NorAm/SuperTour (Sovereign Lake near Vernon, British Columbia): Classic sprints On the opening day of the NorAm Continental Cup series in Canada (which doubled as a U.S. SuperTour), American Kaitlynn Miller of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) started Saturday with a nearly three-second win in the classic-sprint qualifier at the Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre, then went on to win her quarterfinal and semifinal before topping the final as well. Miller was the fastest women’s qualifier...
Sweden’s Hanna Falk went 1-2 in Sweden’s season-opening International Ski Federation (FIS) race on Friday in Gällivare, with Kalla winning the women’s 5-kilometer freestyle by 8.8 seconds in 12:58.1 minutes. Falk, her teammate on the Swedish women’s team, placed second and Russia’s Yulia Belorukova took the third spot on the podium, 10.3 seconds out of first. The host nation had three in the top four, with Ida Ingemarsdotter in fourth (+16.1). Switzerland’s Nathalie von Siebenthal...
What a year for Cross Country Canada (CCC). For the first time in history, its men’s team stood on a World Cup gold and its women’s team pulled off its Canada’s 2017/2018 national-team nominations earlier this month, FasterSkier caught up with CCC’s High Performance Director Thomas Holland and the World Cup co-coach Ivan Babikov to discuss the program moving forward. What’s changed since last year? Not much. With a strong season behind them, an Olympic season ahead and a solid coach...
With the 2016/2017 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to outstanding athletes across the nordic disciplines who had a major breakthrough at any level of racing. Previous categories:...
After last weekend’s three-day World Cup Finals mini tour drew Men | Women | Men |
Canada’s Alex Harvey has had one heck of a season. In January, he reached the top of a World Cup podium for the first time in three years. The following weekend, he helped Canada to its first-ever relay podium and two weeks before that, won the men’s team sprint in Toblach, Italy, with his teammate Len Valjas. A little more than a month later, he earned his first individual World Championships gold. The 28-year-old Harvey kept the ball rolling...
QUEBEC CITY — Friday started off about as good as the Canadian men’s team could have hoped for, with five skiers finishing in the top 30 to qualify for the heats in the 1.5-kilometer freestyle sprint on the first day of World Cup Finals. According to Cross Country Canada, that’s the first time five Canadian men have qualified in a World Cup race. Racing one lap around the Plains of Abraham in the heart of Quebec...
FIS Cross-Country World Cup Finals (Quebec City): Freestyle sprint [UPDATED] Alex Harvey wins at home. That was the news buzzing across the Plains of Abraham on Friday in Quebec City, where Canada’s leading skier won the 1.5-kilometer freestyle sprint final on Day 1 of World Cup Finals after taking control and delighting the crowd all day. The win was the seventh of Harvey’s career and his 23rd World Cup medal, according to Cross Country Canada. Last year...
For the second-straight year, the World Cup’s season-ending races will be held in Canada, with Québec City hosting 2017 World Cup Finals, this Friday through Sunday. Canada initially announced a according to a press release. On Thursday, FasterSkier confirmed that the list included the Women | U.S. selection criteria, and
LAHTI, Finland — Through the first seven medal races of 2017 Nordic World Championships, the hometown Finns came close. There was Niskanen was primed to pass Iversen for what appeared to be a golden performance. Instead of a cheer concluding the sprint, a collective exhale deflated the crowd: Niskanen and teammate Sami Jauhojärvi ultimately settled for bronze. While it wasn’t the result they had hoped for, it remained the 25-year-old Niskanen’s first World Championships medal. Another...
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Freestyle sprints Men’s report [UPDATED] Two medals for the U.S. on Day 1. That’s exactly what happened Thursday in the first medals race of 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland, where American Jessie Diggins raced to second and her U.S. teammate Kikkan Randall third in the women’s 1.4-kilometer freestyle sprint final, right behind Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla, who took gold. While Falla crossed the finish line first in...
LAHTI, Finland — Tuesday at Lahti’s venue for the 2017 Nordic World Ski Championships, the sun sets early. Although technically sunset was 5:22 p.m., the sun on this clear-sky day was still wintertime reluctant. It seemed too short a time for the sun’s transect to thaw Lahti. Temps were in the mid-to-low 20 degrees Fahrenheit. But a brisk wind called for down coats and insulated pants for those not actively skiing — in the shade, it...
IBU World Championships (Hochfilzen, Austria): Women’s & men’s mass starts Silver medal for Susan Dunklee. That’s the big news coming out of Hochfilzen, Austria, on the final day of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Championships after the American finished second, just 4.6 seconds out of first, in the women’s 12.5-kilometer mass start. Dunklee started in bib 17 in the mass start and cleaned all 20 targets to put herself in the hunt for gold....
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FIS Nordic Junior World Championships (Midway, Utah): Junior relays Hailey Swirbul, Julia Kern, Hannah Halvorsen, and Katharine Ogden on the podium. That’s right. Two days after Ogden became the first American to earn an individual medal at Junior World Championships, those four U.S. junior women listed above did the same, placing third in the 4 x 3.3-kilometer relay on the last day of 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. The team...
Nordic Skiing a global sport? Sure is. On Friday in PyeongChang, South Korea, the men contested a 1.5 k classic sprint at the 2018 Olympic venue. Russian Gleb Retivykh won the day with both Canada's Len Valjas and the U.S. Ski Team's Andy Newell making the finals.
FIS Nordic Junior World Championships (Midway, Utah): 10/20 k skiathlon A Junior World Championships medal has been on Katharine Ogden’s mind for some time — two years, to be exact. “Every day in training, it’s kind of something that I think about. It’s the little thing that helps me push myself,” Ogden, a 19-year-old member of the Stratton Mountain School and U.S. Ski Team D-team, said in a post-race interview with the U.S. Ski Team on Friday....
Last Friday through Sunday, Jan. 20-22, Whistler Olympic Park (WOP) in the Callaghan Valley hosted the NorAm Western Canadian Championships. More than 600 racers attended, making it the largest event the venue has held since 2013 Canadian nationals. Western Canadian Championships opened Friday with theSaturday, Emily Nishikawa (Canadian World Cup B-team) won the women’s 10 k classic interval start, and Andy Shields of Lappe Nordic took the men’s 15 k classic win. Sunday was team day,...
U.S. SuperTour (Truckee, Calif.): Classic sprints [UPDATED] Less than a week after being men’s 30 k classic mass start champion at this year’s U.S. nationals — won Saturday’s SuperTour classic sprint as well. Lustgarten, of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, raced to a 1.58-second victory in the men’s A-final at the Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif., finishing in 3:03.4. Ben Saxton, of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) Elite Team, placed second, and Reese...
NorAm Western Canadian Championships (Whistler, B.C.): Freestyle sprints [UPDATED] On Friday, the first day of the NorAm Western Canadian Championships at Whistler Olympic Park in Callaghan Valley, British Columbia, Dahria Beatty and Jess Cockney topped the women’s and men’s 1.2-kilometer freestyle sprint A-finals, respectively. Beatty, of the Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA) and Canada’s National U25 Team, started the day by qualifying in second, 0.31 seconds behind her fellow AWCA and U25 Team member, Olivia...