central Cross Country’s Jennie Bender, summer is for both building strength and taking time out for unstructured workouts. The winner of the classic race at last year’s Birkie tries to balance the exact focus of specific strength training with free form over distance. By losing track of time on a long run or canoe paddle, she gets inspired to challenge herself with a grueling intensity session. Her go-to intervals, usually done on classic skis,...
The 38th annual American Birkebeiner, held in sub-zero and single-digit temperatures with record particpation, saw two sprint finishes to crown the men’s and women’s Birkie freestyle champions and a pair of UVM alums ski to sizable victories in the Birkie Classic on Saturday. Norwegian Tore Martin Gundersen won the 50K Birkie Freestyle race with a time of 2:00:32.8, furiously outsprinting his nearest opponent, Benoit Chauvet of France, by less than a second. Twenty seconds later,...
Last year, the Birkie Elite Sprints, held on Main Street in Hayward, Wisconsin, two days before the Birkie, were a mostly American affair. Morten Pedersen of Norway won the men’s race, but most of the other top finishers were natives – including Audrey Weber, then skiing for CXC, who won the women’s heats. This year, things changed. The men’s final on Tuesday came down to a battle between Norwegian teammates Vetle Thyli and Martin Andersen....
The group of junior and U23 skiers who stayed in Europe to race a series of Scandinavian Cup races in Latvia and Estonia wrapped up their Baltic stay with strong results. Reese Hanneman (APU), the lone US man to start, finished 36th in the 15km classic. “It was a very positive experience, even beyond the good (relatively, for me) result, because I got to ski with some very fast guys that were lapping through with me,”...
Ida Sargent (CGRP) has been struggling to find her top form following a December car accident. But things may be looking up for the World Championship-bound 23-year-old. Sargent skied to a strong fifth place finish in the 1.2km classic Scandinavian Cup sprint in Jõulumäe, Estonia on Saturday morning. “Today was really good,” Sargent wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “It was the best I’ve felt during a race since November so I think Im on...
Calgary, Alberta/Bethel, Maine – Fast and Female’s third annual US X-Country Ski Festival held on Sunday, January 9 in Bethel, Maine will go down in history as a tremendous success. Hosted by Gould Academy, the event saw 140 girls from Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire between the ages of 9 to 19 years old take part in a day of inspiration with female Olympic ambassadors and US Cross-Country Ski Team athletes Morgan Arritola and New...
Conditions were as forecasted – warm, wet, (although during race times there was no precipitation) dirty, and soft. The wax recommendation held up all day and as we recommended, more structure was needed as the day went on. Attention to detail proved to be very important today as well. Small things made a difference especially in a short race with extreme conditions (wet and dirty) and with a finishing section consisting of a downhill with...
After struggling to crack the top-30 on the World Cup last season, Canadian Perianne Jones knew she needed some time on the domestic circuit this year to get her feet back under her. “I’ve raced on the World Cup the last two seasons before Christmas—especially last season, I didn’t feel like I belonged,” she said. “I want to feel like I’m ready to race the World Cup when I’m on the World Cup.” If Jones...
Morrisville, VT – Both skiers and non-skiers alike succeeded in the 2nd Annual SkiErg World Sprints; Christopher McLaughlin, who uses the SkiErg at home for fitness, set a new men’s world- record time of 3:01.9, while CXC Team Vertical Limit member Jennie Bender won the women’s event in 3:51.6. McLaughlin, 39, started rowing and skiing after years of lifting, work and running hurt his knees. The Concept2 Indoor Rower and SkiErg provided him with a...
Big changes to the team roster and the coaching staff are this spring’s news for the Central Cross-Country Ski Association (CXC). 18 athletes and three coaches will comprise the 2011 team for one of North America’s largest and fastest-growing clubs. Vacating the post of head coach that he held since the formation of CXC in 2006, Bryan Fish has accepted a position with the US Ski Team (USST) as Continental Cup coach. Jason Cork will...
Stowe, VT— University of Vermont skier Jennie Bender (Johnson, VT) opened a large gap on the final hill of yesterdays’s one kilometer women’s sprint final at Trapp Family Lodge and earned victory in the season’s first Eastern Cup. In the men’s final, Maine Winter Sports Center’s David Chamberlain (Caribou, ME) similarly skied away from the field, earning the victory by a large margin. Dartmouth College teammates Sophie Caldwell (Peru, VT) and Ida Sargent (Orleans, VT)...