Pursuit day at the Tour de Ski. Fifty-one skiers chased the yellow Tour de Ski leaders bib of Norway’s Therese Johaug during Stage 4, a 10-kilometer classic pursuit. Start times for the day’s pursuit were based on time back in Stage 3, a 10 k interval start skate. Johaug started first, with Norwegian teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg, 0.1 seconds back. A few skiers raced off with a small enough time deficit to dream of making...
Toblach, Italy. A stunning stadium and backdrop with the Dolomites lording over the venue and a steady cling-clang of baritone bells greeted skiers along portions of the course. Stage 3 in Toblach, a 10-kilometer interval start skate, turbocharged the 2019-2020 Tour de Ski (TDS). After two stages, a Stage 1 mass start skate and Stage 2 skate sprint, Russia’s Natalia Nepryaeva sat atop the overall standings. In third overall, Norway’s imminent threat, Therese Johaug, was positioned...
Day two of the Tour de Ski offered the American women the Sisyphean task of earning back time after a miss on ski and wax selection in Stage 1 prevented them from performing to their capability. This was particularly so for Jessie Diggins, a favorite for the overall tour podium who finished the first stage in 29th 1:20 behind Norway’s pace-setting Theresa Johaug. Her teammate Sadie Maubet Bjornsen, also a top all-arounder, was in the...
Saturday marked the start of the 14th Tour de Ski in Lenzerheide, Switzerland. Forgoing the traditional prologue start to determine time back to the leader, organizers threw in a spicy 11-kilometer mass start freestyle. Easy to follow for fans, maybe not so much for those following in the wake of Norway’s Therese Johaug. The scene was a Swiss winter ideal: plentiful snow, portions of the course dappled in sunlight, others shrouded in a drifting-in and...
With the tight racing and jostling for position the team sprint presents, another factor was in the mix during Sunday’s Planica, Slovenia women’s 7.2-kilometer freestyle team sprint: big, fat, and plentiful snowflakes. Saturdays’ rainy, and lightning ridden sprint racing on an artificial snow loop, had a 180-degree backdrop flip-flop with a white winter arriving in Planica in time for the holidays and a World Cup TV broadcast. A several inch veneer of fresh snow covered...
Temperatures over 40 degrees Fahrenheit, steady rain that peppered camera lenses, sparse broods of fans huddled under umbrellas, and a ribbon of white farmed snow. After a wintery start to the season in snowy Ruka, Lillehammer, and Davos, athlete’s found their spring-like gear racing the 1.2-kilometer freestyle sprint in Planica, Slovenia. With many “all-arounders” choosing to sit out the sprint focused weekend to rest for the upcoming Tour de Ski, the intimate subset of athletes...
In this episode of The Devon Kershaw Show … it is all things Davos. While the glam Swiss valley boasts mountain scenery, and a fusion of traditional Swiss cowbell and high finance, in many ways it remains decidely old school. Among other things, we discuss what some say is an outdated Davos distance course and the killing it Swedish women’s team. We’ll be releasing a mid-week episode where we chat about last week’s WADA...
(An earlier version of the story mistakenly stated Caldwell had placed second. FIS live timing had Caldwell in second place. Apologies for the error.) When Davos is good, it is good on a global scale. With the Swiss valley blanketed in snow, and a gauze of high clouds keeping the race proceedings just a notch away from perfectly sun-shiny, the World Cup’s 1.5-kilometer freestyle sprint was won by twenty-year-old Swede Linn Svahn. According to the...
A national team uniform for cross-country skiing has to do a lot of things. At the most utilitarian level, it has to wick sweat and aid performance while an athlete pursues one of the world’s most demanding sports at temperatures between –4 F and 40, in steady snow or driving rain or anything in between. At the functional level, it has to let spectators and coaches identify where their athlete is out on the course,...
Athletes warmed up amidst fat falling snowflakes as a storm blanketed Lillehammer, Norway. The gun fired, and a flurry of this snow clouded the boots, poles, and relay socks as a wave of skiers strode their way up and out of the Birkebeiner Stadium for the first leg of the women’s 4 x 5-kilometer relay. With outstanding performances in the first two World Cup race weekends, it is clear that the U.S. women are hot....
A big day for Sadie Maubet Bjornsen of the U.S. Ski Team (USST) in Ruka, Finland. She placed third overall in the women’s 1.4-kilometer classic sprint. Italy’s Lucia Scardoni established the time to beat in the qualifier, 3:03.01. Maubet Bjornsen played her fitness cards early as she qualified in second, 1:15 seconds back. “It has been an interesting fall battling through some frustrating tendinitis in my feet that didn’t allow me to run or ski...
United States Overall in Nations Cup Last Year: 5th Women’s Ranking 2018/2019: 4th Men’s Ranking 2018/2019: 11th Americans to Watch: Seven men and nine women will be lining up in stars and stripes for the World Cup’s opening: Finland’s Ruka Triple. Three race series features a classic sprint followed by a two-day distance pursuit. At the top of the ranks, Jessie Diggins (USST/SMS T2) finished the 2019 season 6th in distance and 7th in sprint....
FasterSkier reporter Aleks Tangen was in Beitostølen to report. As a new feature we are posting interviews from the mixed zone in the report below. The opening Norwegian national races began in Beitostølen, Norway today with a 1.2-kilometer women’s classic sprint and a 1.7 k classic sprint for the men. Beyond featuring a loaded field of seasoned and up-and-coming Norwegian skiers, the U.S. Ski Team is using these races as a tune up for next week’s Ruka,...
On Friday in Norway athletes gathered for a double-header day of rollerski races at the Toppidrettsveka festival. First up was a 25-kilometer skate race for both the men and women that concluded with a 1.5 k classic sprint in Aure. Below are the sprint race results. The U.S. Ski Team’s (USST) Sadie Bjornsen placed seventh overall, while Sophie Caldwell (USST) was 13th. Katie Feldman of the SVSEF Gold Team placed 27th overall. Women’s sprint...
On a bright, hot Saturday, Simi Hamilton (SMS T2/USST) and Katharine Ogden (Dartmouth/SMS T2) won the NENSA App Gap Challenge in Fayston, VT. Hamilton finished the race in 26:10 minutes, 26 seconds shy of Kyle Bratrud’s record-setting win last year. Ben Lustgarten of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) raced to second, 12 seconds back at 26:22. CGRP teammate Adam Martin followed in third place at 26:37. Ogden won in 32:15, with Sophie Caldwell (SMS...
Fostering cultural change within complex organizations is painstaking. U.S. Ski & Snowboard is no different. Most often the most effective type of change comes less from edict and more from many a collection of stakeholder’s voice For the past decade, the U.S. cross-country team has had unparalleled success. Whether the metric is developing athletes to winning medals, most observers see a winning culture. That has not kept the minds at U.S. Ski & Snowboard from...
US Ski & Snowboard SuperTour Finals Presque Isles, Maine 30k/50k Mass Start Freestyle Tuesday marked the last day of SuperTour Finals and with it, the women raced a 30-kilometer mass start freestyle. Sadie Bjornsen (APU/USST) won in 1:21:29.4. Bjornsen was the pacesetter for much of the day. By the 10 k checkpoint, the potential podium challengers had been winnowed down to Bjornsen, Rosie Brennan (APU), Julia Kern (SMS T2/USST), Jessica Yeaton (APU), Katherine Stewart-Jones (NTDC...
The build-up was immense. Head to head skiing. A mass start classic race with 10-kilometers to prove world-class stamina with Québec City’s cross-country ski fans lining the course. In a world now rife with data and the application of that information enmeshed in sport, the calculus seemed simple enough. Norway’s Therese Johaug has made a clean sweep of every World Cup distance race she’s entered this season. Nine World Cup wins. Then add three distance...
There was wind. Some snow. And certainly 1.6-kilometers of soft leg-sapping snow during Friday’s freestyle sprint in Québec. This was no 2.5 minute in duration hard-pack speed fest. It was a grind. Take off too early and plenty of real estate remained for a decaying fade. Sit back, control the effort, ride the draft a bit on the skier train and the slow snow could, in fact, keep those more tempered athletes in the game....
We’re changing the format for this race rundown. With many North Americans racing during World Cup finals in Québec, screenshots from Live Timing will keep the rundown updated efficiently. In the finals of Fridays; 1.6 k skate sprint in Québec, Stina Nilsson took the win and with it the sprint Crystal Globe overall. Sweden also took second and third place with Maja Dahlqvist and Jonna Sundling respectively. American Sadie Bjornsen placed sixth overall as the top North...