It certainly seems cliché, but it did actually happen. As Marit Bjoergen made her way down the homestretch, Norwegian flag in hand, the impenetrable fog of an Oslo March began to dissipate, the forecasted sun making its first stadium appearance, and illuminating yet another celebration of gold. As expected, Norway skied clear of the field to win the women’s 4×5 kilometer relay, besting Sweden by 36 seconds. Finland, continuing a strong Championships, took bronze. The...
Early on in Monday’s 10 k classic individual start race, it looked like Marit Bjoergen was on track to lose her first gold medal of the 2011 World Championships. On the first steep hill of the tough course in Oslo, the Norwegian was slipping – and not long after, she began to get splits telling her that Justyna Kowalcyk of Poland, who had started one spot behind her, was catching up. “Today was a very...
The fog in Oslo was so thick that the fans at Holmenkollen could barely see any of the women’s 15 k pursuit. The video board across from the stands was completely obscured, and even when athletes skied through the stadium, the only forms that could be made out were outlines—the spindly one of Justyna Kowalczyk (POL), say, or the stocky one of Finland’s Aino-Kaisa Saarinen. But with the homestretch lying directly alongside the bleachers, the...
Marit Bjoergen (NOR) has already achieved her goal of winning an individual gold at the 2011 World Championships. Now the ski world gets to see what a relaxed Bjoergen can do. The winner of five medals, including three golds, at the 2010 Olympics, Bjoergen is the clear favorite in the women’s 15 k pursuit on Saturday, as distance racing gets underway at Holmenkollen in Oslo, Norway. While rival Justyna Kowalczyk (POL) is the defending World...
They arrived on foot, mostly—a three meter-wide river of fans snaking up from the nearest subway station, the cowbells around their necks clinking softly. By 12:30, with an hour still to go before the start of the freestyle sprint, the Norwegian faithful had already packed the stands at the Holmenkoll venue in Oslo—in anticipation of the first event of the 2011 World Ski Championships. Numbering 20,000, they were awaiting their country’s 100th World Championship gold,...
Norway’s expectations for the World Championships on home turf are sky high. No less than being the best nation overall for the seventh time and earning Norway’s 100th World Championship gold.
The crescendo of hype and excitement that has been building for the last few months in Norway will finally begin to crest on Thursday, as the 2011 World Ski Championships kick off in Oslo with a freestyle sprint. With the race comes North America’s best chance for a medal. Canadians Devon Kershaw and Alex Harvey and the U.S.’s Andy Newell have all collected podiums in the discipline, and have legitimate medal hopes. But their female...
Four weeks training at home without a race did not slow Kikkan Randall. The defending World Championship silver medalist in the freestyle sprint picked up where she left off a month ago, and found herself in the same spot – standing on the top of the podium. Randall scored her third career World Cup victory, and second in a row when she powered to the front on the tough finishing stretch in the Konnerud Ski...
The fans came out in force, with flags, lawn chairs, and beer. And they wouldn’t have settled for anything less than a win. Norway’s Marit Bjoergen gave them what they came for, skiing to yet another victory in Saturday’s 10 k classic in Drammen—her ninth in 12 World Cup races this season—in front of a home crowd estimated at 15,000. With five days to go before her first race at the 2011 World Championships in...
The 50K is maybe the most prestigious event in a World Championship. But only the men are allowed to race it. The women have to do a 30K race. But Marit Bjoergen (NOR) wants to change that.
If any of the women on the World Cup circuit are still holding out hope that they can beat Marit Bjoergen, they’re running out of time to figure how to do it. With a 33-second victory in Saturday’s 10 k classic in Otepaa, Estonia, Bjoergen remained unbeaten in every individual-start distance race she’s entered this season. The start of the 2011 World Ski Championships in Oslo is nearing, and some are speculating that Bjoergen could...
On Saturday morning, I will be just one of the nearly 15,000 people expected to fill the stadium and line the trails for this weekend’s World Cup races in the ski-crazed nation of Estonia. The country of 1.3 million—the same population as the state of Maine—has produced six Olympic medals in cross-country skiing over the last decade, courtesy of three legends: Kristina Smigun-Vaehi, Jaak Mae, and Andrus Veerpalu. Just how serious about cross-country skiing is...
Kikkan Randall has now recorded three medals in five skate sprints. But if the enigmatic American sprint star is tired, she sure isn’t showing it, as she blasted to her first World Cup victory of the season Saturday, in a skate sprint in rainy Liberec, Czech Republic. Randall took advantage of fast skis, an advantageous situation, and a strong finishing kick to secure the win, crossing the line 0.5 seconds ahead of her closest competitor...
Norwegian superstar Marit Bjoergen is sticking to her guns, and will not be racing the 2011 edition of the Tour de Ski. The winner of every single World Cup race this year, Bjoergen announced at the beginning of the season that she would follow the same plan that resulted in five medals at the 2010 Olympics. And that plan means no Tour de Ski. Since coming back from several down years thought to be caused...
At the end of World Cup period I, Norway sits on top of the Nation’s Cup standings, and in a shift from the recent past, it is the women leading the way. The 4x5km relay in La Clusaz demonstrated exactly how the Norwegians built their points lead, with four women putting on a virtual clinic on their way to a 56 second victory over Italy. Three of the four Norwegians posted the fasted times on...
As the World Cup circuit heads towards its Christmas break, Marit Bjoergen is still in a class by herself. After breaking away from the pack less than five kilometers into the La Clusaz 15 k freestyle on Saturday, along with her teammate Kristin Stoermer Steira and Poland’s Justyna Kowalczyk, Bjoergen easily matched challenges by her opponents on the last of six laps, then turned on the jets on the homestretch to pull away for the...
With 100 meters to go in Sunday’s skate sprint in Davos, Kikkan Randall flew into the stadium in fourth place. A few strong strides brought her close to even with third, and second place even seemed to be within reach. Enter Justyna Kowalczyk—the wiry Pole with a reputation for provocative statements and questionable tactics. Just as Randall was about slide past, Kowalczyk made an aggressive move to her right, forcing the American to switch lanes...
Rocket boosters? Tiny electric motors? Cutting the course? The World Cup women’s field is going to have to come up with something, because it’s pretty clear that plain old training and technique isn’t going to be enough to beat Norway’s Marit Bjoergen any time soon. In Saturday’s 10 k classic in Davos, Switzerland, Bjoergen won for her fourth time in five races this year, skiing to a 30-second victory over her Polish rival Justyna Kowalczyk....
After a wildly entertaining weekend of sprinting in Dusseldorf, complete with North American podiums and crashes galore, the World Cup returns to normalcy in the cross-country paradise of Davos, Switzerland. The action starts on Saturday with an individual start 10/15km classic, before shifting back to sprinting with a freestyle event on Sunday. A number of top skiers, including Marit Bjoergen (NOR), Justyna Kowalczyk (POL), Marcus Hellner (SWE), and North Americans Kris Freeman (USA) and Devon...
Since 2002, the city sprint in Dusseldorf, Germany, has become a fixture on the International Ski Federation’s (FIS’s) World Cup calendar. One of three regular city sprints on the circuit, Dusseldorf features a flat, extremely fast, and almost dangerously narrow and twisty sprint course. Over the last eight seasons, the German city has become renown for carnage and upsets, almost as much as for cross-country skiing in a unique location and with a great crowd...