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Jessie Diggins

Johaug Remains in Reach Despite a Stage 1 Tour de Ski Win

Saturday marked the start of the 14th Tour de Ski in Lenzerheide, Switzerland. Forgoing the traditional prologue start to determine time back to the leader, organizers threw in a spicy 11-kilometer mass start freestyle. Easy to follow for fans, maybe not so much for those following in the wake of Norway’s Therese Johaug.  The scene was a Swiss winter ideal: plentiful snow, portions of the course dappled in sunlight, others shrouded in a drifting-in and...

Tour de Ski Short List

The Tour de Ski begins with a mass start bonanza on Saturday. In this non-championship year, the TDS takes on marquee status as one the season’s premier prizes. Seven stages with a variety of disciplines, this 14th edition promises a loaded field of skiers. For the women, Therese Johaug of Norway is the easy favorite. Johaug appears programmed for dominance — the TdS features five distance stages. Norway has been well suited for the TdS....

Day two in Davos, Switzerland looked much like the first; blue skies, fast tracks, and spectacular alpen backdrop. Following an interval start, athletes time-trialed through two 5-kilometer loops loops of a course that predominantly climbs the first 3k, ripping back toward the stadium the last two. Gone are the days of the stopwatch and furious arithmetic, coaches with tablets peppered the woods near checkpoints to relay information to their athletes as they skated by, hunting...

Caldwell Adds Third Place to Her Davos Resume

(An earlier version of the story mistakenly stated Caldwell had placed second. FIS live timing had Caldwell in second place. Apologies for the error.) When Davos is good, it is good on a global scale. With the Swiss valley blanketed in snow, and a gauze of high clouds keeping the race proceedings just a notch away from perfectly sun-shiny, the World Cup’s 1.5-kilometer freestyle sprint was won by twenty-year-old Swede Linn Svahn. According to the...

Red, White, and… Black? A Visual History of the USST Uniform, 2008–2019

A national team uniform for cross-country skiing has to do a lot of things. At the most utilitarian level, it has to wick sweat and aid performance while an athlete pursues one of the world’s most demanding sports at temperatures between –4 F and 40, in steady snow or driving rain or anything in between. At the functional level, it has to let spectators and coaches identify where their athlete is out on the course,...

Athletes warmed up amidst fat falling snowflakes as a storm blanketed Lillehammer, Norway. The gun fired, and a flurry of this snow clouded the boots, poles, and relay socks as a wave of skiers strode their way up and out of the Birkebeiner Stadium for the first leg of the women’s 4 x 5-kilometer relay.  With outstanding performances in the first two World Cup race weekends, it is clear that the U.S. women are hot....

Therese Johaug Notches Seventh Skiathlon Victory; Diggins Charges to 2nd

This week’s episode of the Therese Johaug show featured a clinic in her signature event, the 15-kilometer mass start skiathlon in Lillehammer, Norway. Before today, the two-time World Championship gold medalist had made the podium in 13 of her 14 World Cup skiathlon starts (six of those were wins), failing only in Oberstdorf, Germany during the 2011 Tour de Ski.  Her strategy was familiar. Johaug set the pace from the gun, attacking the first climb...

Johaug Dominates in Ruka; Three Americans in the Top Ten

Ruka, Finland looked quintessentially Nordic at the start of the 10-kilometer freestyle pursuit. December at 66 degrees north: temperatures in the low teens (F), flat Northern light, frosted pines looking as though they were spray-coated with foam. Athletes warmed up in puffy jackets with mittens, neck warmers, and taped faces while crowds huddled with cups of soup.   First out of the start and racing in a balaclava and mittens, Norway’s Theresa Johaug attacked the course...

Johaug wins as U.S. Looks Fierce: Maubet Bjornsen Fourth, Brennan Sixth in Ruka 10 k Classic (Updated with Interview Audio)

It was an elemental form of racing to open the distance events on the World Cup: the 10-kilometer interval start classic. No spoiler alert needed here. Norway’s Therese Johaug won in 26:47.5 minutes.  Johaug comes into the season having won the distance overall last year and steamrolled to two distance race victories Beitostølen, Norway last weekend. Those races were the opening Norwegian national races, but were stacked fields.  During another day with flurries, high humidity,...

A Big Day for Maubet Bjornsen as she Places Third in the Ruka Classic Sprint

A big day for Sadie Maubet Bjornsen of the U.S. Ski Team (USST) in Ruka, Finland. She placed third overall in the women’s 1.4-kilometer classic sprint.  Italy’s Lucia Scardoni established the time to beat in the qualifier, 3:03.01. Maubet Bjornsen played her fitness cards early as she qualified in second, 1:15 seconds back.  “It has been an interesting fall battling through some frustrating tendinitis in my feet that didn’t allow me to run or ski...

United States Overall in Nations Cup Last Year: 5th Women’s Ranking 2018/2019: 4th Men’s Ranking 2018/2019: 11th Americans to Watch: Seven men and nine women will be lining up in stars and stripes for the World Cup’s opening: Finland’s Ruka Triple. Three race series features a classic sprint followed by a two-day distance pursuit. At the top of the ranks, Jessie Diggins (USST/SMS T2) finished the 2019 season 6th in distance and 7th in sprint....

Beitostølen 10 k Classic: Diggins Fourth Bjornsen Fifth

FasterSkier reporter Aleks Tangen was in Beitostølen to report. As a new feature we are posting his interviews from the mixed zone in the report below.  With temps hovering around zero degree celsius in a mid-winter looking Beitostølen, Norway day two of the opening national races played out. The women raced a 10 k interval start classic race with a field, as expected loaded with Norwegians.  First thing first: Norway’s Therese Johaug showed early season futness...

Jessie Diggins’ Lifelong Journey Toward the “Gold Medal Goal” of Eating Disorder Recovery

After appearing in ESPN’s Body Issue in June 2018, Jessie Diggins Diggins recommends utilizing resources from the “What to Say Initiative” launched by the WithAll Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on advancing eating disorder support and prevention. She explained that though a coach cannot cause an eating disorder in an athlete, research suggests that the language used by prominent adults in a young person’s life can greatly influence that persons’ body image, self-esteem, and likelihood...

News Brief for the Week: The Mountain Runners & Skiers

Needless to say, cross-country athletes have big motors. Let’s start with The Rut 50-kilometer mountain run in Big Sky, Montana. With 10,000 feet of climbing and descending, it’s a burly affair. On September 1st, Erika Flowers, cross-country skier of note and Bozeman local, won the women’s 50 k overall in a time of 6:51:52.41 hours. This was Flowers’ first 50 k running race. South of rugged Montana, in the thin air of Colorado, Liz Stephen won The...

Hamilton on New Boards and U.S. Team Ramps up for Toppidrettsveka

By the time you read this piece, some skiers from the U.S. Ski Team (USST) will be settling in Trondheim, Norway for a two and a half week training camp. In total, five are making the journey from the U.S. The sixth skier, Kevin Bolger, no stranger to training in the region, has been in Trondheim for nearly a month. Bolger’s experience in Trondheim goes deep. He has trained there in the off season for...

Recover Smarter, Not Harder: A Review of “Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn From the Strange Science of Recovery” and Interview With Author Christie Aschwanden

If you’ve ever set a lofty athletic goal, one that required full commitment, going all in and pulling out all of the stops to optimize your training, you may have searched for strategies to similarly optimize your recovery between sessions, getting you back on the ski trails feeling strong as quickly as possible. In this process, you may have found yourself perusing a seemingly endless array of devices, foods, and drinks, each promising to improve...

Sprint and Distance Rollerski Racing from the Sommarland Skifestival in Norway

Notable for the Norwegian names in the field, several Brits, and a lone American, a series of sprint and distance rolllerski races were held this past week in the Telemark region of Norway. Jessie Diggins of the U.S. Ski Team spent the week in Norway training with the Langrenns Rekruttlag ski team prior to the weekend’s racing.  On Friday, organizers held a skate sprint called the Sommarlandsprinten.  Women’s Podium:  Maiken Caspersen Falla, Gjerdrum IL 2:24.28...

The Seeds of Collaborative Coaching

Fostering cultural change within complex organizations is painstaking. U.S. Ski & Snowboard is no different. Most often the most effective type of change comes less from edict and more from many a collection of stakeholder’s voice For the past decade, the U.S. cross-country team has had unparalleled success. Whether the metric is developing athletes to winning medals, most observers see a winning culture. That has not kept the minds at U.S. Ski & Snowboard from...

IMHO: The Most Challenging Cross-Country World Cup Courses

At the close of the season, after some striding and skating on some heavy courses, FasterSkier sent out a query to get some athletes’ opinions on which course (distance and sprint) was the most difficult? We also asked which specific World Cup climb was the deepest-dig grind. Here are the responses. We’ve included some course profiles for reference at the end of the piece. In your opinion what World Cup distance course is the most...

May 30 news roundup: Mental health; meet the D-Team; and more

It’s late May. Athletes are a month into official training for the 2019/2020 season. Here’s some recent news of note from the domestic and international nordic ski world. German cyclist confesses to doping following Seefeld sting The police action in Seefeld, Austria, at the time of the 2019 World Championships that led to the arrest of several athletes and this remarkable and candid interview with Estonian skier Karel Tammjärv has led to another athlete leaving...