Martin Fourcade described the final loop of Monday’s 12.5-kilometer pursuit as “one of the worst” in his whole life. That's ironic because he won by 14 seconds to definitively capture his first Olympic gold, but it didn't come easy and there was plenty that could've gone wrong.
“All of cross-country skiing in the U.S. is really excited for this moment,” said Holly Brooks, who trains with Kikkan Randall in Anchorage and is one of her teammates at the Olympics.
In Sochi, the U.S. Ski Team's small support staff will play a role that's cross country skiing's answer to the NASCAR pit crew.
Photos of the U.S. and Canadian men on the first day of the men's cross-country races at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Two Canadians finished in the top 30, and Noah Hoffman led the U.S. in 35th.
Canada's Rosanna Crawford and Megan Imrie notched their best performances at their second Olympics in 25th and 31st, respectively, on Sunday in the 7.5 k sprint. Things came together for Zina Kocher in 32nd, and Megan Heinicke squeaked in the top 60 to also qualify for Tuesday's pursuit.
Anastasiya Kuzmina of Slovakia hasn't won a race in over a year, but today she repeated her Olympic sprint title from Vancouver, shooting clean and skiing the fourth-fastest time of the day. Olga Vilukhina, a Russian biathlete who this season switched to the training group of Vladimir Korolkevich, which also included two athletes who recently failed doping tests, took silver.
In the wrong place at the wrong time three months ago when he slipped on ice and tore ligaments in his ankle, Switzerland’s Dario Cologna made sure he was in position to do something stellar on Sunday at the first men's cross-country ski race of the Olympics. He won his second Olympic gold, beating the defending champion Marcus Hellner or Sweden to the line.
Setting out on the last loop of today's 10 k sprint, Jean Philippe Le Guellec of Canada as sitting in fourth - all he had to do was make up a couple of seconds to earn a medal. But on Sochi's treacherous and brutally difficult course, Le Guellec gave it his all and still ended up fifth. It bettered his previous record for a Canadian men's Olympic performance by one spot; teammate Nathan Smith placed 13th.
While the 15 k skiathlon, the first cross country ski race of the Olympic Games, could have been a warm-up, it turned into much more for the U.S. women: Jessie Diggins rocketed her way into eight, the best finish ever by a U.S. woman at the Games, and Liz Stephen placed 12th.
After all the buildup and accompanying action of Saturday’s cross-country and biathlon competitions, the first of the 2014 Winter Olympics, there was plenty to talk about on Saturday. Here are some of the soundbites that didn’t make the race reports.
One of FasterSkier's three journalists in Sochi reports his first impressions.
The first three of the 36 cross-country skiing medals at stake at the Sochi Olympics are up for grabs Saturday, as racing begins here with the women's 15 k pursuit. Four Americans and three Canadians are entered in the event, which will have the athletes racing four 3.75-kilometer laps on trails at the Laura Cross-Country Ski and Biathlon Center --a massive Olympic complex installed at the top of a ridge in Russia's Western Caucasus Mountains over the last five years.
Canada's Rosanna Crawford says that some features of the Sochi course have stayed the same since the World Cup visited last year: the big climbs, the shooting range with an easy approach and huge retaining walls which cut the wind. But as Max Cobb explains, some changes have been made to the courses as well based in part on Organizing Committee layout errors.
FasterSkier caught up with U.S. Ski Team member Noah Hoffman to talk about everything from his training to his mentality and goals before the Olympics. Hoffman plans to compete in four events: the 30-kilometer skiathlon, 15 k classic individual start, 4 x 10 k relay, and 50 k freestyle, respectively.
With the Winter Olympics set to kick off in earnest with the Opening Ceremony on Friday night, the Canadian National Cross-Country Team is ready to go in the mountain village of Krasnaya Polyana, where it's been training for the last few days. This is the story of how their team grew by two just a few weeks before the Olympics, shortly after the official nomination.
The Canadian Olympic Team gave a press conference today in Sochi, discussing how their past experiences have shaped their arrival at this Olympics and what it means to be a team.
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.
If anyone was going to deny Kikkan Randall of her third-straight skate sprint win, a feat that hasn’t been achieved on the World Cup since Marit Bjørgen's similar winning streak in 2006, it was most likely going to be Bjørgen. The 33-year-old Norwegian stayed calm and collected to do so, leading three Norwegians in the top four as Randall finished fifth in Sunday's Toblach sprint.
In a letter to the Russian Biathlon Union, Irina Starykh confirmed that the IBU had notified her of a positive "A" sample. She resigned from the team until the situation is clarified, and also so that she could attend the opening of the "B" sample. Meanwhile, Alexander Tikhonov points out that a doctor sacked in 2009 after a doping scandal was re-hired this year, and was present on the World Cup circuit.
Erik Bjornsen enjoys the finer things in life: hot chocolate, Sequence and 1994 Ford Rangers. More about the younger of the Bjornsen siblings and first-time Olympian, who's racing at U23 World Championships starting Wednesday in Val di Fiemme, Italy.