According to skate technique expert Torgeir Bjørn, Petter Northug is best during the last ten minutes of a race. Bjørn, who is the technique coach with the Norwegian national biathlon team, explains that this is the part of the race where technique matters the most. Petter Northug agrees with Bjørn, and says that basic core strength is a determining factor in being able to finish ski races on top. “Up until 2008 I wasn’t particularly...
Since sprinting was first introduced, at the 2001 World Championships in Finland, the International Ski Federation (FIS) has constantly fiddled with the format. The number of heats, the number of athletes in each one, and the total number who qualify for the rounds—all have been altered at one point or another. But one of the most contentious—and significant—changes has been the length of the sprint race. Changes Were Necessary, Officials Say According to FIS Cross-Country...
OSLO, Norway – Olympic champion Dario Cologna (SUI) is in Oslo to check out the courses that will be used for the upcoming World Championships in Holmenkollen.
SWEDEN – Petter Northug is not allowed to write autographs or meet the fans during the 2011 World Championships in Oslo. That approach doesn’t appeal to Sweden’s top skier Marcus Hellner. He welcomes the public and wants lots of action at the venue, and promises to sign autographs.
For the past two years, Norway’s Petter Northug has been the best in the world. One look at the medals tables from the 2009 World Championships and 2010 Olympic Games serves as proof: Over the 12 competitions at those two events, Northug took gold in five of them, and reached the podium on two other occasions. FasterSkier had the opportunity to talk with Northug over breakfast in Las Vegas in July, immediately following the rollerski...
Earlier this summer FasterSkier ran an
AURE, NORWAY – Cross country skier Petter Northug (NOR) leaves Aure and the rest of the events at Toppidrettsveka. Northug completed two of four events. Toppidrettsveka started out as an elite Norwegian week of competitions, camps and challenges that evolved into an international week of camps and competitions in the northwest part of Norway. The past two years it has featured World Cup roller ski events, and this summer acted as test events for the...
OSLO, NORWAY – When Marit Bjørgen, 30, signed her current contract with Fischer in the spring of 2009, after having experimented with other ski brands, she took a heavy salary cut. Even though Bjørgen’s gold medal collection for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler is the biggest ever for a Norwegian female in a single event, the Fischer contract was non-negotiable after the season. “I have not renegotiated my contract with Fischer from 2009. That contract...
There are few sports that can challenge the intensity of cross-country skiing, but cycling is one of them. Anyone who has ever pedaled a road bike uphill–which includes almost all cross-country skiers–can appreciate the difficulty of the Tour de France, and as such, we decided to get some perspective on the race from Canadian Olympian Devon Kershaw. Kershaw himself is no stranger to the bicycle–Carlos Barredo-style? DK: Haha, Barredo was classic. Using the wheel for...
I step off the bus from the Strip into the Las Vegas evening and walk inside the Palms Casino, about 40 minutes early for the poker game between Marcus Hellner and Petter Northug. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I’m just coming off a two or three mile walk in search a loaf of bread, jostling tourists in 100-degree heat. The only place I can find to make my peanut butter and jelly sandwich is...
Winning at cards requires both luck and skill. On his fourth day of play at the 2010 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, Petter Northug’s luck ran out–but not before he had survived long enough to win more than $20,000. With fewer than 700 players remaining from an original pool of more than 7,000, Northug was eliminated, on a hand that he had less than a 20 percent chance of losing. Late in the...
Petter Northug continued his run at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas on Monday, upping his chip count by 50 percent and advancing to the fourth day of competition. “During the three days he has played, he has not made a single mistake,” said Thorkild Gundersen, a journalist from Northug’s sponsor, Vi Menn Magazine, in an interview with the Norwegian website Nettavisen. After his third day of play at the tournament, Northug checked...
It’s not oil, fish, or aquavit that’s behind the Norwegian sports machine, which delivered the most medals per capita of any nation at the 2010 Olympic Games—at least not entirely. Instead, a healthy portion of the funding for Norway’s sports organizations comes from Norsk-Tipping, the state-owned gambling company. Norsk-Tipping dedicates 45.5 percent of its annual profits to sports—more than $241 million U.S. dollars in 2009 alone. That’s one of the reasons that quadruple Olympic-medalist Petter...
In Las Vegas, the house always wins. And in Tuesday’s head-to-head rollerski race between Marcus Hellner and Petter Northug, Northug was the house. On a course laid out by his Norwegian magazine sponsor—and modified at the last minute to give him a better shot at the win—Northug took the last two heats of a best-of-three series in the parking lot of the Palms Casino, evening the score with Hellner after losing to the Swede in...
11:28 PM: With ten minutes to go in the first day of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, it appears that both Petter Northug and Marcus Hellner have survived, and will head into a second round of play later this week. The two each have comfortable stacks of chips, and will be in decent position as the tournament continues on. 4:50: For once, it looked like Petter Northug was faced with a comeback...
Marcus Hellner one, Petter Northug zero. In an hour-long production worthy of two A-list celebrities, Hellner outlasted Northug in a one-on-one game of Texas Hold’em at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas on Sunday evening. Orchestrated by the Norwegian men’s magazine Vi Menn and the online gambling company PokerStars, the event showcased the kind of status that the two athletes enjoy in Europe. Clad in a crisp white button-down shirt emblazoned with a Norwegian flag...
If Petter Northug and Marcus Hellner had any doubts as to whether they’d be out of their element during the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, the high temperatures in the triple digits over the weekend should serve to quash them. The two may be Olympic gold medalists, but they’re also unseasoned card-players. If they hope to fare well in the tournament, the Scandinavians will have to better old-school pros, new-school math-whizzes, and hundreds...
Petter Northug Jr. wins 2010 Tour de Troendelag with a healthy margin after snow ski race Saturday was canceled due to inclement weather.
FasterSkier will be in Las Vegas from July 3 to July 6 for the Petter Northug-Marcus Hellner poker showdown and rollerski race. The pair will face off in a head-to-head poker matchup on the fourth of July, play their first day of the World Series of Poker on July 5, and then compete in the rollerski race on July 6. FasterSkier has reserved a double room at the