U.S. SuperTour Finals (Fairbanks, Alaska): Freestyle sprints On Wednesday the 2017 U.S. SuperTour Finals, also referred to as Spring Series, the last of the year’s elite level sprints went down in Fairbanks, Alaska. The women raced a 1.5-kilometer course while the men skied a slightly longer 1.6 k course, both run at the Birch Hill Recreation Area in Fairbanks. Earlier in the week, Jessie Diggins of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) Elite Team and U.S. Ski...
The FS awards continue this week with domestic Breakthrough Skiers of the Year, starting with two winners and two honorable mentions from the U.S., several of which surprised themselves.
An assortment of photos featuring some of the top moment's from Thursday's 20 and 30 k freestyle mass starts at 2016 U.S. nationals in Houghton, Mich.
How will domestic skiers qualify for World Championships? Who's racing this year? What an we expect from the 2015 SuperTour? To answer these questions and more here is FasterSkier's SuperTour preview, which gives you and in-depth look at how competition will shape up on the domestic front.
The action at the 2013 U.S. Cross Country Ski Championship heated up this morning when the senior men started off the day with the 30 k classic mass start. Six laps of the challenging 5 k loop at Soldier Hollow made for an exciting race as eighteen skiers were together in the lead pack for the majority of the race, but during the final kilometers only a handful of men were in contention for the national title. As they climbed Soldier Hollow's fabled Hermode's Hill for the final time it was Torin Koos (BSF) who made a decisive move to claim the national title with Erik Bjornsen (USST/APU) and David Norris (MSU) finishing second and third respectively. Check out our footage of the race.
With the Norwegian women taking the top two spots earlier in the day in the 4×5 k, the Norwegian men had the bar for success set high for their four-man relay effort. As always, Petter Northug Jr. was anchoring Norway I, supported to Eldar Roenning and Finn Haagan Krogh on classic skis, while Lars Berger, biathlete, brother of Tora Berger, and occasionally cross-country relay selection skied third in the 4×10 k race in Sjusjøen, Norway,...
With a handful of gel packets stapled to his bib, American Noah Hoffman would have blended in better at the American Birkebeiner than into Sunday’s 50 k freestyle at the 2011 World Ski Championships. But make no mistake: the way he was skiing was still world-class. Hoffman made it more than 30 kilometers rubbing shoulders with the World Cup podium’s usual suspects—Petter Northug (NOR), Lukas Bauer (CZE), and Maxim Vylegzhanin (RUS)—before finally succumbing to the...
US Nationals Skate Sprint Race Report Waxing was interesting today and showed why I am happy to be a Toko man. I was expecting a lot of styrofoam-like manmade snow mixed in with the bit of old snow that remained. Somehow the snow changed and today skied more like “normal” snow. The wax recommendation would have rocked for sure in what we were expecting so I was relieved to see that the HF Blue/XCold mix...
Tad Elliott’s busy schedule didn’t stopped him from picking up an U-23 title this July at the U.S. Mountain Bike Nationals in Granby, Colorado. “It went really well. My goal was to win but it was still a surprise. Everyone else was so strong,” said the 22-year old. After winning the U-23 title, he also raced the short track race in the Elite Men category. In the middle of the race, he was in 6th...
Athletically, Tad Elliott and Torin Koos don’t have much in common. At 21, Elliott is a distance specialist, and still developing. Koos is a sprinter, and at 29, he’s in the latter half of his career. The two things they do share? Both had hopes of making the 2010-2011 U.S. Ski Team—and both were left off the roster. As part of a shift in strategy under new Head Coach Chris Grover, the team announced last...
Midway through the U.S. 50 k Championship race on Wednesday, Ivan Babikov was a nation of one. The lone Canadian in a group of five Americans, he was ineligible for the U.S. title. But that didn’t stop him from skiing away with the win, and the $1,200 check that goes with it. Nearing the end of the last of five ten kilometer laps, Babikov put the hammer down, dropping CXC’s Tad Elliot and APU’s Lars...
Ivan Babikov (CAN) has traveled more than 10,000 kilometers since the conclusion of the 2010 Winter Olympics in late February. He only has to go 50 more on Wednesday, but they’ll feel every bit as long and painful as his circuitous journey from Vancouver to Fort Kent, Maine. Babikov is the clear favorite for tomorrow’s U.S. freestyle 30/50 k championships, but racing just 72 hours removed from the World Cup Finals in Sweden, he’ll be...
Hayward, Wisconsin – Italian skier Fabio Santus broke the 50K Birkie Skate presented by Becker Law course record with a time of 1:56:58.6 in the 37th annual American Birkebeiner held Saturday, February 27th. Rebecca Dussault the returning champion defended her title by winning the Women’s Skate division with a time of 2:18:18.1. Santus of Milano, Italy, skied his first Birkie saying, “I am very, very happy. It was a great track with very good people.”...
After Petr Sedov’s domination of the junior 20k pursuit here yesterday, it seemed unlikely that anyone would be able to outdo that performance in the 30k U-23 version today. Enter Paul Constantin Pepene of Romania. As a dense, 30-skier group made its way up the course’s big climb on its sixth of eight laps, Pepene put in a huge acceleration—the biggest that second-place Ole Marius Bach said he had ever seen. Using a quirky skate...
After Tad Elliot skied his way to a second place finish in yesterday’s 15k freestyle, the cross country cognoscenti didn’t quite express the same degree of confusion as they did over Tyler Kornfield’s fourth place in the sprint. After some solid racing at last year’s West Yellowstone SuperTours and a trip to the U-23 championships, Elliot has a little more name recognition. But it’s safe to say that there probably weren’t many people here in...
The wax today was LF Moly followed by HF Blue/Red mix followed by JetStream Blue/Red mix. Mixing the two JetStreams is uncomplicated. Either rub one block on and then the other block and rotocork them in together or sprinkle one powder on and sprinkle the other powder on and iron them in together quickly followed by rotocorking them. JetStream Moly was also really good. Notice that the winners of both races were in third place...
It wasn’t the same kind of power that Kris Freeman used to propel himself to top-ten World Cup results this winter, but it was enough. With an effort that “would have just barely scored World Cup Points,” Freeman skied his way this morning to the national championship in the 15k skate in Anchorage. After contracting the flu over Christmas, Freeman said that he’s “been trying to build his way back up ever since.” Today’s effort...
Saab Salomon Factory Team The Saab Salomon Factory Team has plenty of experiences with the American Birkie. It has been the focal point for our team for the past 15 years. With a new sponsor and new flashy black suit [they] have Birkie veterans and rookies coming to throw down on Saturday. Here is an inside look at what’s on the mind of Saab Salomon Factory Team members in the days leading up to the...