While Kikkan Randall slipped from seventh to 12th in the overall Tour de Ski standings, she said she was happy with her final place - but mostly "psyched" to see teammate Liz Stephen on the podium for the day. Stephen's second-fastest time on the climb moved her to 15th. Jessie Diggins was 21st and Holly Brooks 38th.
Andy Newell will not complete the 2013 Tour de Ski, withdrawing following the 5k prologue as planned.
Kikkan Randall placed 7th in the 3.3k classic pursuit, maintaing her position in the overall Tour de Ski with just two stages remaining.
School was in session in Switzerland, and Kikkan Randall was doing the teaching. Randall destroyed the field on her way to her second stage victory in just three races in the 2013 Tour de Ski, winning the freestyle sprint in Val Müstair over Norwegians Ingvild Flugstad Østberg and Heidi Weng.
Racers will will be welcomed by a new World Cup course when they take to the tracks in Saturday's freestyle sprint. Shorter than 2010, but longer and harder than 2008, the loop presents tactical challenges and some big climbs out of the start.
Kikkan Randall turned in her best World Cup classic distance result, placing sixth in the 10 k mass start in Canmore. Teammates Sadie Bjornsen and Holly Brooks joined her in the top 30 while Liz Stephen and Jessie Diggins were late scratches.
Noah Hoffman (USA) wrapped up a breakthrough weekend of racing in Kuusamo, Finland, placing 26th in the Ruka Triple mini-tour. Hoffman's teammates did not fare as well, with Kris Freeman and Andy Newell both abandoning the race, and Tad Elliott and Sylvan Ellefson finishing toward the pack of the field.
American Ida Sargent lived up to the hype surrounding her sprinting skills on Friday, placing ninth in the Kuusamo World Cup 1.4 k classic sprint just ahead of teammate Kikkan Randall in 10th. Simi Hamilton and Andy Newell made the rounds and placed 24th and 27th, respectively.
Any number of Swedish men seem capable of topping the podium on home turf. Here, Marcus Hellner leads teammates on some pickups. Otherwise, the heavy hitters come at the end: Dario Cologna and Marit Bjørgen hold the honors of being last season’s World Cup winners, and so will kick off this season wearing their yellow bibs and starting last (that puts the Norwegian as bib 78 and the Swiss star as bib 97). The last...
The U.S. Ski Team’s cross-country athletes finished their final round of pre-season testing last week in Park City, Utah. Athlete blogs currently abound with documentation of skiers pushing themselves to the point of falling off the treadmill in order to collect data on how much they’ve each progressed since their last test. The importance an athlete attaches to his or her test results varies by individual, but in the lab and in training they can...
BEND, Ore. – The U.S. and Canadian national teams are here in Bend to get on snow, and they seem to be loving it. But what about skiers who are already located in the Oregon Cascades? On several days, local high school athletes have also made the drive up to Mount Bachelor to ski and soak in the atmosphere at North America’s own version of the Dachstein glacier. Unlike senior World Cup athletes, most juniors...
At the highest level of nordic ski racing in the U.S., athletes know making the national team isn’t so much of a black-and-white decision; coaches mostly see red. Based on U.S. Ski Team criteria, any skier that ends the season in the red group by finishing in the top 30 of the World Cup or FIS distance or sprint lists is essentially guaranteed a spot on the A-team. Those who finish outside those standards can...
Jessie Diggins bounced back from a crash at the start of the 15km skiathlon in Rybinsk, Russia, continuing to roll on her first World Cup trip, placing 12th at the head of a strong chase group. Her US Ski Team (USST) teammates Kikkan Randall and Liz Stephen, both on the rebound from illness, placed 25th and 26th respectively. Holly Brooks continued her comeback from a broken wrist, placing 35th, while Ida Sargent was just behind...
It was one heck of a weekend on the World Cup in Otepää, Estonia. Dario Cologna (SUI) and Justyna Kowalczyk (POL) each swept both the sprint and distance classic races. Devon Kershaw (CAN) came back from an unlucky equipment malfunction in the sprint to a gutsy third-place effort in the 15 k the next day. With the conclusion of Period 2 on the World Cup, Kikkan Randall (USA) still holds onto the sprint leader bib. The...
Much has been said about the string of breakthrough performances by the U.S. women on the World Cup this season, but on Sunday, the entire team deserved the credit for putting together an historic day for the U.S. Led by Kikkan Randall in 15th, the U.S. placed a total of five athletes in the points in the 10 and 15 k classic races in Otepää, Estonia. Jessie Diggins, in her first distance race on the...
RUMFORD, Maine — The stadium at Black Mountain held its collective breath as spectators waited for the lead pack of the women’s 20 k classic mass start to come through for the last time at the U.S. Cross Country Championships. The question in everyone’s mind was, could Jessie Diggins (CXC/USST) pull off yet another win? The race came down to tactics — the top five women stayed in a tight group for the first five laps,...
RUMFORD, Maine — On a comfortably cold day at Black Mountain, Jessie Diggins (Central Cross Country/USST) extended her winning streak to 11 this season—her second national title of the week at the 2012 U.S. Cross Country Championships. Dasha Gaiazova (Canadian National Ski Team/Rocky Mountain Racers) finished second, while Diggins’ teammate Caitlin Gregg (CXC) landed on the podium for the second time this week in third. Despite her dominance of the domestic circuit so far this...
While Kikkan Randall fell in the sprint final (see our Full results
For the umpteenth weekend in a row, the U.S. Ski Team (USST) women turned in a set of firsts on the World Cup. In the 10 k classic mass start on Saturday in Rogla, Slovenia, Kikkan Randall led the way for the U.S. in 11th (+1:13.2), her highest career classic finish. Holly Brooks, Liz Stephen and Ida Sargent had their best-ever classic distance finishes with 19th, 22nd and 38th, respectively (Sargent tied her Kuusamo classic...