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...
FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, bronze in the classic team sprint with teammate Ida Ingemarsdotter. A year later in Falun, Sweden, at World Championships, Nilsson placed second in the individual classic sprint. When you are close, you begin to think more about achieving a singular goal and less about overall season-long outcomes. Nilsson last raced a World Cup the weekend of Jan. 20-21 in Planica, Slovenia, where she raced to 13th...
SEEFELD, Austria — By the time the women’s finalists toed the start line, fans lucky enough to find a spot directly against the fence lining the World Cup 1.3-kilometer freestyle sprint course on Saturday showed signs of sunburn on their cheeks. The Seefeld sun was high and bright, but not the only one radiating on the Tirol ski trails. U.S. skier Sophie Caldwell found Seefeld treating her well. And she herself was on the strike....
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...
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...
PLANICA, Slovenia — With the Julian Alps and Mount Triglav, Slovenia’s highest peak, as a backdrop, it’s suitable to say the Planica Valley nordic course can be summed up in one word: burly. A high mid-afternoon sun had illuminated the mountain range throughout the rounds for the World Cup women’s 1.4-kilometer classic sprint on Saturday, but by the time the six finalists lined up for the final heat, a few shadows were being recast onto...
By the time Sadie Bjornsen sat down in the fur-lined leader’s chair on Sunday, the sunlight that had been shining brightly over sections of the women’s 10-kilometer classic course — blocked by trees and creating shade and temperature drops in some spots — was fading. Just an hour remained before sunset in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, and as she unclipped her bindings and walked out of the finishing pen, the current leader seat belonged to her. With Saturday’s...
If it hadn’t been for the steady bob of her yellow leader’s bib and an intermittent shadow from the sun’s glare cast by the trail’s treeline, Charlotte Kalla might have blended right into the snow: her white suit symbolic of Sweden smooth across the Lillehammer race course in Norway. As it were, the overall World Cup leader’s bib, her prize from Results |
US SuperTour (West Yellowstone, Montana): 10/15 k classic mass starts The second day of SuperTour racing took place as originally planned at the Rendezvous Ski Trails in West Yellowstone, with 22-year-old Hedda Bångman, of the University of Colorado Boulder (CU), and 33-year-old Brian Gregg (Team Gregg) winning the women’s 10-kilometer and men’s 15 k classic mass starts, respectively, on Sunday. Bångman, a Swedish freshman on the second in Saturday’s skate sprint) in third (+4.6). Kyle Bratrud (CXC...
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Kuusamo, Finland): 10/15 k freestyle pursuit Men’s report Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla took down the fiercest contender women’s cross-country skiing has ever seen, challenging Norway’s Marit Bjørgen on the final lap of the women’s 10-kilometer freestyle pursuit on Sunday then successfully holding her off to the finish. Kalla entered the final day of the three-day Ruka Triple mini tour with a 2-second lead on Bjørgen out of the pursuit start. Bjørgen...
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Kuusamo, Finland): Classic sprints Men’s race report In the first race of the 2017/2018 cross-country World Cup season, U.S. Ski Team (USST) member Sadie Bjornsen, who turned 28 on Tuesday, raced to the best result of her career, placing second to Sweden’s Stina Nilsson in Friday’s classic sprint in Kuusamo, Finland. Last season, Bjornsen notched her first World Cup podium in third place in the 5-kilometer freestyle in Toblach, Italy,...
(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Nichole Bathe.) BEITOSTØLEN, Norway — The question of whether Bjørgen or Weng will be the bigger name this season went in the favor of the former on Friday at Norway’s first big matchup of the season. Marit Bjørgen, now 37 and in her 20th World Cup season, won the first race of the three-day International Ski Federation (FIS) weekend in Beitostølen, starting last out of...
This past weekend was once again the time of the year for the Toppidrettsveka ski festival, a three-day rollerski mini tour held annually since 2005 in the region of Trondheim, Norway. In addition to the individual stages, points for the top-30 finishers were awarded to compile an overall ranking similar to the Tour de Ski. The elite field of athletes was mostly comprised of Norwegian and other Scandinavian skiers active on the International Ski Federation...
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...
At 23, Sweden’s Stina Nilsson has nailed a business-like approach to World Cup starts. Standing 5-foot-9, she appears to tower over most of her competitors, and before her signature races (sprints) she appears deep in contemplation, definitely in the zone. During those races, she’s usually the one setting the pace, and afterward, she’s almost always celebrating at the finish. So far this season, Nilsson has won seven World Cup races — including today’s freestyle sprint in Otepää,...
As the Tour de Ski drags on, the World Cup field is tiring. Nobody – atrial fibrillation in the Ruka, Finland, 10 k. “It is great to be on the podium again, especially after I crashed today,” she told FIS. “I had to fight my way back in the race but in the end I felt very strong.” While Kylloenen had praised her skis, one team wasn’t doing so. The Norwegians failed to reach the...
FIS Cross-Country Tour de Ski Stage 4 (Oberstdorf): 10/15 k freestyle pursuits [UPDATED] Another win for Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (that’s four in four stage races at the 2016/2017 Tour de Ski), another second place for Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby, and another third place for Canada’s Alex Harvey. That was how the podium shook out on Wednesday in the Stage 4 men’s 15-kilometer freestyle pursuit, with Ustiugov winning by 37.2 seconds after starting 4 seconds back and...
Maybe it was because she wanted redress. Maybe it was because there was less pressure to perform. Or maybe it was because the yellow Tour de Ski (TDS) leader’s bib was with Sweden, calling her Norwegian name. Whatever it was, when Ingvild Flugstad Østberg lined up for the women’s 5-kilometer classic mass start on Sunday in Val Müstair, Switzerland, she was ready to race for the win. After being eliminated in the semifinal of Saturday’s...
FIS Cross-Country Tour de Ski Stage 2 (Val Müstair): 5/10 k classic mass starts Women’s report There was a lot of jostling between Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov and Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby, with the latter leading early and the Russian not letting him get too complacent up front, but ultimately, Ustiugov was the first across the line in the men’s 10-kilometer classic mass start, the second stage of the Tour de Ski in Val Müstair, Switzerland. Ustiugov...
As the women’s sprint finalists promenaded through the stadium toward the starting pen, the demeanors caught on camera varied, seemingly a reflection of their differing personalities or emotions at that moment. On one hand, there was Stina Nilsson, Sweden’s sprint queen, walking through the athlete’s chute at the first stage of the Tour de Ski with the body language of a prizefighter. Then there was Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla, more smiley and cheery than Nilsson, her...