If you’ve read the International Ski Federation’s (FIS) website in the last few weeks and deviated from exploring the cross-country sub-site, U.S. alpine star Mikaela Shiffrin has been prominently featured. Her season was record-breaking. With 17 wins, she set a FIS World Cup record for alpine victories in a single season. With the fattening of her win total, was the commensurate growth of her bank account. She became the first World Cup...
Beginning this Saturday in Toblach, Italy with a freestyle sprint is the 13th edition of the Tour de Ski (TdS). According to the International Ski Federation (FIS), over the course of seven stages the men will race 80.918 kilometers, the women 60.67 k. The TdS has become both a staple and a spectacle of the annual World Cup calendar. With a jam-packed series of races primacy is placed on both the ability to recover well...
After an 18 month suspension for a positive out of competition positive doping test, during which Norway’s thirty-year-old Therese Johaug could build hour upon hour of base fitness and fine tune the engine with no race-stress, she arrived in Beitostølen, Norway on Friday and didn’t skip a beat. In temperatures hovering around 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and low-level clouds descending on the course, Johaug established herself as the early season favorite amongst a deep Norwegian National Team...
Welcome to The Rundown, your quick primer of need-to-know information about the day’s racing. We’ll be updating this digest as the day goes on with additional results, photos and quotes. The Rundown is NOT a race report; stay tuned for complete race reports later today with interviews from the day’s top racers. *** FIS cross-country Beitostølen, Norway: 10 k/15 k classic The race results are in from today’s 10-kilometer individual start classic FIS race in Beitostølen, Norway....
There’s a reason Kevin Bolger has spent his last four summers in Trondheim, Norway, rent free. You could say it started in 2014, when his older brother, Conor, began his Ph.D. work at the Centre for Elite Sports Research in Trondheim. As a doctoral candidate in the center’s neuroscience department, Conor’s work involved lab time. Specifically, lactate and VO2 max testing on Norwegian cross-country and nordic-combined national team members. Conor soon established a relationship with a number...
The 2018 Blink Ski Festival continued in full force on Friday and Saturday, with cross-country and biathlon prologues, 10- and 15-kilometer cross-country races and biathlon mass starts all taking place on Friday, followed by sprints on Saturday. Results: Men’s cross-country prologue After the elite men’s prologue, athletes geared up for a men’s and women’s biathlon prologues. Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø took the men’s biathlon prologue win in a time of 10:30.2 after two misses (1+1)....
The Blink Ski Festival’s famed Lysebotn Opp hill climb returned on Thursday, and with it, a familiar name landed at the top of the results. After serving last year’s Lysebotn Opp in 33:18.3, telling NRK at the time that “it’s been long since I’ve been in this good a shape in July.” Kalla’s 2017/2018 season went on to be one of her best. She racked up 10 individual wins, including a gold medal in the Olympic...
About seven minutes into the women’s 10-kilometer freestyle mass start on Sunday at the World Cup in Seefeld, Austria, Jessie Diggins made her intentions clear. She wasn’t in it for a free ride — she was willing to pull, and not just take her turn up front, but actually try to string out the field and win this thing. As she led a group of 31 within 15 seconds of her at 3.3 k, Diggins,...
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Planica, Slovenia): 10/15 k classic Men’s report Just when it looked like one of those Charlotte-Kalla days, Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski swooped in and topped the Swede’s time by 3.6 seconds in the women’s 10-kilometer classic individual start on Sunday for her first-career outright World Cup win. Outright meaning non-stage; Pärmäkoski has two World Cup wins to her name for setting the fastest time of day in 2016 pursuit races. But...
Welcome to The Rundown, your quick primer of need-to-know information about the day’s racing. We’ll be updating this digest as the day goes on with additional results, photos and quotes. The Rundown is NOT a race report; stay tuned for complete race reports later today with interviews from the day’s top racers. *** U.S. SuperTour opener in West Yellowstone: Freestyle sprints [UPDATE] The U.S. domestic season opened in West Yellowstone, Mont., with 1.3-kilometer freestyles on...
BEITOSTØLEN, Norway — Saturday’s 10-kilometer freestyle individual start was, from the start, all about Marit Bjørgen. Her previous race was 603 days earlier on March 27, 2015 in Harstad, Norway, but that didn’t seem to affect Norway’s six-time Olympic gold medalist one bit. “I’ll admit that I have had my doubts,” she told placing second to teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg in Friday’s 10 k classic, Weng Dagbladet that she opened fast on Saturday, but her muscles tired as the race progressed. “It’s irritating, but...
Friday's 10 k freestyle was a good day for Norway's Ingvild Flugstad Østberg. She skied away for the win, stymied by neither the grueling course or the who's who of Norwegian stars she left in her wake. Jessie Diggins put her hold on fifth, leading four U.S. women in the top 22.
Therese Johaug raced to a 1-minute-and-10-second victory in the women's World Cup 15 k freestyle in Davos, Switzerland, and her teammate is calling the deficit scary. “She is completely a machine," third-place finisher Heidi Weng said. "What is it exactly you're made of?”
This week's workout comes from Kari Øyre Slind, and it's one the 24-year-old Norwegian cross-country skier only does once or twice a year. “This workout is really tough, but I also feel that it really lifts me to a new level," she explains.
After today's 5 k skate in Kuusamo, Finland, Therese Johaug laughed remembering how short races used to be such a weak point for her. Not anymore: the Norwegian skied to a dominating 17.6-second victory over Charlotte Kalla of Sweden. That's 2% back in an 11-minute race.
A Norwegian development-pipeline skier, Kari Øyre Slind spent this summer largely training alone, but it's worked for her. “I choose to think of the Beitostølen weekend as a performance out of the ordinary,” she told FasterSkier about her recent double podium. “But now I know that I can perform with the best on a good day.”
Therese Johaug proved that no amount of hand injuries (two to be precise) can derail the start to her season as she won her second-straight race in Beitostølen, Norway. "I had to dig deep the whole way, but these conditions are my advantage," she said of the heavy snowfall.
Therese Johaug rocketed to first in her first race of the season, the FIS 7.5 k classic opener in Beitøstolen, Norway. She did so with the help of perennial rival and teammate Marit Bjørgen, who is due with her first child next month.