HomeTag

U.S. Ski Team

By A Boot String, U.S. Finishes Dresden City Team Sprint in 4th, Sweden For the Win

If the Grand Prix were to host a ski race, it might look like the Team Sprint in Dresden, Germany. With 10 teams racing the 6 x 1.6-kilometer final and the racetrack style, three-lap loop situated in the city’s center, the tactics of a Formula One driver seemed employable on the relatively flat course. For most teams’ skiers, that meant patience; staying in one’s lane and in contact until the last lap. Norway’s Team I...

Wednesday Workout: A Flashback to 2016 and Midweek Race Prep with the U.S. Ski Team

We hear a lot about the details of a cross-country ski racer’s day on race day, but what about those four or five days in between? What do World Cup racers do then, in the middle of the week? FasterSkier Norwegian contributor Aleks Tangen ventured to Lillehammer back in late November 2016 to find out.  *** LILLEHAMMER, Norway — FasterSkier spoke with Bjornsen, Jessie Diggins, Andy Newell and U.S. Ski Team Coach Matt Whitcomb to see how they...

Klæbo Takes Davos Sprint for First Win of the Season; Simi Hamilton in 12th

As seems fitting for all things Davos, Switzerland: the racers enjoyed a bluebird day for the 1.5-kilometer freestyle sprint on Saturday. And just when we thought Johannes Høsflot Klæbo of Norway might be too spent from a year of media coverage and big-effort racing, he scored his first win of the season in gorgeous Davos. He began the day at full-throttle in the men’s qualifier, placing first with a time of 2:22.39 minutes. Lucas Chanavat...

Sweden’s Sundling Scores First World Cup Win; Sadie Bjornsen Podiums in Lillehammer Skate Sprint

With the two big climbs over 1.3-kilometer freestyle sprint course, the women’s World Cup freestyle sprint course in Lillehammer, Norway packs a quad-burning punch. With lungs then legs poaching any extra oxygen, the women’s final, which featured four of six athletes from Sweden, was a primetime show. Nilsson is a finisher, known for her closeout efforts in the finishing straight. But as she and twenty-three-year-old Sundling glided into the S-turns before the final 100 meters,...

Bolshunov atop the Podium Again in Ruka; North Americans Feel Encouraged About the Season Ahead

“I have no secrets,” Alexander Bolshunov told FIS in regard to his back-to-back wins in Kuusamo, Finland. On Saturday, the Russian had won a drag race with Norway’s superstar Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo during Saturday’s classic sprint.  Bolshunov had a commanding victory in Sunday’s 15-kilometer classic race. He stopped the clock with a winning time of 36:17.8 minutes. Early in the race, Bolshunov’s splits mirrored those of Norway’s Emil Iversen during which the two skiers’ times never deviated...

Wednesday Workout: Simi Hamilton’s 10’000 Foot View of Fun

  This post in our long-running Wednesday Workout series takes the 10,000-foot view — almost literally. The nuts and bolts of it are this: we’re posting Simi Hamilton’s training log from Monday, April, 3oth thru Saturday, June 9th. Hamilton needs no introduction to FasterSkier readers. In any case, here are Hamilton’s basics. Thirty-one-year-old sprint specialist who popped a 12th last season in Seefeld, Austria in a loaded 15-kilometer mass start freestyle. The seventeenth ranked sprinter on...

New Team, Same Hard Efforts: USST Park City Camp Part 2 from Hailey Swirbul

With the U.S. Ski Team’s final pre-season camp wrapping up on Oct. 22 in Park City, Utah, FasterSkier reached out to one of the newer additions to the USST’s D-Team, Hailey Swirbul, for a recap of her experience. (Read part 1 here.) Born in Grand Junction, Colorado, the 20-year-old grew up skiing in the Rocky Mountain area with the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club. In 2016 she headed north to attend the University of...

Wednesday Workout: Diversify Your Core Strength Progression from U.S. D-Team Coach Gus Kaeding

  This gem of a Wednesday Workout comes from U.S. Ski Team Development Coach Gus Kaeding. Ready yourself for the complete menu of the U.S. Cross Country Team’s core exercises. This spring, the USST coaches sat down to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of our program.  One of the areas we identified for improvement was core strength. We felt there was still a gap to our Scandinavian competitors.  With the help of the USST strength...

Hailey Swirbul on the USST Park City Training Camp

With the U.S. Ski Team’s final pre-season camp wrapping up on Oct. 22 in Park City, Utah, FasterSkier reached out to one of the newer additions to the USST’s D-Team, Hailey Swirbul, for a recap of her experience. Born in Grand Junction, Colorado, the 20-year-old grew up skiing in the Rocky Mountain area with the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club. In 2016 she headed north to attend the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), where...

Nordic Nation: Andy Newell in Transition

FasterSkier caught up with former, yes former U.S. Ski Team member Andy Newell on October, 8 in Park City, Utah. Newell was in Utah assisting with the latest NEG camp and training with his old cohort when time permitted. No longer a staple of the national team, the 34-year-old Newell has partially turned over a new leaf. He’s still training as a professional skier, but he’s also the owner of a cross-country skiing business called Nordic...

Lights, Camera, Action: U.S. Ski Team Stars in Latest Warren Miller Film

Big and bold. Published on the latest press release from Warren Miller Entertainment are the rarefied featured athletes in the season’s cinematic siren call that winter is imminent: The Warren Miller ski film Face of Winter. Of course, there’s the icon of the Iron Cross, Jonny Moseley. Listed along with the gravity side of skiing royalty are U.S. Cross Country Ski Team (USST) members Kevin Bolger, Paddy Caldwell, Sophie Caldwell, Jessie Diggins, Simi Hamilton, and...

Torchia on the Ups, Downs and All He’s Learned Since His First USST Nomination

Two summers ago, with just five miles left of the Marquette Trails Fest 30-mile mountain bike race, all Ian Torchia could hear in his head was the voice of Krystof Kopal, his Northern Michigan University (NMU) teammate, snidely saying, “You drop out again?” Fifteen minutes earlier, Torchia had careened into a tree. After dusting himself off, he remounted his bike, but not before noticing his left wrist was badly injured. For a moment, Torchia considered...

The College Conflict: Part 2

The following was written by Alayna Sonnesyn, a new member of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) T2 Team who graduated from the University of Vermont (UVM) this past spring. Originally from Plymouth, Minnesota, Sonnesyn, 22, raced on the UVM Ski Team for four years and qualified for four NCAA Skiing Championships teams. She placed second and third in two races at 2017 NCAA Championships, and in her senior season, won the first five Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association...

(Press release) Andy Newell, 4x Olympian and professional skier, now brings his experiences from international racing to the world of coaching, consulting, and online training materials. Newell (34) has raced at the highest level since 2004 starting well over 200 World Cup races and reaching the World Cup podium several times.  When he doesn’t have a race bib on, Newell has always been drawn to teaching others about ski training though his Speed Camp clinics,...

The College Conflict: Part 1

The following was written by Alayna Sonnesyn, a new member of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) T2 Team who graduated from the University of Vermont (UVM) this past spring. Originally from Plymouth, Minnesota, Sonnesyn, 22, raced on the UVM Ski Team for four years and qualified for four NCAA Skiing Championships teams. She placed second and third in two races at 2017 NCAA Championships, and in her senior season, won the first five Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association...

Wednesday Workout: Team Sprinting with the U.S. Ski Team

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — This past Sunday, July 15, FasterSkier visited the U.S. women’s cross-country team in Lake Placid, where the team has been holding a dryland camp since July 11. Most all of the team’s top athletes are there — sans those that train with Alaska Pacific University (they’ll largely stick to Anchorage and nearby Eagle Glacier for summer training) — for a “semi-intensity focused” camp that will last through Friday, July 20. Their...

ESPN ‘Body Issue’ Prompts Diggins to Open Up About Past Eating Disorder

Jessie Diggins is having a big month. Nominated for an ESPY Award (along with Kikkan Randall for “Best Male and Female Athlete With A Disability”), Diggins recently posed ESPN The Magazine’s annual “The Body Issue”, which features various famous athletes sans clothes. In a “The Body Issue 2018” came out, Diggins, 26, explained her reasons for agreeing to the “tastefully nude shoot that shows off athlete’s muscles”. The post, titled “Body Issue(s)” (which she called...

After Winter Marred by Mono, Brennan Breaks Record at Alaska Run for Women

The last time Rosie Brennan was focused on competitive running, she was sporting a red, white and black singlet as a senior at Park City High School in Utah. In the 11 years since, the former U.S. Ski Team member’s running has shifted from a seasonal sport to supplemental training for her true passion: cross-country skiing. Yet earlier this month, on June 9, Brennan surged to the front of the Alaska Run for Women in...

Nordic Nation: The Standing Ovation Episode with Alison Owen-Bradley

Alison Owen-Bradley was once the American skier to chase to the top of the podium in North America and on the highest tier of international cross-country ski racing. Long before Kikkan Randall, Jessie Diggins, Sophie Caldwell, and Sadie Bjornsen attracted a wave of attention to high-performance skiing with regular World Cup podiums and ultimately an Olympic gold, Owen-Bradley made the U.S. women’s nordic team relevant when considering podium and medal potential. (You may also remember her...

The Latest on the USST with Head Coach Chris Grover

BEND, Oregon — Late last month, FasterSkier reached out to U.S. Ski Team (USST) Head Coach Chris Grover to discuss the team’s And then Kevin obviously had one of the best entrances to the World Cup of any U.S. athlete in history. So he really showed up and he did exactly what he needs to do to demonstrate that he absolutely has a ton of potential. That was an easier call for us. The questions...