Whew, that was a whirlwind. Over the last two and a half weeks of Nordic World Championships racing in Lahti, Finland, we witnessed the U.S. and Canadian cross-country teams capture a total of four medals: silver and bronze in the women’s freestyle sprint (with Americans Sadie Bjornsen), and gold in the final race of World Championships: the men’s 50-kilometer freestyle mass start (won by Canada’s Lazenbyphoto.com. (Click each photo to enlarge)
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Men’s 50 k freestyle mass start After a week of missing out on the medals at 2017 Nordic World Championships, Canada’s Alex Harvey, a four-time World Championships medalist from 2011, 2013 and 2015, achieved his first individual gold medal in the final race of this year’s World Championships in Lahti, Finland. Harvey, 28, won the men’s 50-kilometer freestyle mass start in a drag race to the finish. Entering the...
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Women’s 30 k freestyle mass start Marit Bjørgen made it a four-peat on Saturday with her fourth gold and third individual win over the last week at 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland. (She previously won the 15-kilometer skiathlon, 10 k classic, and 4 x 5 k relay.) The 36-year-old Norwegian closed out the championships with a 1.9-second victory in the women’s 30-kilometer freestyle mass start, finishing in 1:08:36.8...
IBU World Cup (PyeongChang, South Korea): Men’s 10 k sprint US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey kept his clean-shooting streak alive with another one of his personal best results on Friday, racing to second in the men’s 10-kilometer sprint at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea. Bailey started 81st and hit all 10 targets in the two-stage race to cross the finish line in first, 4.7 seconds ahead of France’s Martin Fourcade,...
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Women’s 4 x 5 k relay The Norwegian women’s team got a much-needed lift from Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, the third leg of its 4 x 5-kilometer relay, on Thursday, who tagged her teammate Marit Bjørgen nearly a minute ahead of anyone else. From there, Bjørgen anchored the Norwegians to a 1:01.6-minute victory for her third gold of 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland. Meanwhile, Sweden and Finland battled for...
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Women’s 10 k classic No contest. That was the takeaway of Marit Bjørgen’s performance in the women’s 10-kilometer classic individual start on Monday at 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland, after the Norwegian posted a 41-second victory in 25:24.9 minutes. Bjørgen started 54th of 72 starters and clocked the fastest time over every intermediate timing point on the course. Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla had been the previous race leader after...
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Classic team sprints Defending champions Norway repeated gold in the women’s team sprint, with Heidi Weng and Maiken Caspersen Falla crossing the finish line first in Lahti, Finland. On the second-to-last loop, it looked like Russia could have something to say about that. Yulia Belorukova put in a furious sprint up the course’s biggest climb, and then beat Weng to the exchange. But her teammate Natalia Matveeva could not match the pace when Falla...
LAHTI, Finland — Electric. With every jumbotron shot of Finland’s Krista Parmakoski or a glimpse of her powerful compact-frame as she lapped through the stadium, the hometown Finns were electric. White and blue flags waved. Like anywhere in the world when a brilliant athletic performance unfolds in the home country, the roars for Parmakoski were deafening. From the start, she emitted a big dose of hope for fans in Lahti during Saturday’s 15-kilometer skiathlon at the...
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Nordic Combined individual normal hill/10 k Germany, Germany, Germany, Germany. That’s how the results read after the first nordic combined competition of the 2017 Nordic World Championships on Friday in Lahti, Finland, with Germany not only sweeping the podium but the top four of the men’s individual normal hill/10-kilometer Gundersen start. Johannes Rydzek notched his second individual gold medal in the last two championships (after winning the normal hill/10...
LAHTI, Finland — Tuesday at Lahti’s venue for the 2017 Nordic World Ski Championships, the sun sets early. Although technically sunset was 5:22 p.m., the sun on this clear-sky day was still wintertime reluctant. It seemed too short a time for the sun’s transect to thaw Lahti. Temps were in the mid-to-low 20 degrees Fahrenheit. But a brisk wind called for down coats and insulated pants for those not actively skiing — in the shade, it...
U.S. Ski Team B-team member hasn't made many big changes to his training plan this year.
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...
After a junior and U23 career spent skiing for Rossland, BC's Black Jack ski team, Julien Locke earned a national team nod in May and has relocated to Canmore, Alberta. He's aiming to impress at the World Cup sprint selection races at Frozen Thunder this week.
Kershaw tackled our "17 Questions" from a training camp in Utah. After training around Oslo this season, he thinks that Martin Johnsrud Sundby will still be the man to beat when the World Cup starts: "he's a beast."
Between a rafting trip on the Snake River and working on his jumps with a new coach from Austria, Ben Berend also got in lots of nordic combined competition this summer: he podiumed at U.S. Nationals and competed in Europe in the Grand Prix. Bernend will start the season on the World Cup for the first time this year.
After partially relocating to Park City and "getting excited" with her training last year, Caitlin Gregg suffering World Cup disappointment. Based 100 percent in the Midwest again, Gregg is focusing on leading the SuperTour and showing up strong at U.S. nationals -- a.k.a, doing what might get her to Lahti, Finland, for World Championships.
Charlotte Kalla is trying the Petter Northug model and will train outside of her country's national team this season, instead collaborating with her coach Magnus Ingesson at Piteå Elit. Meanwhile, after a year of focusing on Ski Classics, Johan Olsson and Daniel Richardsson are back to the national team.
Coming off her European World Cup debut, Craftsbury's Caitlin Patterson reflects on her races and experience in Finland and Norway, her 2014/2015 season in general, and what she's aiming for next year.
After winning two medals at the 2015 World Championships, Alex Harvey finished 17th in Sunday's 15 k freestyle in Lahti, Finland. Meanwhile, Emily Nishikawa led the Canadian women in the 10 k and earned her best World Cup result of the season.
In the last classic-distance race of the season, Sadie Bjornsen placed 14th and Jessie Diggins took 17th on Sunday in the women's 10-kilometer freestyle individual start in Lahti, Finland. Erik Bjornsen led the American men in 38th.