Out of a crowd of 20,000 people watching at the 2011 World Ski Championships, there can’t have been more than a few dozen who were disappointed when American Kikkan Randall crashed out of the women’s sprint. After all, the race was in Oslo, and as a big favorite, Randall was one of the only athletes expected to threaten the hometown favorite, Norwegian superwoman Marit Bjoergen. So when Randall slipped on one of Ida Ingemarsdotter’s (SWE)...
The three day Beitostolen FIS race series in Norway concluded with a frigid race, featuring delayed start times and shortened distances. But this did not stop American skiers from continuing to turn in strong performances on the track. The races were originally scheduled as 15/30km freestyle events, but with predicted highs in the low single digits, the always cold-wary Norwegians opted to cut the distance to 10/15km. The US women packed the top of the...
With a squad composed of four individual medalists, the Norwegians skied to victory in the women’s relay at the World Junior Championships on Monday. The Norwegians were trailing slightly to Germany after a tough first leg by Ragnhild Haga. But Martina Ek Hagen took over, closed the gap, and handed the race off to Heidi Weng, who broke the Russian and Swedish teams with a big attack on the skate course’s steepest, toughest climb in...
Good thing Jessie Diggins has perspective. Sure, it doesn’t hurt that she’s only 19, with plenty more international racing in her future, including a trip to the 2011 World Ski Championships later this winter. But still, some athletes would be bitter, disappointed, or downright pissed off to crash out of contention in a big race they had a shot at winning. Not Diggins, who picked herself up after a broken pole in the first kilometer...
Last winter, Jessie Diggins was just another up-and-coming American cross-country skier. At U.S. Nationals, she raced to a solid-but-unspectacular ninth place in the classic sprint, and at the 2010 World Junior Championships in Germany, her top finish was a 25th place, in the 10 k pursuit. What a difference a year makes. After collecting her first national title earlier this month, and only a couple of days removed from illness, Diggins placed seventh in the...
Just before the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) named its team traveling to the 2011 World Championships in Oslo, Brian Gregg got a voicemail from U.S. Ski Team Head Coach Chris Grover. Gregg, a strong domestic skier on CXC’s Team Vertical Limit, was ranked eighth nationally, and had a shot—albeit a small one—at being selected to the group heading to Worlds. But the news from Grover was disappointing: Gregg’s results had been good, but...
January 12, 2011 (Park City, UT) – World Championship silver medalist Kikkan Randall (Anchorage) will lead a strong 2011 U.S. Cross Country World Championship Team to compete at Holmenkollen in Oslo beginning Feb. 24. Randall is one of 14 athletes named Wednesday to compete in the biennial Championships. The International Ski Federation’s 2011 Nordic World Ski Championships are especially important this year, taking place in the heart of nordic skiing and in its most prestigious...
Twelve athletes were named to the US Junior World Championships team Friday. They all bring experience and ambition to the races in Otepää, Estonia, January 25-31.
At 19 years old and 5’4”, CXC’s Jessie Diggins isn’t all that big. But her performance at the 2011 U.S. National Championships this week has a lot of people expecting big things—and that was before Saturday. Diggins closed out an impressive week in Rumford, ME with a storybook finish in the women’s skate sprint, coming from behind after a fall on the last rise to top Dartmouth’s Sophie Caldwell in a lunge, with APU’s Sadie...
US Nationals Skate Sprint Race Report Waxing was interesting today and showed why I am happy to be a Toko man. I was expecting a lot of styrofoam-like manmade snow mixed in with the bit of old snow that remained. Somehow the snow changed and today skied more like “normal” snow. The wax recommendation would have rocked for sure in what we were expecting so I was relieved to see that the HF Blue/XCold mix...
At last season’s U.S. national championships in Anchorage, Jessie Diggins was a very strong junior skier, but not a whole lot more than that. Fast forward 12 months, and she’s transformed herself into a legitimate title threat through a post-grad year with Central Cross-Country’s Team Vertical Limit. After popping a couple podiums in domestic races in the fall, Diggins put the country’s elite women on notice in Saturday’s skate sprint qualifier at the U.S. championships...
Conditions matched what we expected when doing the wax tip. The only thing was that light snowfall fell sometimes, but didn’t affect conditions really and it didn’t accumulate at all. Being that there was so much sitting in a tuck on this course, ski speed played an even more central role. You had to have fast skis. Our glide wax tip was straight forward and held up well. For kick, it was more complicated as...
Classic distance races are on tap for the U.S. National Championships in Rumford, ME on Wednesday, after two days of rest to allow for optimal course preparation. Volunteers, coaches, and even U.S. Ski Team member Liz Stephen worked with heavy equipment and shovels throughout Tuesday, leaving a 2.5-kilometer loop available for racing at Rumford’s Black Mountain. Under clear skies and with temperatures cooler—in the 20’s—the action gets started with the women’s 10 k at 10...
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...
Jessie Diggins (CXC Elite) might be the youngest on the CXC Elite squad, but the 19-year-old has stepped up to the challenges of the senior circuit. And she still has more to offer.
While racers on the World Cup have voiced concern over the mini tour format following the FIS World Cup mini-tour in Kuusamo, Finland, earlier this season, North American racers overwhelmingly welcome the format.
“Jessie Diggins basically blew by us on the last lap,” said Holly Brooks, who was leading the tour Sunday morning. Sadie Bjornsen (APUNSC) also gapped Brooks at the end, and left Brooks in third place for the overall Nor-Am minitour.
With Friday’s skate sprint opener at the Rossland mini-tour serving as a winner-takes-all qualifying race for the Canadian World Championships team, smart money said that the Canucks would come out swinging. And they did—at least one of them. After sneaking through her quarter- and semi-final heats, Perianne Jones (Canadian National B-Team) roared out of the start in the finals, intent on staying out of trouble and keeping her Oslo dreams from sliding away in a...
It’s that time of year again! Snow is falling, trails are open and groomed, and it’s time to toss the rollerskis in the basement. There are a couple of reasons why rollerskis are great for cross training; they allow you to develop your ski muscles, work on balance, develop arm strength you can’t get while running … and they are the closest thing to actual skiing when you aren’t fortunate enough to live on a...
