It’s been a minute! With the arrival of host Rachel Perkins’ second baby in July and a subsequent job shift, Nordic Nation has been on pause, but we are excited to relaunch now with the hope of producing these regularly over the coming months! Our first guest of 2023 is the one and only Ben Ogden, who’s had a standout season of racing on the World Cup. Ben has cracked into the semifinals in four...
Though the FasterSkier team would select other highlights from the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games, one of the most read articles we produced featured the responses of members of the ski community to a story published on February 8th by the New York Times, which included the following quote: “In a sport that has so many women with massive shoulders and thighs, Diggins looks like a sprite in her racing suit, and it’s not clear exactly...
In this episode, we’ve got Chad Salmela and Kikkan Randall on to discuss the experience of calling the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games, live from a booth in Stamford, CT. The duo worked as cross country analysts, alongside long-time NBC play-by-play announcer Steve Schlanger. While Chad is a veteran in the role, this was Kikkan’s first Olympics inside the booth. During the call, Kikkan and Chad field a variety of questions on their experience –...
In this episode, we have Jake Adicoff and Sam Wood, calling in from Lillehammer as the duo races as athlete and guide at the Para World Championships. Jake is a visually impaired athlete from Sun Valley who grew up racing with the SVSEF cross country program and now trains with the Gold Team. He has raced at both the 2014 Paralympics in Sochi, and the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, where he won a silver medal...
In this episode, we have Ben Ogden, Gus Schumacher, and JC Schoonmaker coming to us from Davos, SUI. These athletes are key members of the new generation of American men who have found success at the junior level internationally, and are now transitioning onto the World Cup as athletes to follow. In this conversation, we explore this transition from a variety of angles, along with goal setting, team dynamics, and navigating the challenges of competing...
In this episode, we hear from a familiar voice – someone, in fact, we’ve heard from recently on the podcast, former elite cross-country skier Noah Hoffman. Post-race career, Hoffman has been deeply involved in the anti-doping movement as an educator, lobbyist, and content creator. This conversation is from Hoffman’s content creation side. A few months back the US Anti Doping Agency (USADA) posted a six-plus minute video interview between Hoffman and Dr. Edwin Moses –...
Thirty two years old and wise as wise can be. Clare Egan brings a calm intellect to the sport of biathlon. Speaker of many languages and head of the International Biathlon Union’s athlete committee, Egan is respected by her peers for on-snow performances as well as her leadership in the IBU board room. We spoke to Egan earlier this month as she was training in Antholz, Italy with U.S. women’s head coach Armin Auchentaller. The...
In this episode of Nordic Nation, we speak all things trail design with John Morton. Based in Vermont, and global in perspective, Morton provides insights into the literal ups and downs of trail design and how full-blown nordic centers and small scale trails can bring a modern vibe to an old-school sport. He runs Morton Trails locally but has a global reach with projects based in China. His most recent trail work at Paul Smith’s...
Mid-Summer and mid-fishing session, we connected with Great Britain’s Andrew Musgrave near his home in Trondheim, Norway. Musgrave underwent surgery on both Achilles tendons recently and is on the mend. In this episode, we discuss his comparatively down season last year, his plans to remain healthy, and how excited he was during the interview to spot what he described as a weasel swim past. If you are new to the podcast, FasterSkier, or Musgrave…here’s some background....
A slight reshuffling of positions at U.S. Ski and Snowboard and longtime coach Matt Whitcomb has a new title: Head Coach. Whitcomb held the title of World Cup Coach last season. As the pandemic took hold in mid-March here in the U.S., Whitcomb holed up at his cabin in rural Vermont for a two-week solo quarantine. We caught up with Whitcomb via phone on April 23 from his cabin. This was a broad ranging interview....
Many of the World Cup race photos featured on FasterSkier come from NordicFocus, a European bases photo agency. NordicFocus, as the name suggests, features images from the world of nordic sport: cross-country, biathlon, nordic combined, and ski jumping. If you have buzzed around the media center at any big cross-country event, it’s likely you have seen Federico Modica. Modica wears a mountain endurance-fit look as if he’s just descended from some alpine climb; there’s a veneer...
Live, from Vermont, it was Ben Lustgarten of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project — we spoke to Ben about his recent retirement announcement from full-time training and racing at the elite level. Lustgarten’s name is synonymous with the SuperTour’s sharp end. He’s also known to throw down burly strength workouts. He qualified and raced in two World Championships and claimed a 30 k classic National Championship in 2017. In this episode, we discuss the reasons...
Independent of one another, Brian Gregg and Matt Liebsch are always to be feared as they line up for a ski race. Now in their mid-thirties, their lives have transitioned to other responsibilities that include partners, children, and full-time work. Yet, in the highly competitive world of elite-level ski racing, these two have maintained a healthy friendship and are fast and furious training partners. We could spend time noting their accomplishments on the ski tracks...
Devon Kershaw, for many years, was a go-to on the World Cup for Canada. He won a gold medal at the 2011 World Championship in the team sprint with Alex Harvey and finished second in the World Cup overall in 2012. He is accomplished. He is also a student of the sport. That was evident last season as he helped Eurosport with its television broadcast coverage of the 2019 World Championships. Watching Kershaw provide race...
In this episode, we speak with now-retired Swedish skier Ida Ingemarsdotter. The thirty-four-year-old Ingemarsdotter became the head coach for the Swedish national development team this fall. She’ll be leading a crew of U23 and U20 skiers as they hope to transition to the senior national team. For many years, Imgemarsdotter was a Swedish World Cup staple. She’s a two-time medalist at the Olympics and a down to earth Swede, as we learn about her recent...
Back in 2015, prior to her first go at a World Championships, Rosie Brennan was asked this: What’s your biggest motivation while racing?. “I am most motivated by wanting to show that my hard work was worth it, that I did everything I could to go as fast as I could,” Brennan replied at the time. She was twenty six years old then, and now at 30 years old, the Park City native grinds away,...
In this episode, we connect with Max Cobb, the CEO of U.S. Biathlon. He also sits on the International Biathlon Union’s (IBU) Executive Board. When we spoke, he had just returned from the IBU’s “historic” Extraordinary Congress which took place from October 18th-20th, in Munich. The IBU has been rocked in the recent past by internal mismanagement and doping scandals. Rather than succumb to the inertia associated with systemic change, the IBU has reset and...
As the Northern Hemisphere slowly tilts towards shorter days and colder temps … and hopefully snow… we spoke with Troy Taylor at U.S. Ski & Snowboard. Taylor’s official title is that of High Performace Director. What that means is he helps coordinate the multiple moving parts involving sport science for the portfolio of teams at U.S. Ski & Snowboard. Taylor has been in this role with U.S. Ski & Snowboard since 2015. He first worked for U.S....
On May 26, Maddie Phaneuf wrote a crisp and revealing blog post about her struggle with mental health issues after the 2018 Olympics. The blog post was titled Invisible Battles, and like many who suffer from a mental health crisis, her struggle was real but often difficult to discuss candidly. Phaneuf does a great service to the community by describing the symptoms she experienced and how she sought help from mental health professionals. Phaneuf...
Kelsey Phinney brings to the sport of cross-country skiing a big-world view as she has rolled with challenges and fine-tuned her athletic performances. First things first: Phinney has become a voice for Parkinson’s Disease advocacy and education. She produced this great podcast episode for the Davis Phinney Foundation titled The Neuroscience of Parkinson’s — it’s part of a broader series from Phinney called The Parkinson’s Podcast. Phinney’s father, himself a former professional cyclist who was diagnosed...