FIS Cross-Country World Cup in Kuusamo, Finland: 10 k/ 15 k Classic Sunday in Kuusamo brought closure to the World Cup’s opening weekend. The women contested a 10-kilometer interval start classic race. In her first World Cup race after serving a suspension for testing positive for a banned substance, Norway’s Therese Johaug won in a time of 28:02.5 minutes. By the time check at 3.3 k, Johaug had begun to control the pace and the...
From an outsider’s perspective, it seemed Johannes Høsflot Klæbo of Norway would open his World Cup 2018/2019 season with the familiarity of a win. The first FIS cross-country race of the year, a 1.4-kilometer classic sprint in Kuusamo, Finland, saw the 22-year-old round the course’s final turn in first, holding off his closest competitor, Alexander Bolshunov of Russia, by close to two meters. Approaching the finishing stretch, Norway’s cross-country sprint king was still dictating the...
FIS Cross-Country World Cup in Kussamo, Finland: Classic sprint Men’s Report | Women’s Report On Saturday in Kussamo, Finland the 2018/2019 World Cup season began with a 1.4-kilometer classic sprint. Twenty-three-year-old Yulia Belorukova from Russia won the final in 2:52.62 minutes. It was Belorukova’s first World Cup win. Second place went to Sweden’s twenty-four-year-old Maja Dahlqvist who crossed the line 1.12 seconds back. Also from Sweden, Ida Ingemarsdotter was third (+1.51), Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla...
Cross Country Canada (CCC) has begun a reboot process as the new Olympic cycle starts. Corporations call this a reset, a rebranding, a new direction, restructuring, and various other names that try to disguise the challenges and issues that come with enacting real change. The reboot process traditionally starts with an acknowledgement that the current level of success, and that of the foreseeable future, doesn’t align with the goals or the potential of the organization....
Welcome to FasterSkier’s World Cup Preview, where we check in with the top-10 teams from last year’s FIS Cross Country World Cup tour before the season starts. The World Cup begins with a classic sprint in Ruka, Finland on Nov. 24th. *** Canada Overall in Nations Cup Last Year: 10th Women’s Ranking 2017/2018: 18th Men’s Ranking 2017/2018: 8th Canadians to Watch: Canada has shape-shifted it’s world cup team as part of a larger restructuring of...
The North American season kicked off today with classic sprints at Frozen Thunder in Canmore, Alberta. Most of the top athletes were treating this as a chance to do some race intensity and were more focused on training and process goals than on actual results. The day’s results are summarized in the rundown. Chief of Competition Thomas Holland had expected a smaller turnout this year, partly from fewer people traveling to Frozen Thunder in a...
Day 1 Frozen Thunder (Canmore, Canada) Classic Sprint The first day of race season at Canmore Nordic Centre’s Frozen Thunder began with a classic sprint. Frozen Thunder is an annual on-snow event at the Canmore Nordic Centre run on a ski loop crafted from last season’s stored snow. The tracks are open to both high-performance athletes and the general public depending on training and race schedules. In the senior men’s category, Russell Kennedy (Team...
press release. Notably, the World Cup A-team is made up of one man — Alex Harvey — after three athletes from Devon Kershaw, Jess Cockney and Knute Johnsgaard). Graeme Killick, of last season’s World Cup B-team, also retired. Len Valjas was nominated to the B-team, a demotion, he said, that was a result of him ending his season immediately after the PyeongChang Olympics. “The reasoning is that I … didn’t show up to [the World...
Saturday was the second day of World Cup Finals mini tour, held in Falun, Sweden, which conclude the 2017/2018 season. Holmenkollen 50 k skate. World Cup Finals conclude with 10/15 k freestyle pursuits on Sunday. Falun mini-tour standings|
FIS Cross Country World Cup Finals (Falun, Sweden): 10/15 k classic mass starts Men’s report Day 2 of World Cup Finals in Falun entailed 10- and 15-kilometer classic mass starts on Saturday, and in the first race of the day, Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski pulled out a thrilling finishing-sprint victory over Norway’s Marit Bjørgen. After American Jessie Diggins led early in the first 2.5 k loop, Bjørgen set the tone from the front for most of...
At 21 years old, Johannes Høsflot Klæbo of Norway had already locked up his second-consecutive Sprint World Cup Crystal Globe several weeks ago. A down-to-the-wire, season-ending finale for the sprint globe was out of the question. Klæbo has simply been that good. Out of 11 sprint races this season, Klæbo won the seven out of the nine sprints he contested. He placed second and third, respectively, in the other two. One word to describe it...
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Drammen, Norway): Classic sprints Men’s report The cross-country World Cup hit the city on Wednesday, with classic sprints contested in the Oslo suburb of Drammen on snow which had been trucked onto the streets. And the crowd was rewarded with wins by two Norwegian favorites: Maiken Caspersen Falla in the women’s sprint and Johannes Høsflot Klæbo in the men’s race. In the women’s final, Falla and Natalia Nepryaeva of Russia battled at the lead for...
You could call him a specialist. An all-around contender in classic distance races, Alexey Poltoranin of Kazakhstan has proven time and time again that he has the 15-kilometer classic individual start figured out. On Sunday in Lahti, Finland, he set a new World Cup record by winning his eighth-career 15 k classic (including both individual and mass-start formats). He had previously tied Swedish legend last 15 k classic contested in Planica, Slovenia. Three of Poltoranin’s...
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Lahti, Finland): 10/15 k classic Men’s report Racing at home in Finland, Krista Pärmäkoski picked a good time to collect the second World Cup victory of her career, and again in a 10 k classic. Pärmäkoski’s first win came in the 10 k classic in Planica, Slovenia, earlier this season. In second was Russia’s Natalia Nepryaeva, who picked up her first World Cup podium. The current U23 standings leader, Nepryaeva’s time was 20.9...
The men’s freestyle sprint final in Lahti, Finland, started in almost comical fashion: the six men who had made it to the final heat of the day skied slowly, then even slower, as nobody wanted to lead. The final was full of dangerous men. Norwegian youngster Johannes Høsflot Klæbo has won five sprints this season, and he just became an Olympic gold medalist in the sprint in PyeongChang, South Korea, a mere ten days ago....
(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Americans Lauren Jortberg and Ian Torchia.) U23 World Championships (Goms, Switzerland): 15/30 k skiathlons On the final day of U23 World Championships racing in Goms, Russia stole the show in the women’s and men’s skiathlons. Anastasia Sedova led them in the first race of the day on Friday, the women’s 15-kilometer skiathlon, which she won in 44:03.6 minutes. Russia swept the podium and had four...
There are no brakes for the World Cup until Sunday afternoon in Seefeld, Austria. The Opening Ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics is Feb. 9. For the champing-at-the-bit thoroughbreds in Seefeld, Saturday featured the last sprint before the Games: a 1.4-kilometer freestyle sprint. If you were thinking the World Cup’s sprint leaders were taking a “taper” weekend in the run-up to PyeongChang, you’d be wrong. Jumping into the mix were overall Sprint World Cup leader...
FIS Nordic Combined World Cup (Seefeld, Austria): Normal hill/10 k Two of the same men from Jumping | Women’s report Women’s final Men’s qualifier | Friday’s sprint and thus started first), and shot clean to take the lead after the third stage — where Varvynets missed one. Chevalier went on to clean the final stage for perfect 20-for-20 shooting and crossed the line first in 29:25.4. Varvynets finished second, 11.0 seconds back after missing a...
(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Canada’s Bob Thompson.) Federico Pellegrino’s winning move in the men’s 6 x 1.2-kilometer freestyle team sprint on Sunday wasn’t exactly the same as yesterday when the Italian attacked on the final climb of the Saturday’s individual sprint, Locke placed 15th for a career best. The two ultimately finished seventh in the first team-sprint semifinal, just one place behind Great Britain’s James Clugnet and Andrew Young....
How do you beat Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo at his competition-crushing game? Take him by surprise with minimal time to recover. Italy’s Federico Pellegrino did just that on the last uphill rise of the 1.2-kilometer sprint course on Saturday in Dresden, Germany. Dresden, a historic city in eastern Germany, debuted its brand-new course along the Elbe River on manmade snow amid damp conditions and temperatures above freezing throughout the day. Pellegrino had done what he...