Devon and Nat return to recap the last three stages of this year’s Tour de Ski, including the climb up the Alpe Cermis and some epic American and Canadian performances. The World Cup circuit is taking a break, so we’ll try to have a mailbag episode in the next week. Email us questions and comments at devon@fasterskier.com and nat@fasterskier.com.
This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support Fasterskier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. Stage 5 of the 2023 Tour de Ski was a sprint, but not a “normal” sprint. Typically, sprint races are won by pure sprinters, those who control the pace of...
The FIS World Cup tour returned from a two-week holiday break, reconvening in Val Mustair, Switzerland for Stage 1 of the 17th Tour de Ski. A daunting mid-season challenge, the Tour de Ski (TDS) consists of seven stages contested over nine exhausting days, concluding next Sunday atop the Alpe di Cermis in Val di Fiemme, Italy. At the start of this year’s tour, all eyes were on Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo (NOR), who finds himself in...
Just the other day, a guy walked into a local cross-country ski area where a women’s World Cup race broadcast was streaming. Another patron asked him who he thought would win? He didn’t know what the race was or who the favorite was. But without so much as the bat of an eye, he replied, “Weng”—The odds were in his favor. Weng family members involved in World Cup skiing are a combination of cousins, sisters,...
This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and the A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage please contact info@fasterskier.com. We’ve arrived at the final event of the 2021/22 World Cup Season and the second new event of the day. It was a fast and furious mixed team sprint in...
Onward and upward. Day two in Oberstdorf, Germany featured a 1.5-kilometer classic sprint with three sharp toothlike climbs. Seemingly riding the edge of their capability inside the tracks, athletes pumped their way up each pitch before wrapping around a bend and descending an equal grade back toward the stadium. After what Matt Whitcomb called an “off day”, the Americans demonstrated their ability to rebound. To not let the sensations or disappointment from one day percolate...
Today in Val Müstair, Switzerland Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski (TdS) the 1.4-kilometer freestyle sprint course was one star of the show. In two laps of the course, the women ascended a steep climb — even for World Cup standards — navigated technical and high-speed corners, hopped over a small jump, tucked over manufactured rollers, all within roughly 3:30 minutes. With the added technical features over 1.4 k, at an altitude of roughly...
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...
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...
For fans of North American skiing, some of the last races of U23 and Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, proved beyond captivating, surpassing most expectations and previous results. But for the U.S. junior women’s relay, a group of four that had set a goal two years ago at a U.S. development training camp, the podium was exactly where they had envisioned themselves. Relay bronze Hailey Swirbul, Julia Kern, Hannah Halvorsen, and...
FIS Nordic Combined Junior World Championships (Park City and Midway, Utah): Normal hill/5 k [UPDATED] In the individual normal hill/5-kilometer Gundersen on Saturday, the last nordic-combined competition of 2017 Nordic Junior World Championships, American Ben Loomis captured his first top 10 in his third Junior Worlds in ninth place. Eighteen-year-old Loomis jumped to 10th then picked off one place in the 5 k to finish ninth, 1:22.3 minutes behind the winner, Germany’s Vinzenz Geiger. Geiger...
(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Paddy Caldwell.) Three years ago, American Patrick “Paddy” Caldwell made his debut at Junior World Championships, racing to classic sprint. Then, on Thursday in the men’s 15 k freestyle, he cracked the top 10 for the first time in his U23/Junior Worlds career. “I was really excited going into today’s race,” Caldwell wrote in an email on Friday morning. “15km FS is one of my...
FIS Nordic U23 World Championships (Midway, Utah): 10/15 k freestyle Paddy Caldwell, of the Stratton Mountain School and U.S. Ski Team D-team, raced to the first top 10 of his career at a U23 World Championship on Thursday, placing ninth in the men’s 15-kilometer freestyle individual start at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. Caldwell started 44th (of 53) and crossed the finish in sixth before being bumped down three places to ninth. Upon being passed by the eventual...
A year ago, Canada’s breakthrough at the Ski Tour Canada classic sprint in Canmore, Alberta. Beatty lives and trains in Canmore as a member of both the Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA) and Canadian National U25 Team. She led the NorAm (Continental Cup) standings at the end of last season, reiterating her position as freestyle sprint prologue at U.S. nationals at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. Then on Tuesday, on the same 1.3-kilometer sprint course...
FIS Nordic U23 World Championships (Midway, Utah): Classic sprint [UPDATED] All four American women and three Canadians qualified for the women’s classic sprint heats on the first day of U23 World Championships on Tuesday, and in the men’s qualifier, three Americans finished in the top 30 to advance to the quarterfinals at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. Kelsey Phinney led the Americans in sixth in the women’s 1.3-kilometer qualifier, clocking in 2.77 seconds off the fastest women’s...
Not many skiers are accustomed to skiing in slush, but those able to find their stride on Tuesday with temperatures in the mid-50s in Rasnov, Romania, tended to fare better on the second day of U23/Junior World Championships. Stratton juniors Katharine Ogden and Julia Kern notched top 20's and Jasper Good (U.S. Nordic Combined) achieved 11th in the first nordic-combined competition.
It was 50 degrees and sunny on Monday in Rasnov, Romania, which sounds pleasant, but what's it like racing in? "Pretty darn hot," Julia Kern explained, after racing to a career-best 16th in the freestyle sprint on Day 1 of Junior/U23 World Championships. Another American, Logan Hanneman placed 15th, and Julien Locke led Canada in 16th in the U23 men's race.
Last year in his Junior World Championships debut, Thomas O’Harra placed 54th in the freestyle sprint. The 18-year-old APU skier placed 14th on Tuesday in the opening race of 2015 Junior Worlds in Almaty, Kazakhstan -- the 1.3-kilometer classic sprint -- and three Canadian women made the quarterfinals as well.