What’s the significance of 0.39 seconds? For most of us, it’s the blink of an eye. For a midpack World Cup racer, it’s the difference between Tour de Ski start rights and staying home over the holidays. Swiss–Canadian skier Heidi Widmer and the meaning of margins.
A weekend of World Cup action in Davos, Switzerland, saw two Norwegian women take top honors: Maiken Caspersen Falla in the skate sprint. Here’s all the reporting – and there’s a lot – that didn’t make it into the race reports. On ending up in a sprint heat with your teammate “I picked that heat because it was just the heat with the least amount of people at the time. You never want to be...
DAVOS, Switzerland—After winning the first 15 k World Cup of her career on Saturday, Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg – long considered a sprint specialist – noted that maybe it was sprinting she actually needed to work on. One day later, there’s no doubt that she’s still got it. Østberg finished second behind teammate Maiken Caspersen Falla in the freestyle sprint, and took the overall World Cup lead from another teammate, Heidi Weng. “I will sleep...
It was 50 degrees and sunny on Monday in Rasnov, Romania, which sounds pleasant, but what's it like racing in? "Pretty darn hot," Julia Kern explained, after racing to a career-best 16th in the freestyle sprint on Day 1 of Junior/U23 World Championships. Another American, Logan Hanneman placed 15th, and Julien Locke led Canada in 16th in the U23 men's race.
Two 22-year-old sprinters topped the podium in the men's and women's freestyle sprints in Bruksvallarna, Sweden, with Norway's Havard Solås Taugbøl beating four Swedes and Even Northug in the men's final and Stina Nilsson denying Charlotte Kalla of her third-straight victory.
For all the international-racing junkies out there, the Swedish and Norwegian Ski Associations recently announced the nominations to their 2014/2015 national teams: a couple new names, a few departures, but both are back again with depth in numbers.
The Junior World Championships ended Monday with the junior relays, where Norway won the men's race and Sweden took the women's team title, and the Canadian women had the top North American finish in 10th.
With a World Cup sprint victory already under his belt, Russia's Sergey Ustiugov racked up another U23 title and Jessie Diggins came oh-so-close, winning the women's qualifier then placing second to Germany's Elisabeth Schicho in the final. France's Jean Tiberghien won the junior men's sprint, Sweden's Jonna Sundling captured her first individual junior title, and Canada's Katherine Stewart-Jones placed 15th.
Led by two-time individual champion Dmitry Rostovtsev, Russia racked up another victory in the men's relay on Sunday, the last day of Junior Worlds. In the women's relay, Sweden's Stina Nilsson used her sprinting ability to charge late and oust Russia's Nadezhda Shuniaeva .
Dmitry Rostovtsev led a Russian sweep of the podium in the junior mens 20 k skiathlon in Liberec, Czech Republic, on Friday. The lone non-Russian to break through to the medals was the women's winner, Teresa Stadlober of Austria, who held a charging Nadezhda Shuniaeva at bay for the victory.