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Simen Hegstad Krüger

All Norway: Pål Golberg takes the Ski Tour Overall as Bolshunov Stymied by Tricky Conditions

Yellow bibbed as the overall leader of the World Cup, out first on Sunday’s 30 k classic pursuit in Trondheim, and Norway’s Pål Golberg starting 34 seconds back: this was the situation Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov found himself in as he pulsed from the start. Thrown into this mix of tension was a helter-skelter mish-mash of weather. On and off again snow, blustery winds, and temps hovering right near that wax tech’s no man’s land of...

Klæbo Hop Skates to a Stage 3 Win; Hamilton Settles into 14th as he Returns to World Cup Sprinting

Let’s explain. The format was basic, a freestyle sprint. Otherwise, that’s where sprints as we know it ended. The 0.66-kilometer course shot off from the start up a gradual V2-able climb. It then rounded a left-hander where athletes descended what looked like a salted banked turn found in a X-Games terrain park. Down to the course’s bottom zoomed the skiers. Then things turned skyward. The course ascended a mini-Alpe Cermis lasting around one-minute for the...

Perfect Pacing: Sjur Røthe Claims Ski Tour 2020 Stage 1 Win

The six-stage Ski Tour 2020, which runs from Sweden to Norway over the next week, began Saturday in Östersund, Sweden with the men’s 15-kilometer individual start skate. The race began with twilight immersing Östersund with the sky eventually morphing into black as the seeded group of skiers looped around on what FIS called a 4.71 k course. This much can be concluded after a single day of what will be a hotly contested tour: the...

Bolshunov Four for Four in Distance Wins; Norris Earns Season Best Result in 24th

Around and around they go. Due to lack of snow in Falun, Sweden, the men again wheeled their way around a manmade ribbon of snow, skating six icy 2.5-kilometer laps. Reduced from 30 to the 15 k distance and without the long, steep climb for which the course is usually known, how athletes would fare was yet to be determined.   Along the way, two sets of 15 bonus points were available for the top ten...

Third Consecutive Distance Win for Bolshunov in Oberstdorf; Norris 28th

And the World Cup beat goes on. Nearly 70 men lined up in Oberstdorf, Germany for a 15/15-kilometer skiathlon, battling across techniques in front of a Bavarian Alp backdrop. The venue will be the home of the 2021 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships. The 3.75 k course in Oberstdorf featured a variety of terrain, with the Burgstall hill climb bringing athletes to the high point of the course. To increase the pulse in the long...

Nové Město Pursuit: Bolshunov in Command

More snow. More fans. On Sunday in Nové Město, Czech Republic, day two of a pursuit weekend unfolded amidst trees draped in snow and a 5 k course with portions lined with fans. With snow falling, the men raced a 15-kilometer classic pursuit.  Rewind to yesterday’s first portion of the pursuit format, a 15 k interval start skate, which established the time-back start positions for Sunday. Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov won that race by a margin of...

The hype. The Spectacle. Stage 7 of the 2019-2020 Tour de Ski (TdS) brings the show: the Alpe Cermis final climb. The race this year began as a mass start — a new format for the final stage, as this has historically has been a pursuit race, where the first skier to the finish line is the TdS champ.  With the opening sections of the course taking in the sprint course loop in Val di Fiemme,...

New day, new venue, almost a new decade. The 2019/2020 Tour de Ski continued in Toblach, Italy with a 15-kilometer interval start skate. In the war of attrition that is the tour, the first stages set the tone. Hopefuls for the overall win seek to establish their position near the top without expending too much energy to hold up for the long haul.  We saw this in the first stage, where the men’s field remained...

Ustiugov Victorious Over Narrowly Spread Field in Stage 1 of the Tour de Ski (Updated)

The starting corral was blocked by a wall of red before the start of the 15-kilometer mass start freestyle in Lenzerheide, Switzerland. Of the top ten ranked athletes, eight hailed from either Norway or Russia, interrupted only by Iivo Niskanen of Finland and Lucas Chanavat of France.  Front and center was last year’s victor Johannes Høsflot Klæbo. He became the youngest Tour de Ski Champion at 22 years of age after holding off Russia’s Sergey...

In contrast to yesterday’s open valley sprints, Sunday’s 15-kilometer interval start freestyle was tucked and nestled on the shady side of the valley. Firm snow and less than optimal oxygen concentrations greeted athletes. Davos sits at just over five thousand feet in altitude. As far as the race narrative, so much for fairy tales in lovely Davos. Dario Cologna, the Swiss ski star sat for a time in the fur-lined leader’s chair. Davos, according to...

Ustiugov Closes with a Fury as Russia Goes 1-2 in Lillehammer Relay

Call it what you want: national pride, national bias, flag-waving: the team relays elicit nationalistic tendencies. In Lillehammer, Norway, you might think and maybe expect it’s your birthright to see the hometeam crush. That’s been the recent norm almost without exception.  Here’s the quick stats to either dispel or reinforce those tendencies: Norway has won nine of the last 11 relay races on the World Cup. Russia won the other two. In fact, Russia took...

Day Three in Beitostølen: Men’s 15 k Freestyle (Updated with Audio Interviews)

The third and final day of the Norweigan opening races Beitostølen, Norway  — during which the conditions hovered around freezin — saw Simen Hegstad Krüger win the 15-kilometer freestyle in 30:16.4. Martin Løwstrøm Nyenget of Norway placed second (+3.7), and Hans Christer Holund was third (+8.7).  Martin Johnsrud Sundby, having a rough reentry to the racing season, did not finish the race. The U.S. Ski Team, recently arrived in Norway, used the Beitostølen races as...

This Op-Ed comes from Chad Salmela, the commentator for World Cup nordic skiing and IBU Biathlon at NBC Sports. Salmela also coaches running at the The College of St, Scholasticia.  *** Saturday’s Men’s Skiathlon and Why I Think it Matters I don’t have a blog and I didn’t get to call the race Saturday,  but I thought it was compelling on a couple levels. (Disclaimer: You may have figured all this out without me, so my...

Sunday Race Rundown: Ulricehamn, Antholz, and Lake Placid (Updated)

FIS World Cup Ulricehamn, Sweden 4 x 5 k / 4 x 7.5 k relay The sun rises, the sun sets, and Norway wins the women’s 4 x 5-kilometer relay in Ulricehamn, Norway on Sunday. For the 11th time in a row, a Norwegian women’s team bested the world in the storied race format. Heidi Weng, Therese Johaug, Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg won in a time of 57:06.3 minutes. For the first...

Manificat Gets his Win; Harvey Returns for Ninth

  The tension in the interval start race comes down to watching the clock. The seconds tick, the time checks pass, the squirm of the of the skier in the leader’s chair only quelled after the top-prospects slide past the finish — and there’s only a reference to time back. On Dec. 12, that was France’s Maurice Manificat, the thirty-two-year-old skate skiing star, residing where he often belongs, sitting in the leader’s chair in Davos,...

Sunday Race Rundown: Tour de Ski and U.S. Nationals (Updated)

FIS World Cup Tour de Ski Stage Val di Fiemme, Italy 9 k Freestyle Pursuit Alpe Cermis Hill Climb Sunday was the day for the steeps, the V1, and some single pole sticks as the Tour de Ski’s (TdS) final Stage 7 9-kilometer skate pursuit up the Alpe Cermis played out. Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg began the stage with a 53.4-second head start on Russia’s Natalia Nepryaeva who skied off in bib 2 as the...

Ustiugov is Back with a Tour de Ski Stage 2 Win; Harvey in 14th

For the World Cup seasons 2016-2018, along with Norwegians like Martin Johnsrud Sundby and Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, the name of Russian Sergey Ustiugov was a regular at or near the top of the results sheet. In 2016 Ustiugov marked 11 World Cup podiums. He had another 11 in 2017, and five last season along with the Tour de Ski (TdS) overall title. Ustiugov didn’t exactly suffer a shattering fall from grace. His five podiums last...

Sunday Race Rundown from Toblach, Italy (TdS Stage 2)

FIS World Cup Tour de Ski Stage 10 k/15 k Freestyle Interval Start On Sunday, Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski (TdS) offered a 10-kilometer freestyle interval start for the women in Toblach, Italy. Russia’s Natalia Nepryaeva won the race in a time of 25:12.8 minutes. Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg skied to a razor-thin second place, clocking in 0.3 seconds behind Nepryaeva. Another Russian, Anastasia Sedova, placed third (+10.9). This was Nepryaeva’s first career...

World Cup Preview: #1 Norway

Welcome to FasterSkier’s World Cup Preview, where we check in with the top-10 teams from last year’s FIS Cross Country World Cup tour before the season starts. The World Cup begins with a classic sprint in Ruka, Finland on Nov. 24th *** Norway Overall in Nations Cup Last Year: 1 Women’s Ranking 2017/2018: 1 Men’s Ranking 2017/2018: 1 Norwegians to Watch:   Norway won last year’s Nation’s Cup by more than twice as many points...