Winter is upon us and we are extremely pleased to announce that the first snowflakes have already fallen on Gatineau. Therefore, it is the the perfect time to prepare for the biggest cross-country event in Canada: the GATINEAU LOPPET.
There’s Dasha2: It Takes More.’ If you talk to the 2010 Olympian, that’s exactly how she’s approached this season. After largely individualized plan while complying with national-team standards. In doing so, she chose to train with Louis Bouchard, the World Cup men’s assistant coach and head of the Pierre-Harvey Training Centre (CNEPH) in Mont Sainte-Anne. That required a cross-country move and parting ways with Rocky Mountain Racers and its coach, John Jacques. She also signed...
MONT SAINTE ANNE, Québec – Standing on the hill above the stadium at the Canadian Ski Nationals in March, Pierre Harvey smiled as he soaked up the sights and sounds buzzing around him. Earlier that morning on the last day of competition, his only son, Alex, purposely tied his best friend and teammate Devon Kershaw for the 50-kilometer classic victory. Several hours later, Pierre Harvey, a three-time Olympian whose name belongs to the Pierre-Harvey National...
MONT SAINTE ANNE, Québec — Already missing the warm weather and spring racing that took place at Canadian Ski Nationals in Québec from March 17-24? FasterSkier took plenty of photos and pared them down to some of the best from each of the senior/open races. Take a look on our All Canadian Nationals photos 5/10k Classic Freestyle sprints 30 k classic For results and start lists, visit
MONT SAINT-ANNE, Québec – To say that Devon Kershaw and Alex Harvey are close would be a massive understatement. When Kershaw decided to pack it in for the season, Harvey and some of his other teammates on the Canadian National Ski Team convinced him to reconsider. They found Kershaw on the start line Saturday as fired up as ever for the 50-kilometer classic mass start at Canadian Ski Nationals. After skiing together with a lead...
MONT SAINTE-ANNE, Québec — Alex Harvey had a lot going for him on Thursday. The hometown course and its accompanying fans, the helicopter and a little luck were just a few of the things in the 23-year-old’s favor in the 1.4-kilometer freestyle sprint final at Canadian Ski Nationals. Heck, organizers even pushed the weeklong event back in March to accommodate Harvey and his national team’s return. When Harvey nearly missed his quarterfinal on Thursday, they gave...
MONT SAINTE-ANNE, Québec — Whipping along the first of two downhills on a chemically enhanced sprint course at Canadian Ski Nationals on Thursday, Chandra Crawford could feel the vibrations in the stadium. Everyone there could. A helicopter soared directly ahead, swaying above one end of the 1.4-kilometer freestyle sprint loop to the other for an unrivaled viewpoint of the nation’s cross-country skiing finale. Spectators buzzed that the mayor of Québec was inside. In fact, it...
MONT SAINTE-ANNE, Québec — While Alex Harvey was the man of the day at Canadian Ski Nationals on Tuesday, Devon Kershaw, Lenny Valjas and the remaining World Cup crew (including Chandra Crawford, Dasha Gaiazova, Alysson Marshall and Kevin Sandau) also met a strong welcome after flying into Québec late Monday night and racing the next day. Cross-country ski fans, friends, family and media outlets came out to Mont Sainte-Anne to catch a glimpse of the...
MONT SAINTE-ANNE, Québec –Anyone trying to follow the women’s 10-kilometer freestyle individual start at Canadian Ski Nationals on Tuesday might have found the live splits a little confusing. Emily Nishikawa led at 5 k. No wait, Perianne Jones did. Ragnhild Haga sat in second, but Alysson Marshall later bumped her from that spot. Randomized seeding put some of the closest competitors considerably far apart on the start list, making it difficult to determine where athletes...
MONT SAINTE-ANNE, Québec – Alex Harvey had no idea what he was in for. Or maybe he did. Fourteen hours after he and several other Canadian National Team members stepped off a plane in Québec City and concluded a 32-hour trip back from the World Cup Finals in Sweden, Harvey was back in his native Saint-Ferréol-les-Neiges, Québec, preparing to race again. If it had been up to Harvey, he would have slept in a little...
MONT SAINTE-ANNE, Québec – Four days after flying home from Europe, Ivan Babikov was back in action at Canadian Ski Nationals on Monday. The 31-year-old national team member was also back to his winning ways, hitting his stride as usual at the domestic championships and claiming his seventh Canadian title. Out of nearly 160 men in the 10-kilometer classic individual start, Babikov was the fastest, completing the two loops in 28:38.6. Runner-up Erik Carleton (Rocky...
MONT SAINTE-ANNE, Québec – After a whirlwind tour of Europe, in which Ida Sargent of the U.S. Ski Team/Craftsbury Green Racing Project came home just once for U.S. Nationals in January, the 24-year-old took on relatively simple task in Canada on Monday. She needed to pass one person and push hard in a 5-kilometer classic individual start. With soft conditions and temperatures upwards of 7 degrees Celsius (45 degrees Fahrenheit) at Canadian Ski Nationals, that...
VALCARTIER, Québec – As she rounded the penalty loop at Myriam Bédard Center on Sunday, Rosanna Crawford looked up and threw down her headband. Winning the pursuit wasn’t going to be a walk in the park at the Canadian Biathlon Championships, and the 23-year-old from Alberta needed all the firepower she could muster. But the shooting portion was over; Crawford missed one shot in each of the last three stages for three total misses. The...
This year, the Haywood Canadian National Championships have been pushed back a week to accommodate a special group – Canada’s World Cup elite, which are returning in force to put on a show for the home crowd in Quebec. With Alex Harvey, Devon Kershaw, Chandra Crawford and all the major Canadian stars slated to participate, the fields will be some of the deepest in North America all season. The Canadian World Cup squad has turned...
The field wasn’t as deep as usual and the stakes weren’t quite as high, but the final NorAm weekend at Parc National du Mont-Orford left participants with plenty to talk about. They skied atypical courses, some saw crashes and everyone braved unbearable temperatures at the two-day event. Some notched their first wins of the season; others raced with old rivals. While Kevin Sandau of the Alberta World Cup Academy had already locked up the top regional spot and...
The art and appeal of racing usually boils down to the unexpected. One can guess who will win, pick the favorites and anticipate the moves, but nothing is ever over ’til, well, it’s over. In two entirely different pursuit races Sunday in Cantley, Quebec, the odds and work ethic played out for the Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA). In the men’s 30 k classic pursuit, Graeme Killick and Jesse Cockney set out to aidi teammate...
Nearing the halfway point of the 10 k freestyle interval start at the Eastern Canadian Championships on Saturday, Emily Nishikawa heard a motivating split time: she was 10 seconds out of first. For different skiers under various circumstances, that might come as a surprise or a letdown. For Nishikawa, it told her exactly how to ski the second lap in order to beat Alberta World Cup Academy teammate Alysson Marshall. Hard. Fortunately, the 22-year-old Yukon...
Minutes before the NorAm freestyle interval starts on Saturday, three Alberta World Cup Academy coaches scrambled to get into position. In the women’s race as well as the men’s, they had several athletes starting one after another, many of which they knew would be competing for top spots. Earlier that morning in the wax room, AWCA head coach Chris Jeffries jokingly told sprint coach Stefan Kuhn that the men’s team had not swept a distance...
Note: This recap has been updated to include quotes from third-place finisher Harry Seaton. Heat after heat, Jesse Cockney may have been racing around the same 1.4-kilometer sprint course in Cantley, Quebec, but in his mind, he was at the U23 World Championships on Friday. Cockney, 22, had been trying to visualize what it would be like in Erzurum, Turkey, ever since he officially qualified for the U23 trip in mid January. It helped that...
Alysson Marshall has a pretty good idea what her strengths are in any given race. Power up the hills, charge down them and conserve energy wherever possible. The 23-year-old Alberta World Cup Academy skier played Friday’s 1.4 k freestyle sprint accordingly, pacing herself to a qualifying win in 3:31.19 on the first day of the NorAm mini tour in Cantley, Quebec. She was 2.61 seconds ahead of the next fastest woman, Andrea Dupont of the...