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
IBU Biathlon World Cup (Kontiolahti, Finland): Single Mixed Relay In the last single mixed relay of the season, Susan Dunklee held the lead after two loops of skiing. She was looking for a top tag-off to American Lowell Bailey, but she crashed on a downhill. Nevertheless, she was able to focus on the shooting range and climb back into podium position. The leaders were gone, however: Simon Eder and Lisa Therese Hauser of Austria ran away with the...
Drammen is one of those staples on the World Cup, appearing on the circuit late each season and remembered for its trademark uphill finish in the middle of a city of 63,000 inhabitants, just 40 kilometers west of Oslo, Norway. “It tends to be fairly predictable snow,” U.S. Ski Team Women’s Coach Matt Whitcomb told FasterSkier during an in-person interview in Drammen on Wednesday. “It’s generally clean [snow]. It’s generally some sort of klister.” But...
Whew, that was a whirlwind. Over the last two and a half weeks of Nordic World Championships racing in Lahti, Finland, we witnessed the U.S. and Canadian cross-country teams capture a total of four medals: silver and bronze in the women’s freestyle sprint (with Americans Sadie Bjornsen), and gold in the final race of World Championships: the men’s 50-kilometer freestyle mass start (won by Canada’s Lazenbyphoto.com. (Click each photo to enlarge)
LAHTI, Finland — 1, 2, 3, 4: Norway’s Marit Bjørgen, Norway’s Heidi Weng, Norway’s Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, Norway’s Ragnhild Haga. That’s how the women’s 30-kilometer freestyle mass start at the 2017 Nordic World Championships ended on Saturday. Bjørgen has two previous 30-kilometer championship titles, but Saturday’s was her first in freestyle. She won the race in 1:08:36.8 hours, just 1.9 seconds ahead of a hard-charging, photo-finishing Weng for second and Jacobsen for third. Haga finished...
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Women’s 30 k freestyle mass start Marit Bjørgen made it a four-peat on Saturday with her fourth gold and third individual win over the last week at 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland. (She previously won the 15-kilometer skiathlon, 10 k classic, and 4 x 5 k relay.) The 36-year-old Norwegian closed out the championships with a 1.9-second victory in the women’s 30-kilometer freestyle mass start, finishing in 1:08:36.8...
LAHTI, Finland—The Norwegian lineup for the women’s 4 x 5-kilometer team at the 2017 Nordic World Championships on Thursday was daunting: Maiken Caspersen Falla, Heidi Weng, Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, Marit Bjørgen. On paper and on snow, a rundown of names and accomplishments. Here during these Lahti championships the Norse foursome have hauled; Falla and Weng with a classic team sprint gold, Bjørgen a 15 k skiathlon gold, and Jacobsen’s hardware was a bronze in the 10 k classic. On Thursday...
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Women’s 4 x 5 k relay The Norwegian women’s team got a much-needed lift from Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, the third leg of its 4 x 5-kilometer relay, on Thursday, who tagged her teammate Marit Bjørgen nearly a minute ahead of anyone else. From there, Bjørgen anchored the Norwegians to a 1:01.6-minute victory for her third gold of 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland. Meanwhile, Sweden and Finland battled for...
LAHTI, Finland — Moments before the women’s 10-kilometer classic individual start at the 2017 Nordic World Championships on Tuesday, temperatures read 35 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity hovered around 97 percent — the air nearly saturated. Earlier in the day, a near-ground fog lapped the tops of the three iconic ski jumps looming above the ski stadium. In contrast to earlier classic events at these championships — a 15 k skiathlon, and classic team sprint — the...
LAHTI, Finland — While Monday marked a rest day for skiers competing in the 2017 Nordic World Championships, FasterSkier took the opportunity to sit down and chat with Sadie Bjornsen of the U.S. Ski Team, one day after she earned bronze with teammate Jessie Diggins in the women’s 1.3-kilometer classic team sprint. Not only was it Bjornsen’s first-career World Championships medal, it was the first for the U.S. women’s program in a World Championships classic race....
LAHTI, Finland — Statistically speaking, most might have bet on the Swede — particularly if it came down to a lunge to the line. After all, that’s how Sweden’s Stina Nilsson 2017 sprint world champion Maiken Caspersen Falla. On two other occasions, Nilsson has skate sprinted to the win in a photo finish — once during freestyle sprint in Falun, Sweden. Perhaps most memorably, it’s also how the Swede gold at the 2013 World Championships in Val...
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Classic team sprints Defending champions Norway repeated gold in the women’s team sprint, with Heidi Weng and Maiken Caspersen Falla crossing the finish line first in Lahti, Finland. On the second-to-last loop, it looked like Russia could have something to say about that. Yulia Belorukova put in a furious sprint up the course’s biggest climb, and then beat Weng to the exchange. But her teammate Natalia Matveeva could not match the pace when Falla...
LAHTI, Finland — Electric. With every jumbotron shot of Finland’s Krista Parmakoski or a glimpse of her powerful compact-frame as she lapped through the stadium, the hometown Finns were electric. White and blue flags waved. Like anywhere in the world when a brilliant athletic performance unfolds in the home country, the roars for Parmakoski were deafening. From the start, she emitted a big dose of hope for fans in Lahti during Saturday’s 15-kilometer skiathlon at the...
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): 15/30 k skiathlons This one’s for you, kid. Marit Bjørgen became the second relatively new mom to medal in the second race of 2017 Nordic World Championships on Saturday (after American Kikkan Randall earned victory in Thursday’s 12.5 k individual, Bankes placed 13th and Ellingson achieved her best non-relay result in 18th at Thursday’s 15 k individual) in fifth (+38.2). Cody Johnson was the top American in 46th (+3:02.9), followed by...
LAHTI, Finland — FasterSkier had an opportunity to interview Women |
On an unsettled night for weather where it snowed off and on during the freestyle sprint heats in Lahti, two things were settled: The U.S. Ski Team hauled in two pieces of hardware, Jessie Diggins scored silver, Kikkan Randall took bronze.
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 — Yesterday’s lick of blue sky winter sun was fleeting, as Lahti woke to overcast skies and buzz that new snow was imminent. Race time temps hovered around 24 degrees Fahrenheit, but with 78-percent humidity and a brisk wind — some would say ripping — blowing out of the west, it felt wind-brief cold. Wednesday’s kickoff events were an opportunity for volunteers, camera crews and even hundreds of local Finnish school children who...
In another 20-something-question, fill-in-the-blanks series, we checked in with the world-class U.S. and Canadian biathletes that will be competing at 2017 International Biathlon Union (IBU) Youth & Junior World Championships Feb. 22-28 in Osrblie (also known as Brezno-Osrblie), Slovakia. Here’s 19-year-old Nina Armstrong, of Harvard University, who will be representing the U.S. at her first Junior Worlds. *** “My full name is Nina Joy Armstrong. I was born in Albany, N.Y., raised in Lake Placid, N.Y., and one thing you should know...
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...