Heading into the final weekend of World Cup racing, the U.S. Ski Team will be allotted a greater number of starts. Starting with Friday’s sprint, racing will be organized in Québec, Canada. Not technically the U.S., but it is North America. The International Ski Federation’s rules state that when Canada hosts a World Cup, the U.S. is considered part of the “nation’s group”. In Québec, you’ll see some new U.S. faces on the World Cup...
It has been a transition year for Cross Country Canada (CCC). Back on June 7th, CCC announced the hiring of Nic Lemyre as its High-Performance advisor. Lemyre is Canadian but lives and works in Oslo, Norway. With the reshuffling of Canada’s staff, up until today, CCC had not formally announced its World Cup coaching roster for the 2018-2019 season. Back on August 11th, CCC posted a job announcement for “Head Coach, Canadian Senior Cross Country...
This week’s featured articles are made possible thanks to the generous support of Masters World Cup 2018.
(For English version, http://unispourlesport.com) vient d’ailleurs récemment de mettre en ligne un plan d’entraînement personnalisable pour coureurs. « Les choses se passent bien », écrit Vaillancourt dans un courriel le mois dernier.
Note: The following interview with retired biathlete Audrey Vaillancourt was conducted in French and translated to English. For French version, Unis pour le sport” (United for Sport). “This project is an effort to help athletes achieve specific goals regarding racing, training, technique in various sports, ranging from cross-country skiing and biathlon to obstacle-course racing and running,” she explained. “We already sense a strong demand for such services across the province.” Most recently, the website published an...
With the 2016/2017 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to outstanding Canadian skiers competing primarily, but not exclusively, at the Continental Cup level. *** Katherine Stewart-Jones, U25 National team/NTDC Thunder Bay/Nakkertok...
With the 2016/2017 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to outstanding North American junior athletes across all nordic disciplines. *** Katharine Ogden, Stratton Mountain School/U.S. Ski Team Yes, Stratton’s...
In another 20-something-question, fill-in-the-blanks series, we checked in with the world-class U.S. and Canadian biathletes that will be competing at 2017 International Biathlon Union (IBU) Youth & Junior World Championships Feb. 22-28 in Osrblie (also known as Brezno-Osrblie), Slovakia. Here’s 17-year-old Léo Grandbois, of Biathlon Estrie, who will be representing Canada at his first Youth Worlds. In the first race of the championships, Grandbois
In an effort to showcase the North Americans competing at this week’s International Ski Federation (FIS) 2017 USANA Nordic Junior World Championships and U23 Cross Country World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, we asked those qualifying athletes several questions about themselves — actually, we had them fill in the blanks. Here we have 21-year-old Alexis Dumas, of the Centre National d’Entraînement Pierre-Harvey (CNEPH) a.k.a. Pierre-Harvey National Training Centre, who’s representing Canada at his second U23 Worlds....
In an effort to showcase the North Americans competing at this week’s International Ski Federation (FIS) 2017 USANA Nordic Junior World Championships and U23 Cross Country World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, we asked those qualifying athletes several questions about themselves — actually, we had them fill in the blanks. Here we have 22-year-old Frédérique Vézina, of the the Centre National d’Entraînement Pierre-Harvey (CNEPH), a.k.a. Pierre-Harvey National Training Centre, who’s representing Canada at her second...
Most of the time, the FIS Cross-Country World Cup visits towns and ski trails the racers already know well. Some venues, like Norway’s Holmenkollen and Switzerland’s Davos, are visited every year. Others, like France’s La Clusaz, are on the schedule every few years but are still always popular. “I’ve been on the World Cup for ten or eleven years, and we go to the same venues all the time,” the U.S. Ski Team’s Liz Stephen said....
After a junior and U23 career spent skiing for Rossland, BC's Black Jack ski team, Julien Locke earned a national team nod in May and has relocated to Canmore, Alberta. He's aiming to impress at the World Cup sprint selection races at Frozen Thunder this week.
Due to some communication miscues, we were initially unable to get in touch with Jean Paquet regarding the elimination of his coaching position with Biathlon Canada. Now we have: here's his side of the story about how the Valcartier National Team Center is being shut down, and what the centralization push may mean for the future of Canadian biathlon.
Chris Lindsay and Matthias Ahrens of Biathlon Canada have both confirmed that the national team's Valcartier training center will be closed down later this spring, and with it coach Jean Paquet's contract has not been renewed. Ahrens hoped that Paquet would still provide staffing on race tours; Paquet's athlete Jean Philippe Le Guellec lamented the centralization push that was a major part of the decision.
In a French & English article, we talk to Canada's Jean Philippe Le Guellec about the final individual race of his international career: today's Olympic mass start, where he finished 10th. After the Games are over, Le Guellec will head back home to race Canadian Championships and bring his career full circle.
En Sochi, Alex Harvey parle de Québec et le niveau des athlètes seniors et juniors, fondeurs et biathlètes, de son province. Il est fier des résultats Québecois aux championnats mondiales juniors, et il a de grands éspoirs pour l'avenir. / In another bilingual piece, Alex Harvey talks about Quebec and the level of athletes, junior and senior, skier and biathlete, in his province.
A middle-of-the-pack skier who competed until 17, Simon Boisvert secured a national-team job this summer at age 21 as a Canadian World Cup wax tech. “When I got the call, I was really happy,” the M.S.A. native says. “It was one of my dreams that came true." Interview and article by Stéphanie Drolet, in both English and French.
There's just one season separating Jean Philippe Le Guellec from retirement, but the recent World Cup winner is hardly complacent about his form as a biathlete. Instead, he's aggressively making changes to his technique, shooting, and strength as part of a resurgent Canadian men's squad - and finding extra motivation for Sochi in the process.
It has been 27 years since the World Cup landed in Eastern Canada. The big show is back, setting up in the front yard of the Quebec Parliament building. The unique course features a small jump, and the loop should favor American Kikkan Randall.
The culture of Quebec is special, says Biathlon Canada High Performance Director Chris Lindsay, and it's no surprise that the province produced both Myriam Bédard and Jean Philippe Le Guellec - and, of course, Alex Harvey. Le Guellec wants to do for biathlon's visibility, and for Canada, what Bédard did in the 1990's.