“I have a workout that I like and usually do in the autumn when it’s time to shape up.” Those are the words of Swedish national-team member Hanna Falk. To take Falk’s words literally, it is that time of year: in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s officially autumn and “time to shape up”. In two months, the 2017/2018 World Cup will open with classic sprints on Nov. 26 in Kuusamo, Finland. For the figurative aspect of...
Three women in the quarterfinals and one just barely outside? U.S. Ski Team coach Matt Whitcomb was thrilled with Ida Sargent's and Sophie Caldwell's quarterfinal appearances and pleased to see Kikkan Randall a bit more like herself, he also stayed realistic: "I wouldn’t use any other word that celebrates it more than [good]."
This week's workout comes from Ezekiel Williams, FasterSkier's newest intern and an athlete at the Alberta World Cup Academy. This time last season, Williams said he really enjoyed doing what his team called, the Agility Sprint Track Workout. "Combine the agility work and lactate threshold building into the short 1:30 hour workout time and it makes for a solid early training-season session," he says.
After making a risky lane choice - albeit one that had worked in the past - Kikkan Randall ended up touching skis with Stina Nilsson of Sweden in the final of today's World Cup sprint. While she didn't fall, it may have cost Randall something - she only lost the race by 2 centimeters. U.S. coach Matt Whitcomb reviewed the video and called the incident a valuable learning experience.
When it was all said and done — the qualifying, the heats, the nervous skiing around between races — Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation’s Reid Pletcher emerged on top of the freestyle sprint field in Bozeman, Mont., scraping by Erik Bjornsen (APU/USST) and Ryan Scott (SSCV Team HomeGrown) in the final meters.
When Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess shows up at a race, he’s hard to miss. If his backward baseball cap doesn’t give him away, his bubbly personality, bearded face or black, red and white-striped spandex will. One of the staples of Bend Endurance Academy’s nordic program, the 26-year-old Blackhorse-von Jess grew up in Bend, Ore., and skied for Dartmouth College before returning to his native state – and town. Back in Bend, Blackhorse-von Jess trains mostly with...
A couple quick notes about some sprinting results. Devon Kershaw Kershaw’s having a heck of a season. On of the things I’m been most impressed with is how much his sprinting has improved, which is something I feel like hasn’t been mentioned much in a lot of the coverage: The circled result in the most [...] Related posts:
RUMFORD, Maine — There was no shortage of excitement at Black Mountain on Tuesday, where U.S. Cross Country Championships kicked off with a freestyle sprint. We checked in with the day’s winners Torin Koos (BSF/Rossignol) and Jessie Diggins (CXC/USST), as well as Caitlin Gregg (CXC), Jennie Bender (CXC), Ida Sargent (CGRP/USST), Corey Stock (CSU), Colin Rodgers (SVSEF), Karl Nygren (CXC), Joanne Reid (CU), Eliska Hajkova (CU), Bryan Cook (CGRP) and Nils Koons (CGRP). Sprint Brackets...
Canadian Stefan Kuhn has made a rapid transition from elite skiing to elite coaching. The former Canadian National Ski Team (CNST) member and Vancouver Olympian announced his retirement less than six months ago, and was immediately snapped up in a coaching capacity by the Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA), one of Canada’s premiere training centers. During his career, Kuhn was primarily a sprinter – as is evidenced by his 15th place finish in Vancouver, the best...
Since sprinting was first introduced, at the 2001 World Championships in Finland, the International Ski Federation (FIS) has constantly fiddled with the format. The number of heats, the number of athletes in each one, and the total number who qualify for the rounds—all have been altered at one point or another. But one of the most contentious—and significant—changes has been the length of the sprint race. Changes Were Necessary, Officials Say According to FIS Cross-Country...
Sprint racing can be a tough balancing act, between tempo, technique, pace, and power application. As the sprint courses have grown in distance and time, not only on an international level but also domestically, controlling your tempo has become more and more crucial to laying down the fastest time of the day. People automatically associate sprint racing with moving everything at top speed to try and maximize speed, however, if you focus more on big...
As a freshman at the University of Anchorage, Amy Glen skied to a fourth place finish in the skate sprint at the 2009 U.S. National Championships. She only raced two other sprint races that whole winter: one at the World Junior Championships, and the other at a local race series in Alaska. Her story is a common one at the college level—with most programs focused on the distance races that will qualify their racers for...
Junior coaches may shy away from sprint and speed training for fear of pigeonholing their skiers or limiting their aerobic development. But many of the country’s top sprint coaches and athletes say that these kinds of training can be useful for budding distance skiers as well. In an interview with FasterSkier, U.S. Ski Team Sprint Coach Chris Grover outlined three areas where juniors or young skiers could benefit from sprint-style training without detracting from their...