Reporting by: Aidan O’Donnell This reporting costs money. Please support this coverage with a voluntary subscription (below) so FasterSkier can provide this level of access to the sport we all love year-round.
This story first appeared in www.fondoitalia.it and has been edited for English. On an international level, cross-country ski fans outside of Sweden only got to know the name of William Poromaa during the women’s 10km classic technique in Seefeld World Championships. That February 26, 2019, he was talked about not for a sporting achievement but as Frida Karlsson’s boyfriend. Karlsson, once she crossed the finish line, placed herself in the leader chair after having...
In this episode, we speak with now-retired Swedish skier Ida Ingemarsdotter. The thirty-four-year-old Ingemarsdotter became the head coach for the Swedish national development team this fall. She’ll be leading a crew of U23 and U20 skiers as they hope to transition to the senior national team. For many years, Imgemarsdotter was a Swedish World Cup staple. She’s a two-time medalist at the Olympics and a down to earth Swede, as we learn about her recent...
https://www.instagram.com/p/BbpElh6gxkx/?taken-by=kalla_87 Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla. For the second day in a row, Charlotte Kalla, a name synonymous with the yellow and blue of Sweden, stood atop the podium, placing first in the women’s 10-kilometer classic International Ski Federation (FIS) race on Saturday in Gällivare, Sweden. who was recently handed down a lifetime Olympic ban by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), did not start the race. Russia...
There is no faking a smile. As a visual social-media feed, Instagram places a premium on how we’d like to be perceived by the viewing world. Instagram’s editing tools come with an assortment of beautifying filters. But smiles? Fake smiles are filter-proof. Although not a habitual Instagram poster, scroll through U.S. Ski Team (USST) athlete Liz Stephen’s account, @lizhillstephen — it’s hard not to notice her genuine grin and the smiles of those around her. Those...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Kikkan Randall is approaching a season full of lasts: her final season as a full-time athlete, her final season on the World Cup, and, she hopes, her fifth and final Olympics. Her main focus these days is resolutely on the future, but she took some time earlier this month to speak with FasterSkier about her summer training and what comes next. Summer training Randall’s final summer of training was anchored by the same...
“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...
Hanna Falk, 28, knows the top spots are tough to get and fleeting. In 2010, her first full year on the World Cup, she burst onto the scene and finished an astounding fifth overall in the final sprint rankings. That early success was hindered by illness. By 2015, Falk rebounded, and this past season finished as the third-ranked sprinter on the World Cup and 20th overall. Falk stuck with it, even with a podium drought that...
She bested the field to win the 10-kilometer skate at 2015 World Championships at home in Falun, Sweden and came from behind as the anchor leg at the 2014 Sochi Games train separate from the Swedish national team, and recovering from an nordicnation@fasterskier.com.
Charlotte Kalla is trying the Petter Northug model and will train outside of her country's national team this season, instead collaborating with her coach Magnus Ingesson at Piteå Elit. Meanwhile, after a year of focusing on Ski Classics, Johan Olsson and Daniel Richardsson are back to the national team.
Both Norway and Sweden announced their National Team picks for the 2015/2016 season Friday. The respective teams of the two rivals will see few changes in the upcoming year as both hope to either maintain or improve their team successes.
Daniel Richardsson, Olympic gold medalist for Sweden, was injured in a car crash in central Sweden on Sunday and taken by ambulance to Hudiksvall Hospital. Richardsson had reportedly stopped to help a friend change a flat tire on the side of a highway when a motor home approached the two men at high speed and ran into both of them, killing the friend and damaging a ligament Richardsson's knee.
Just over a week ago, five U.S. Ski Team women and one Canadian packed their bags in various parts of the world and set off to meet in Sweden. Usually faced with the task of preparing for months of overseas travel, some might have scratched their heads. What do you bring for just two weeks? Americans Kikkan Randall and Liz Stephen had already been in Europe for nearly a month, first competing in the Blink...
In the months following its first camp of the year in Bend, Ore., the U.S. Ski Team (USST) has several new training destinations planned along with its old standbys: the men and women will split up and head to Alaska, Sweden, Austria and Germany over the course of the summer. And for the first time since its first trip to New Zealand 10 years ago, the Snow Farm is completely off the schedule. The women’s...
They’ve been on four-hour runs through marshes, braved ‘mystery testing’ with the national team, and been featured in a Swedish newspaper. But when asked to describe their favorite aspect of their trip to Sweden, Kikkan Randall and Liz Stephen are in complete agreement: the people. For the two veterans of the US Ski Team, the trip was a unique chance to actually get to know the people they compete against all winter. “When you see...
In Las Vegas, where FasterSkier had the opportunity to interview Marcus Hellner, the Swedish skier was able to stay relatively undercover. At the card table, such was his anonymity that he had other players thinking he was a professional poker player, not a professional athlete. But in Europe, and especially in Sweden, Hellner is a star. At the Olympics in February, he vanquished rival Petter Northug, breaking the Norwegian’s pole on the way to winning...
The Swedish National Team is aiming high this winter and they are reaching the sky with the help of their own airplane – Swedish Ski Force 1. “This is literally a lift for us. With our own chartered plane we’ll save both time and energy when traveling,” says Olympic hopeful Emil Jönsson, 24. Last season the Swedish team presented their unique wax truck. The impressive, easy to spot Scania truck gave the team many advantages...