CRAFTSBURY, Vermont — Looking calm and relaxed as he finished the two-lap 3.2 k freestyle prologue on Saturday morning, Simi Hamilton (SVSEF/USST) skied to a comfortable win in the opening event of the SuperTour Finals at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center. He beat Sylvan Ellefson (Team HomeGrown) by 6.6 seconds, and in a tie for third, Noah Hoffman (Team HomeGrown/USST) and Erik Bjornsen (APU/USST) both claimed bronze (+11.5). Kris Freeman (USST), skiing for Team HomeGrown this...
All 2012 FIS World Cup Finals coverage is brought to you through the generous support of decided to skip the race. * * * Chandra Crawford led the Canadian women in the 10 k classic on Saturday, finishing 35th in her best distance race of the year. “It was great,” said Crawford. “I was really charging.” She described the pace as steadily fast, but Crawford didn’t let it bother her. “I just tried to relax and...
All 2012 FIS World Cup Finals coverage is brought to you through the generous support of
All 2012 FIS World Cup Finals coverage is brought to you through the generous support of headlined the North American prologue performances on Friday, but seven other U.S. and Canadian skiers turned in gutsy races on the killer 2.5/3.3 k courses. One of the most impressive outcomes was the fact that Sylvan Ellefson (USA) finished the race at all, despite crashing and injuring his ankle in the middle of the race. He finished last, in 47th,...
All 2012 FIS World Cup Finals coverage is brought to you through the generous support of
All 2012 FIS World Cup Finals coverage is brought to you through the generous support of
The Lahti Corner — the notoriously sketchy 180-degree downhill hairpin that stumps many experienced World Cup skiers every season — lived up to its reputation on Sunday in the third-to-last sprint of the year. If it wasn’t taking out several athletes at once, it was otherwise dictating tactics and forcing skiers into awkward snowplows around its icy arc. For Kikkan Randall, who led the Americans in fifth, the corner’s penchant for carnage necessitated extra attention...
Noah Hoffman had plenty to overcome in today’s World Cup 15 k classic race in Szklarska Poreba, Poland. First, there was the thing that bothered everyone: the snow, which was variable and caused plenty of problems for racers and wax techs on every team. “I’m not sure that any team really feels like they truly nailed the wax or ski preparation,” U.S. Ski Team coach Matt Whitcomb said in an interview. “Variable conditions throughout the...
Andy Newell led the US men’s team in 22nd after a crashing Swiss skier ended any hope of advancing out of the quarterfinals. Newell stayed on his feet with impressive acrobatics as Eligius Tombonino came sliding in on a tough left hand corner in Szklarska Poreba, Poland. Newell qualified in an uncharacteristic 26th, just making it through to the heats despite almost catching Emil Joensson (SWE), one of the world’s best sprinters. “I felt good...
With consecutive World Cup weekends of season best results, Kris Freeman has turned his year around after a challenging start. The top distance skier on the American men’s team cracked the top-15 for the first time this season, placing 13th in the 30km skiathlon in Rybinsk, Russia, finishing just 1.2 seconds out of the top-10 and 6.1 off the podium. The result came a day after placing 28th in the 15km mass start, a race...
For the past few years, the World Cup in Rybinsk, Russia has been the weekend frequently skipped over by national teams and various individuals. With the overall World Cup title a focal point this season and no major championship to save up for, however, the expected fields are nearly double what they’ve recently been, in spite of the handful of athletes who have decided not to race in the extreme cold. The forecast initially looked...
For the American men in Moscow, Russia, the city sprints on Thursday were cause for a mixture of disappointment, frustration and optimism. Andy Newell and Simi Hamilton fell short of their expectations in Moscow, placing 22nd and 31st, respectively. After popping a top-10 in Otepaa, Estonia nearly two weeks ago, Newell struggled with back pain and couldn’t find the same energy to advance past the quarterfinals. For Hamilton, 31st marked the fourth time this season...
On home turf with his friends and family cheering him on, Matt Liebsch (Team Strong Heart/Team Birkie) won his second race of the Tour de Twin Cities on Sunday in Wirth Park. Over the 15 k freestyle course, Tad Elliott (SSCV/USST) was 12.9 seconds behind him in second and Sylvan Ellefson (SSCV/Team HomeGrown) finished third (+16.7). After he finished, Liebsch credited skiing with Elliott for a chuck of the race as having helped him along....
SuperTour racing resumed on Saturday at Wirth Park in Minneapolis, Minn. with a 10 k individual classic—the first of five events in the inaugural Tour de Twin Cities. Skiing in front of friends and family on his home course, Matt Liebsch (Team Strong Heart/Team Birkie) took his first win of the season by 0.4 seconds ahead of Sylvan Ellefson (SSCV/Team HomeGrown). Karl Nygren (CXC) finished third (+3.5). This was Liebsch’s first effort above threshold since...
RUMFORD, Maine – Aside from their “bro” talk and Colorado slang, Team HomeGrown knows how to get serious when it counts. It might not seem that way when its athletes, like U.S. Ski Team members Tad Elliott and Noah Hoffman, jokingly hold hands. Most of Team HomeGrown thinks every race is “awesome” and “pretty sweet,” even if it isn’t their strength. That’s just their attitude. In its third season as part of Ski and Snowboard...
RUMFORD, Maine — Torin Koos (Bridger Ski Foundation/Rossignol) made it three straight U.S. National sprint titles Tuesday at Black Mountain, using his veteran racing experience to navigate a fast, tactical day. In a tightly packed A-final, Bend Endurance Academy’s Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess was close behind in second, and in a fight for bronze that was close enough to protest, Tyler Kornfield (University of Alaska Fairbanks) completed the men’s podium in third mere millimeters ahead of...
Though we didn’t have a staff reporter on-site at the Bozeman, MT SuperTour this weekend, there were still plenty of interesting anecdotes to take away from the accounts athletes gave of their races. Most significantly, Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation’s (SVSEF) Mike Sinnott will be headed to Europe in January for his first World Cups that side of the Atlantic. FIS awards World Cup starts to Continental Cup leaders at the end of Period 1,...
Sylvan Ellefson (SSCV/Team Homegrown) took home his second winner’s check of the weekend with his victory on Sunday in the Bozeman, MT 15 k classic. He bested the rest of the field by a significant margin; Erik Bjornsen (APU/USST) was his closest competitor at 30.8 seconds back. Montana State University’s David Norris rounded out the men’s podium in third (+40.6). Asked if he could sense a win as he warmed up on Sunday morning before...
The second stop on the SuperTour featured another exhasting double-header—a skate sprint prologue in the morning followed by a 5/10 k freestyle at noon. Mike Sinnott (Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation) had another strong sprint day with a win in the prologue, and was followed by Torin Koos (BSF/Rossignol) and Leif Zimmermann (BSF) in second and third, respectively. Sinnott’s win—his second so far this season—puts him in a nearly-untouchable 28-point lead in the overall SuperTour...
Graeme Killick (Alberta World Cup Academy) may have felt more confident about his classic ability going into Saturday’s SuperTour 10 k classic in West Yellowstone, but certainly didn’t expect a win. Nevertheless, strong execution on a frigid morning in Montana brought the 22-year-old Canadian his first victory of the season, a nice cash prize, and a certain amount of confidence going into the Silver Star NorAms in two weeks time. Sylvan Ellefson (Team Homegrown) took...