We’re off. The 2023-2024 winter kicks off with season opening races across Scandinavia, and the World Cup launches next week. Devon and Nat go old-school, no guests to recap a bevy of interesting results so far. Send us your comments, questions and criticisms: devon@fasterskier.com and nat@fasterskier.com. We’ll be back next week.
This is the end. Of the 2023 racing season. Devon and Nat go without guests and are here to take you through the last three events of the winter in Lahti, Finland. And we cover a couple of retirement announcements from U.S. skiers. We’re taking a little break after this but, we promise: We won’t leave you hanging for the whole off-season. Stay tuned for more regular episodes over the course of the spring and...
Estonia put on one heck of a show at a city sprint in the nation’s capital, Tallinn, this week. We give you a full recap with the help of an on-site expert, Vahur Teppan, and break down some complaints about a new system designed to level the waxing playing field — which may not have worked. We’ll be back for one more recap after the Lahti Ski Games in Finland this weekend. Devon is at...
Times are what they are. Precautions are the name of the game. This year’s Blink Festival in Norway played to a reduced field and limited spectators due to COVID precautions. Some races, as will be noted, included modified race rules to limit close contact between athletes. Lysebotn Opp – 06/08 The Lysebotn Opp is perhaps the marquee event. It features lovely fjord views and a grueling 7.5-kilometer uphill skate switchbacking up a mountainside. In...
2019 U23 World Ski Championships in Lahti, Finland 4 x 3 k and 4x 5 k relay Full U20 Men’s Race Report In a historic first for the U.S., the U20 men’s team won the 4 x 5-kilometer relay today in Lahti, Finland at the 2019 World Junior Ski Championships. Luke Jager skied the first classic leg for the U.S., Ben Ogden skied the second classic, Johnny Hagenbuch skied the first initial skate leg and...
With the two big climbs over 1.3-kilometer freestyle sprint course, the women’s World Cup freestyle sprint course in Lillehammer, Norway packs a quad-burning punch. With lungs then legs poaching any extra oxygen, the women’s final, which featured four of six athletes from Sweden, was a primetime show. Nilsson is a finisher, known for her closeout efforts in the finishing straight. But as she and twenty-three-year-old Sundling glided into the S-turns before the final 100 meters,...
FIS Cross-Country World Cup in Lillehammer Norway: Freestyle Sprint Women’s Report | Men’s Report In Friday’s women’s 1.3-kilometer freestyle sprint in Lillehammer, Norway, the first day of three successive days of World Cup racing, the women’s sprint final was stacked with Swedes, with four of six athletes sporting the yellow, blue, and white. In the final, Jonna Sundling of Sweden passed teammate Stina Nilsson meters before the finish line to take the win in 2:52.74 minutes....
In a place like Norway, where the pool of cross-country athletes appears eternally deep, when you see competitors raise the bar, there’s nothing else to do but jump. On Saturday in Beitostølen, Norway the known knowns were self-evident: Maiken Caspersen Falla and Johannes Høsflot Klæbo took the freestyle sprint wins during the second day of FIS race competitions. As both athletes were overall World Cup sprint champions last season, there are no shockers there....
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: 1.3 k freestyle sprints In Beitostølen on Saturday, the second day of FIS races there sent the women on 1.3-kilometer skate...
(This article has been updated to reflect that American Hailey Swirbul was in second for most of Tuesday’s 5 k race, not over one minute back as previously reported based on a live timing error. It has also been updated to include comments from Americans Hailey Swirbul, Ben Loomis, Stephen Schumann, and Gus Schumacher, Canada’s Antoine Cyr, University of Alaska Anchorage nordic head coach Andrew Kastning, and U.S. Ski Team Development Coach Bryan Fish.) Junior World Championships (Goms,...
FIS Nordic Junior World Championships (Midway, Utah): Classic sprint [UPDATED] On the first day of Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, three U.S. women, four U.S. men and two Canadian men finished in the top 30 to qualify for the heats in the women’s and men’s classic sprints. Of those nine North Americans, three reached the semifinals: Julia Kern, Hannah Halvorsen and Bill Harmeyer, all representing the U.S. Germany’s Janosch Brugger beat out four Norwegians...