With one stage remaining in the 2019-2020 Tour de Ski (TdS), and with standings somewhat unsettled before what some consider to be a slam dunk final stage for the current overall leader Therese Johaug from Norway, time bonuses were what mattered in Val di Fiemme, Italy on Saturday. Podium pride was at stake, but generous time bonuses were the carrot for many in the 1.27-kilometer classic sprint. First through 30th place in the TdS sprints...
The 100th Tour de Ski Stage in Val di Fiemme, Italy, featuring a four lap 10-kilometer mass start classic. Coupling the results in distance racing over the last 14 months since Therese Johaug returned to the world cup and those of Stage 4, it seemed like a safe bet to predict a rematch between Johaug and her teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg. Another opportunity to race head-to-head over every meter of the course, and for Johaug...
Pursuit day at the Tour de Ski. Fifty-one skiers chased the yellow Tour de Ski leaders bib of Norway’s Therese Johaug during Stage 4, a 10-kilometer classic pursuit. Start times for the day’s pursuit were based on time back in Stage 3, a 10 k interval start skate. Johaug started first, with Norwegian teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg, 0.1 seconds back. A few skiers raced off with a small enough time deficit to dream of making...
Toblach, Italy. A stunning stadium and backdrop with the Dolomites lording over the venue and a steady cling-clang of baritone bells greeted skiers along portions of the course. Stage 3 in Toblach, a 10-kilometer interval start skate, turbocharged the 2019-2020 Tour de Ski (TDS). After two stages, a Stage 1 mass start skate and Stage 2 skate sprint, Russia’s Natalia Nepryaeva sat atop the overall standings. In third overall, Norway’s imminent threat, Therese Johaug, was positioned...
Day two of the Tour de Ski offered the American women the Sisyphean task of earning back time after a miss on ski and wax selection in Stage 1 prevented them from performing to their capability. This was particularly so for Jessie Diggins, a favorite for the overall tour podium who finished the first stage in 29th 1:20 behind Norway’s pace-setting Theresa Johaug. Her teammate Sadie Maubet Bjornsen, also a top all-arounder, was in the...
Stage 1 of the 2019-2020 Tour de Ski is final. With two distinct shows in the Lenzerheide, Switzerland men’s and women’s mass start races, the seven-stage TdS narrative has the intro chapter written. Therese Johaug for Norway looks prepped for the distance race sweep, whereas the men’s side has several skiers playing for keeps. On second thought, maybe it’s not that simple after all. They’ve got six stages to go.
Saturday marked the start of the 14th Tour de Ski in Lenzerheide, Switzerland. Forgoing the traditional prologue start to determine time back to the leader, organizers threw in a spicy 11-kilometer mass start freestyle. Easy to follow for fans, maybe not so much for those following in the wake of Norway’s Therese Johaug. The scene was a Swiss winter ideal: plentiful snow, portions of the course dappled in sunlight, others shrouded in a drifting-in and...
The Tour de Ski begins with a mass start bonanza on Saturday. In this non-championship year, the TDS takes on marquee status as one the season’s premier prizes. Seven stages with a variety of disciplines, this 14th edition promises a loaded field of skiers. For the women, Therese Johaug of Norway is the easy favorite. Johaug appears programmed for dominance — the TdS features five distance stages. Norway has been well suited for the TdS....
Day two in Davos, Switzerland looked much like the first; blue skies, fast tracks, and spectacular alpen backdrop. Following an interval start, athletes time-trialed through two 5-kilometer loops loops of a course that predominantly climbs the first 3k, ripping back toward the stadium the last two. Gone are the days of the stopwatch and furious arithmetic, coaches with tablets peppered the woods near checkpoints to relay information to their athletes as they skated by, hunting...
Athletes warmed up amidst fat falling snowflakes as a storm blanketed Lillehammer, Norway. The gun fired, and a flurry of this snow clouded the boots, poles, and relay socks as a wave of skiers strode their way up and out of the Birkebeiner Stadium for the first leg of the women’s 4 x 5-kilometer relay. With outstanding performances in the first two World Cup race weekends, it is clear that the U.S. women are hot....
This week’s episode of the Therese Johaug show featured a clinic in her signature event, the 15-kilometer mass start skiathlon in Lillehammer, Norway. Before today, the two-time World Championship gold medalist had made the podium in 13 of her 14 World Cup skiathlon starts (six of those were wins), failing only in Oberstdorf, Germany during the 2011 Tour de Ski. Her strategy was familiar. Johaug set the pace from the gun, attacking the first climb...
Ruka, Finland looked quintessentially Nordic at the start of the 10-kilometer freestyle pursuit. December at 66 degrees north: temperatures in the low teens (F), flat Northern light, frosted pines looking as though they were spray-coated with foam. Athletes warmed up in puffy jackets with mittens, neck warmers, and taped faces while crowds huddled with cups of soup. First out of the start and racing in a balaclava and mittens, Norway’s Theresa Johaug attacked the course...
It was an elemental form of racing to open the distance events on the World Cup: the 10-kilometer interval start classic. No spoiler alert needed here. Norway’s Therese Johaug won in 26:47.5 minutes. Johaug comes into the season having won the distance overall last year and steamrolled to two distance race victories Beitostølen, Norway last weekend. Those races were the opening Norwegian national races, but were stacked fields. During another day with flurries, high humidity,...
Sunday in Beitostølen, Norway the nation’s opening national races concluded with a women’s 10-kilometer freestyle race. The conditions remained as they have for the past few days — near freezing. The top-three spots were secured by the same skiers who took first through third in Saturday’s 10 k classic: Therese Johaug won in 21:48.0, Heidi Weng placed second (+31.3), and Helene Marie Fossesholm, at 18 years old, placed third (+32.8). U.S. Ski Team member Caitlin Patterson skied...
It’s no secret that skiers spend a lot of time running as part of their ski training. And even if it’s not their “real” sport, some of them become quite good at it. Hence Scott Patterson wins Alaska’s Crow Pass Crossing backcountry marathon six times (and counting), Erika Flowers takes the victory in The Rut 50k in Montana, or Therese Johaug runs a 10km on the track in 32:20.86 to win the 10,000m at the...
Notable for the Norwegian names in the field, several Brits, and a lone American, a series of sprint and distance rolllerski races were held this past week in the Telemark region of Norway. Jessie Diggins of the U.S. Ski Team spent the week in Norway training with the Langrenns Rekruttlag ski team prior to the weekend’s racing. On Friday, organizers held a skate sprint called the Sommarlandsprinten. Women’s Podium: Maiken Caspersen Falla, Gjerdrum IL 2:24.28...
International Cross-Country Performance of the Year With the 2018/2019 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is running a series of articles highlighting some of the players and performances from the season. This honor goes to the most outstanding international cross-country performance. Zeroing in on a single cross-country performance of the year can be futile. Choosing one performance out of a season’s worth of individual and team efforts is sure to exclude some athletes from...
If you’ve read the International Ski Federation’s (FIS) website in the last few weeks and deviated from exploring the cross-country sub-site, U.S. alpine star Mikaela Shiffrin has been prominently featured. Her season was record-breaking. With 17 wins, she set a FIS World Cup record for alpine victories in a single season. With the fattening of her win total, was the commensurate growth of her bank account. She became the first World Cup...
With the 2018/2019 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is running a series of articles highlighting some of the players and performances from the season. This year, the International Skier of the Year awards are nominated to two Norwegians who spent the season at the top of the World Cup ranks, Ingvild Flugstad Østberg and Johannes Høsflot Klæbo. Ingvild Flugstad Østberg Consistency is Queen, and for that Ingvild Flugstad Østberg reigned superior in 2018/2019 with...
It was beginning to seem as though it could not be done, and then it happened. Norway’s Therese Johaug did not stand atop the podium after the 10-kilometer classic first stage of the women’s pursuit in Québec City. Sprint champion Stina Nilsson did. Not only that, but the bonus seconds garnered from Nilsson’s win in Friday’s skate sprint allowed her to enter the course for the final leg of the week’s three-race series with a margin...