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Milano Cortina 2026

Bernie Nelson and When Control Changes Hands

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. At some point before every race, there is a moment when the conversation ends. The skis are ready. All the questions have been answered. The athlete has described, more than once, how the ski felt through the camber, how it released, and how it held when needed. Their part...

Hunter Wonders, Flying by Instrument

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers.  If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription.   When U.S. Ski & Snowboard released its roster for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games, Hunter Wonders’ name appeared without emphasis. No asterisk. No parenthetical explanation. Just another line in a list that had already absorbed months of speculation, anxiety, and arithmetic. To most readers, the name represented a straightforward...

Paul Choudoir — “The Right-Brain Grinder”

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers.  If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription.   A Portfolio, Not a Resume Paul Choudoir did not set out to work at the Olympic Games. He did not study engineering. He did not grow up in a wax room, nor did he apprentice under a legendary grinder with a machine humming in the background. He went to school...

Lauren Jortberg and the Long Way Around to the Olympics

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers.  If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription.   By the time Lauren Jortberg made the U.S. Olympic Cross-Country Ski Team, the achievement arrived not as a burst of disbelief or relief, but as something quieter and stranger: a moment that required processing. “It is a lot to take in,” she said, speaking from Seefeld, Austria in the...

Matintalo First, Diggins Second: A Classic 20 K Test Before the Olympics

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence 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. The sky above the Goms Nordic Centre on Sunday morning had the washed-out look of winter at altitude — pale and reflective. Snow had fallen overnight —...

Schumacher! Two Days, Two Podiums

This 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. Maybe the Americans really are that good . . . With the Olympic Games just around the corner, American men (lots of them!) are surging toward the front of the World Cup...

Svahn Returns to the Top as Olympic Stakes Sharpen in Goms Women’s Classic Sprint

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence 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. By the time the women clicked into their classic skis in the upper Rhône Valley on Saturday morning, the sprint course in Goms had already made its...

Olympic Preview, Sort Of—USA Third in Goms Team Sprint

This 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. For the skiing stars of Norway, World Cup victories are commonplace—almost expected. For the skiers of most other nations, any World Cup podium appearance is a career-defining event. That said, some of...

Goms Wasn’t the Answer — It Was the Test

This 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. There are World Cup races that arrive like answers, and others that arrive like mirrors. The women’s freestyle Team Sprint in Goms belonged firmly to the second category — not because the...

U.S. Names Eight Women and Eight Men to 2026 Olympic Cross-Country Team

U.S. Ski & Snowboard has announced its Olympic cross-country ski team for the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympic Winter Games, naming eight women and eight men to represent the United States in Val di Fiemme, Italy, from Feb. 6–22, 2026. While the women were allocated eight Olympic starting positions outright, the men’s team was originally allotted seven. That number increased to eight after another nation declined to use one of its quota spots, allowing the United...

Where the Snow Hardens and Decisions Stick

This 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. By the time the stadium lights fully took over in Oberhof, the snow had begun to change its mind. What started as a pliable winter surface—the kind that both softens and creates...

Steep Climbs to Olympic Dreams

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. So, Norwegian Olympic selection continues to be a stressful and chaotic process for Team Norway. After eight exhausting days of Tour de Ski competition—and six grueling events—it seemed the only result that mattered to the committee selecting Norway’s Olympic Team was a win in the final stage atop the Alpe...

Where the Race Breaks Open: Women’s 20 k Freestyle at U.S. Nationals

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers.  If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription.   There is a particular moment in a long mass start when the race quietly declares what it will be. It does not arrive with a surge, a crash, or even a decisive move. It arrives when the pack thins just enough that the edges of the course begin to matter—when...

Klaebo Wins Classic Sprint in Val di Fiemme as the Tour de Ski Heads for Alpe Cermis

This 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. There are places in cross-country skiing where the scenery tries to soften the message. Val di Fiemme is one of them: chalets tucked into the folds of the valley, the geometry of...

A Sprint Built for February, Raced in January with Tour Fatigue

This 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. By the time the women arrived in Val di Fiemme for Stage 5 of the Tour de Ski, the race had already narrowed in a way that had nothing to do with...

Klaebo Controls Toblach as Schumacher Anchors the Chase in Men’s 20 k Classic Pursuit

This 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. By mid-morning in Toblach, the cold had settled into the valley in that particular Dolomite way—dry, bright, and unforgiving. The stadium clock read 10:30 a.m., the tracks were hard-packed, and the Tour...

Schumacher Wins in Toblach as New Four-Heat 5K Format Turns the Race into a Clock-Chasing Puzzle

This 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. The Tour de Ski has always asked skiers to live with imperfect information. You race hard when you’re tired. You make decisions based on feelings and instincts, while coaches are screaming ‘splits.’...

The Devon Kershaw Show: recapping stages 1&2 of the TDS, aka Tour di Northern Italy, aka an Olympic selection nightmare

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers.  If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription.   Devon and Nat bring you more podcast content from stages one and two of the Tour de Ski, which is proving to be a further headache for those responsible for selecting Norway’s Olympic team. We’ll be back after the next two stages. Thanks for your support. Keep the questions...

Stenshagen Sets the Pace in Toblach as the Men’s Tour Takes Shape

This 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. By the time the final seeded skier pushed through the finishing straight in Toblach, the race had already revealed what interval starts always do best: not who looks fastest, but who stays...

Tour de Ski 2026

World Cup skiers get a holiday break from the grind of the World Cup tour . . . but it’s up for debate just how much rest they get during that break. It’s gotta be tough to relax when the horizon is clouded by the impending approach of the Tour de Ski, possibly the most daunting challenge that skiers will face all season. As a ski-fan, I just adore the Tour de Ski—day after day of racing...