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Sergey Ustiugov

Manificat Thrives in Davos 15 k Skate; Harvey Steady in 10th

There’s always a bit of pomp and circumstance in Davos, Switzerland, where you’re as likely to spot a world banker, posh fur coat or World Cup skiers taking center stage. With a brisk wind, clouds descending from the Alps, and light snowfall on Sunday, it was 15-kilometer freestyle time in Davos. With an interval-start format and the traditional three laps of the course that essentially climbs to 3.3 k then descends through forest to the...

Sunday Rundown: Davos, Hochfilzen and Sovereign

NorAm/SuperTour (Sovereign Lake near Vernon, British Columbia): 10/15 k freestyle VERNON, B.C. — The combined NorAm and SuperTour event at the Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre continued with individual-start distance races and continued with the theme of U.S. domination of the leaderboard. Ian Torchia, of Northern Michigan University (NMU) and the U.S. Ski Team D-team, started the day with a big victory in the men’s 15 k freestyle, finishing in 36:29.7 minutes and on the heels...

Sunday Rundown: Lillehammer; Östersund; West Yellowstone (Updated)

US SuperTour (West Yellowstone, Montana): 10/15 k classic mass starts The second day of SuperTour racing took place as originally planned at the Rendezvous Ski Trails in West Yellowstone, with 22-year-old Hedda Bångman, of the University of Colorado Boulder (CU), and 33-year-old Brian Gregg (Team Gregg) winning the women’s 10-kilometer and men’s 15 k classic mass starts, respectively, on Sunday. Bångman, a Swedish freshman on the second in Saturday’s skate sprint) in third (+4.6). Kyle Bratrud (CXC...

Klæbo Wins Lillehammer Classic Sprint for Win No. 4 of the Season

Smack dab in the heart of the nordic sport world in Lillehammer, Norway, the World Cup began its second weekend of the 2017/2018 season with a kick-and-glide bang on Saturday. The men contested a 1.5-kilometer classic sprint on a course featuring a flat run into and out of a three successive climb-descent combo. At 21 years old, Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo remains peerless. Is it the lungs? His up-tempo, high-output running style? For all the...

Saturday Rundown: Lillehammer; Östersund; West Yellowstone (Updated)

US SuperTour (West Yellowstone, Montana): Freestyle sprints Anne Hart and Nick Michaud were the big winners on opening day of the US SuperTour season at the Rendezvous Ski Trails on Saturday, taking individual victories in the women’s and men’s freestyle sprint finals, respectively. Hart led into the finishing straight to take the win in 2:52.49 minutes, 0.88 seconds ahead of Erika Flowers, her teammate on the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) Elite Team, who placed second, and...

World Cup Windup: Russia

Welcome to World Cup Windup, where we check in with the top-10 teams from last year’s FIS Cross Country World Cup tour before the season starts with the Ruka Triple in Kuusamo, Finland, on Nov. 24. RUSSIA Overall in Nations Cup Last Year: Fourth Women’s Ranking 2016/2017: Fifth Men’s Ranking 2016/2017: Second Who’s Back: Ust-iu-gov! Ust-iu-gov! Sergey Ustiugov, a sensation in the last two seasons, is back for more. There’s also top-20 ranked overall skiers...

Ustiugov, Bjørgen Rule Mass Start; Newell 18th After Breaking Pole

In the men’s 15-kilometer freestyle rollerski mass start on the third day of the 2017 Blink Ski Festival in the coastal town of Sandnes in the southwest of Norway, U.S. Ski Team (USST) member Andy Newell constantly held a position in the first group, staying within a few seconds of the leaders. With two laps to go, he was in sixth place, less than two seconds back. “I felt good about the race,” Newell reflected...

Summer Success for Sundby, Wins First Race of Blink Festival

Stands crowded with 50,000 cheering spectators. Bibbed athletes clad in shorts and T-shirts clicking by on rollerskis. Competitors representing various countries dousing themselves with bottled water as they cross the finish line. These were among the sights and sounds of the world’s largest summer rollerski-race series, Norway’sjust 10 women.  Slind took the win in a time of 2:20:04.2, while fellow Norwegian Kari Vikhagen Gjeitnes claimed second, 2:11.1 minutes back. Belarus’s Yulia Tikhonova completed the women’s...

FasterSkier’s International Skiers of the Year: Sergey Ustiugov & Marit Bjørgen

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 honor goes to outstanding international skiers of the year. Previous categories: Collegiate | U.S. Continental | Biathletes | U.S. Breakthroughs | he won his first Tour...

Harvey Delivers Again at Home, Wins First Race of World Cup Finals in Quebec

QUEBEC CITY — Friday started off about as good as the Canadian men’s team could have hoped for, with five skiers finishing in the top 30 to qualify for the heats in the 1.5-kilometer freestyle sprint on the first day of World Cup Finals. According to Cross Country Canada, that’s the first time five Canadian men have qualified in a World Cup race. Racing one lap around the Plains of Abraham in the heart of Quebec...

Saturday Rundown: Holmenkollen, Kontiolahti, Jackson, and Lake Placid (Updated x4)

NCAA Skiing Championships (Jackson, N.H.): 15/20 k freestyle mass starts On the final day of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Skiing Championships in northern New Hampshire, the University of Utah pulled out a 16.5-point victory over the University of Colorado-Boulder (and finished 17.5 points ahead of the University of Denver) in the team standings, and the Petra Hyncicova, achieved their second-straight titles in as many nordic races this week. On a frigid Saturday morning in Jackson,...

Brandsdal Outduels Klæbo for Drammen City Sprint Win

DRAMMEN, Norway — The stage was set around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday when a homegrown Norwegian made good in front of a spectator-lined 1.2-kilometer classic course smack-dab in the middle of Drammen’s city center. It was a day of contrast that began with blue skies and ended with a deep chill and falling snow as thumping music pounded and the gothic Bragernes Church loomed. In between, the clouds amassed and the classic tracks stayed firmed for...

Wednesday Rundown: Drammen & Lake Placid (Updated)

FIS Cross-Country World Cup (Drammen, Norway): Classic sprints Just three days after 2017 Nordic World Championships ended in Lahti, Finland, World Cup cross-country skiers were back to their regular-season grind with 1.2-kilometer classic sprints on Wednesday in Drammen, Norway. In the men’s race, Norway stole the day with Eirik Brandsdal notching his first World Cup win since 2015 in Drammen, but Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov broke up the team’s total domination of the final with a...

An Air-Guitar Solo: Harvey Closes Out Championships with 50 k Win

LAHTI, Finland — Here’s the basics: fast and firm tracks, cloudless skies, and once again a stacked field for the final event of the 2017 Nordic World Championships: the men’s 50-kilometer freestyle mass start. Over the course of the 50 k, Canada’s Harvey had to think about one thing: be up front near the top three in order to shadow Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby’s inevitable gut punch in the last kilometer. What he didn’t have...

Sunday Rundown: Harvey Wins World Champs Gold in Lahti; PyeongChang + Vasaloppet (Updated)

FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Men’s 50 k freestyle mass start After a week of missing out on the medals at 2017 Nordic World Championships, Canada’s Alex Harvey, a four-time World Championships medalist from 2011, 2013 and 2015, achieved his first individual gold medal in the final race of this year’s World Championships in Lahti, Finland. Harvey, 28, won the men’s 50-kilometer freestyle mass start in a drag race to the finish. Entering the...

Down to the Wire: Norwegian Men Win Lahti Relay with Russia Nipping at Their Heels

LAHTI, Finland — There were three medals up for grabs during Friday’s 4 x 10-kilometer relay at 2017 Nordic World Championships on Friday. Yet after the scramble leg, two distinct races: Norway and Russia’s dance for gold, and what eventually became a four-way tango between Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany for bronze and silver. Russia’s Andrey Larkov and Norway’s Didrik Tønseth first strung out and then smoked the field late in their leg. By the tag...

Friday Rundown: Bailey 2nd in PyeongChang; Lahti Relay & NoCo Team Sprint (Updated)

IBU World Cup (PyeongChang, South Korea): Men’s 10 k sprint US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey kept his clean-shooting streak alive with another one of his personal best results on Friday, racing to second in the men’s 10-kilometer sprint at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea. Bailey started 81st and hit all 10 targets in the two-stage race to cross the finish line in first, 4.7 seconds ahead of France’s Martin Fourcade,...

Amidst Finnatics, Niskanen Strides to 15 k Gold; Bjornsen Notches 18th at World Champs

LAHTI, Finland — Through the first seven medal races of 2017 Nordic World Championships, the hometown Finns came close. There was Niskanen was primed to pass Iversen for what appeared to be a golden performance. Instead of a cheer concluding the sprint, a collective exhale deflated the crowd: Niskanen and teammate Sami Jauhojärvi ultimately settled for bronze. While it wasn’t the result they had hoped for, it remained the 25-year-old Niskanen’s first World Championships medal. Another...

Hopes Dashed for Finland and Norway, Russia Claims Team Sprint Gold

LAHTI, Finland — The breath taken out of a nation. Throughout the lifetime of a sporting fan, high-stakes races or games offer the chance for seared-into-the-neurons moments, things you remember for an eternity with the distinct recollection of where you were and what you were doing when the news came down. But those are exceptionally rare moments. And depending on what side of the equation you’re on, they can be mile high or a mile...