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Therese Johaug

The Devon Kershaw Show: 2021 World Championships 10 K Skate – A Johaug Win and a Diggins Near Miss

  In today’s 10 k story on FasterSkier, here’s how it began: “The high pressure continued at the 2021 World Championships on Tuesday in more ways than one. Oberstdorf, Germany’s temps hovered around 50 degrees Fahrenheit for the start of the women’s 10-kilometer individual freestyle, and a rarefied number of skiers poised to step on the podium. The pressure cooker that is the individual start, with skiers setting off at 30-second intervals was on display...

It’s a Tempo-Fest – Johaug Captures 10 k Skate at Worlds; Diggins Fourth

This World Championship coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and their A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage please contact info@fasterskier.com. The high pressure continued at the 2021 World Championships on Tuesday in more ways than one. Oberstdorf, Germany’s temps hovered around 50 degrees Fahrenheit for the start of the women’s...

The Devon Kershaw Show: The 2021 World Championship Skiathlon with the Boss – Kristin Størmer Steira

The most special of special guest on the podcast today, Kristin Størmer Steira. Størmer Steira, a retired Norwegian ski star, chats it up with Devon from Lillehammer, where the two are busy raising two young daughters. According to a 2014 FasterSkier article on the couple, evidently, Kershaw’s “great smile”, a legacy of his youth in Sudbury, won Størmer Steira over. In her own right, Størmer Steira was a Norwegian ski star. Back in 2005, Størmer...

Svahn Takes the Victory in a Tight Sprint Finish in Falun; Diggins 7th (Updated)

This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and their A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage please contact info@fasterskier.com.  In case you missed it, yesterday’s 10-kilometer skate in Falun, Sweden was a standout day for the Americans, highlighted by a gutsy victory by Jessie Diggins. How deep into...

Locked In: Jessie Diggins Wins Falun 10k Skate

Leave no doubt to your imaginations, Jessie Diggins, in-form and yellow-bibbed as the World Cup leader, stamped her authority on the 2021 season with gusto in Falun, Sweden. She won the 10-kilometer individual skate on Friday in 23:35.9. This was Diggins’s eighth individual win on the World Cup — all have been in skate. With the sun hanging on the horizon and unable to warm the air above squeaky-snow-cold, this was a key opportunity to...

Norway Returns with Gusto, Sweeping the Women’s Podium in the 7.5/7.5 K Skiathlon; Diggins 5th

In case you missed the discussion on the Devon Kershaw podcast, the Norwegian team made its World Cup return today in Lahti, Finland after nearly two months of training and competing domestically. As predicted, neither their form nor racing gears have not been from this decision. The women in red went 1-2-3 in the 7.5/7.5-kilometer skiathlon, led by powerhouse Therese Johaug who notched her third consecutive win in the event and third career skiathlon win...

Svahn Wins Back-to-Back in Val Müstair; Diggins 3rd, Brennan 6th (Updated)

This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and their A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage please contact info@fasterskier.com. Light snow continued to fall in the quaint Swiss village nestled in Val Müstair as the athletes took to the tracks for the first distance stage of the 2021 Tour...

Tour De Ski Opens With Spills and Thrills in Val Müstair; Diggins 2nd, Brennan 4th

  This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and their A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage please contact info@fasterskier.com. Out with 2020, in with 2021. Here in the world of multicolored lycra and skinny skis, we are kicking off the new year with the opening of the Tour...

Johaug in Command for Ruka Triple Win: Rosie Brennan Spots Up for a Career Best Fifth Overall

This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and their A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage please contact info@fasterskier.com. For those new to the pursuit format, racers begin a set “time back” from the first starter, who in this case is the overall leader after two races. A...

10 K Classic in Ruka Serves Up a Win for Therese Johaug: Rosie Brennan 8th

This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and their A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage please contact info@fasterskier.com. Just a few more rotations of the earth and we’ll be in December – trending towards solid wintertime. The World Cup, as it has for 19 years, swung up...

Doping, Bias, and Cleaning up Sport

Covering doping in sports like biathlon and cross-country skiing here in North America can make one feel self-rightous. The U.S. and Canada run clean systems if positive doping tests are the benchmark for suspicion. As far as we can tell, there’s been a single case involving a North American nordic sport athlete. In 1987, an American caused a stir after the 1987 Nordic World Championships in Oberstdorf, Germany. Kerry Lynch, a nordic combined skier, admitted...

Norway’s Blink Festival: Rollerski Racing with Some Social Distance

Times are what they are. Precautions are the name of the game. This year’s Blink Festival in Norway played to a reduced field and limited spectators due to COVID precautions. Some races, as will be noted, included modified race rules to limit close contact between athletes.    Lysebotn Opp – 06/08 The Lysebotn Opp is perhaps the marquee event. It features lovely fjord views and a grueling 7.5-kilometer uphill skate switchbacking up a mountainside. In...

Johaug: Fleet Footed in the 10 k

Norway’s Therese Johaug made news today on the running track, clocking a speedy 10 k in 31:40.69. Johaug’s run was part of a made-for-TV sport event in a time of limited international travel and social distancing. Called the “Impossible Games”, the format pitted some of Norway’s best track and field athletes against those from Kenya in a virtual competition. Best known by cross-country ski fans for dominating the distance races on the World Cup, Johaug...

Sans Fans, Sweden’s Karlsson Takes Johaug at the Holmenkollen Line

Racing the Holmenkollen without spectators is a bit like not getting a white Christmas. It does not change the end result, here racing a 30-kilometer mass start classic race on the famed tracks above Oslo, Norway. But the experience loses some of the magic. Race organizers announced Thursday that spectators would not be allowed to attend the race due to the increased risk of spreading COVID-19. On a typical year, crowds in numbers up to...

Norway With the Win, Finland With Its First Relay Podium on Home Turf

Sports fans talk a lot about home field advantage. Which team will play at home at Game 7 of the World Series? Or in the playoffs before the Stanley Cup? Home turf and the swells of a crowd whose numbers are skewed toward the home team has an undeniable effect. Yes, the Norwegian team of Tiril Udnes Weng, Ingvild Flugstad Østberg, Therese Johaug, and Heidi Weng won yet another 4×5-kilometer relay with a time of...

The Devon Kershaw Show: Living Large in Lahti and a Wee Bit on Junior Worlds

Post-Ski Tour 2020 it was back to the basics for the World Cup: Interval start classic races for the men and women. The local boy, Iivo Niskanen, still claims the 15 k classic as his race, especially when it goes down in Finland. For the women, Norway’s Therese Johaug pipped it out the win over Ebba Andersson of Sweden.   This was good solid racing in the 10 k and 15 k, respectively. Devon, by...

Johaug Keeps Andersson at Bay for the Win in Lahti; Brennan 19th

In a typical season, you might expect late February in Lahti, Finland to look wintery. 61 degrees North latitude, ample snow on the ground and clinging to the trees, maybe even a reindeer? In fact, in a plug for the venue showed a woman skiing through a snow-laden town and arriving at the base of the towering ski jumps.  But it was not so today. Women time-trialed through the woods for two laps on a...

Johaug Crushes Stage 6 for Ski Tour Overall Win; Diggins Leads U.S. in Sixth (Updated)

We’ll start with the weather: think all over the place. A moving target for meteorologist with moisture spitting from the skies, and air masses swirling this way and that making the trees sway like a mamba line along the course. A wax tech’s nightmare scenario? Yes. It certainly trended in that direction.   By all measures, this was Therese Johaug’s, Norway’s latest version of a cross-country skiing record-breaker, stage and tour. Of six stages total, she...

Falla Steps up For the Trondheim Win; Five U.S. Skiers in the Heats

The day began in Trondheim with a centimeter of snow, which then transitioned to big blue skies for the thousands of fans attending the fifth stage of the Ski Tour 2020, a 1.5 k classic sprint. The Norwegians can throw a cross-country race party. The scene, despite the different setting, was reminiscent of the festive cowbell and camp-out sideshow of Holmenkollen’s Frognerseteren. It’s not quite the Yankee stadium of cross-country skiing, but a sign that in...

Mother Nature Forces a Re-Route; Johaug Fights For the Win (updated with Diggins audio interview)

Nature has a lovely way of being, well, natural. In other words; marginally unpredictable, sometimes downright uncomfortable, and finicky. Prior to the Ski Tour 2020’s Stage 4 weather forecast and on-the-ground big-wind gust reality, the stage had been scheduled to pulse 38-kilometers from Storlein, Sweden to Meråker, Norway in a point to point event. Cool, right? An international border crossing during a race, with a single sanctioned coaching/feed zone for athletes around the 25 k...