Bright lights in PyeongChang. The men’s second semifinal of the Olympic freestyle team sprint was a career highlight moment for Erik Bjornsen. Fourteen teams would crowd the start lanes with Martin Johnsrud Sundby in bib 1. The Norwegian was paired with Johannes Høsflot Klæbo: The duo blessed with Sundby’s stamina and his younger counterpart’s break-from-the-pack speed. With Simi Hamilton racing the second, fourth, and sixth legs for the U.S., and Bjornsen leading off, the semi...
“Get whatever you want. I’m buying.” “It’s ok. I’ve got a card with me.” “No. You’re over here working for us. The least I could do is buy you a coffee and a bun.” Conversation over. Jessie Diggins bought my cinnamon bun and cappuccino. The same Jessie Diggins who won Gold at the last winter Olympics and is a regular on World Cup podiums just refused to let me buy my own snack at the...
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...
The news came trickling out of Anchorage on November 2nd. U.S. Ski Team athlete Hannah Halvorsen was hit by a car while crossing a street in downtown Anchorage. “I was crossing a one way street, and a woman was turning into the lane, so she looked left where cars would be coming from and didn’t look right, where I was, and just turned right into the street and hit me at 25 miles an hour,”...
A national team uniform for cross-country skiing has to do a lot of things. At the most utilitarian level, it has to wick sweat and aid performance while an athlete pursues one of the world’s most demanding sports at temperatures between –4 F and 40, in steady snow or driving rain or anything in between. At the functional level, it has to let spectators and coaches identify where their athlete is out on the course,...
Call it what you want: national pride, national bias, flag-waving: the team relays elicit nationalistic tendencies. In Lillehammer, Norway, you might think and maybe expect it’s your birthright to see the hometeam crush. That’s been the recent norm almost without exception. Here’s the quick stats to either dispel or reinforce those tendencies: Norway has won nine of the last 11 relay races on the World Cup. Russia won the other two. In fact, Russia took...
Norwegian countryside just as you imagine: farms, pine trees, a deep snow-blanket, and fast skiing. All this was on display under a bluebird sky in Lillehammer, Norway for the men’s World Cup 30-kilometer skiathlon. Amidst this legacy-backdrop, the beauty of a dual technique race with enough grinding Ks to string out and decimate an impressive field played out. Fifteen kilometers in, at the ski exchange from classic to skate, nine skiers were separated by 6.5 seconds...
The difficulty in covering generational star athletes is avoiding cliché. There’s the “high tempo” or “high-turnover” description for Therese Johaug. And for the men, Northug’s panache and wily wait-for-the-final-meters sprint fury. Although some would argue that it is a bit too early for the stamp of generational star, Johannes Høsflot Klæbo is such a regular podium crasher that avoiding cliché is troublesome there too. So today, we’re off the hook a bit. Finland’s ski hero...
A big day for Sadie Maubet Bjornsen of the U.S. Ski Team (USST) in Ruka, Finland. She placed third overall in the women’s 1.4-kilometer classic sprint. Italy’s Lucia Scardoni established the time to beat in the qualifier, 3:03.01. Maubet Bjornsen played her fitness cards early as she qualified in second, 1:15 seconds back. “It has been an interesting fall battling through some frustrating tendinitis in my feet that didn’t allow me to run or ski...
Straight to the point, no U.S. men advanced to the heats in Friday’s opening World Cup 1.4-kilometer classic sprint in Ruka, Finland. Since the sprint is part of a three-race series ending with a pursuit, all skiers started the qualifier. As snow flurries fell in a semi-dark and Arctic Ruka —skiers raced under the lights — Johannes Høsflot Klæbo of Norway won the qualifier in 2:37:42. Kevin Bolger of the U.S. Ski Team (USST) just...
FasterSkier reporter Aleks Tangen was in Beitostølen to report. As a new feature we are posting interviews from the mixed zone in the report below. The opening Norwegian national races began in Beitostølen, Norway today with a 1.2-kilometer women’s classic sprint and a 1.7 k classic sprint for the men. Beyond featuring a loaded field of seasoned and up-and-coming Norwegian skiers, the U.S. Ski Team is using these races as a tune up for next week’s Ruka,...
Back in 2015, prior to her first go at a World Championships, Rosie Brennan was asked this: What’s your biggest motivation while racing?. “I am most motivated by wanting to show that my hard work was worth it, that I did everything I could to go as fast as I could,” Brennan replied at the time. She was twenty six years old then, and now at 30 years old, the Park City native grinds away,...
We spoke with Chris Grover of the U.S. Ski Team on October 29, to get his thoughts on the new season. With a packed World Cup schedule and an off-year for major championship events, Grover and his team have myriad moving parts to make gel. He comes with a new title, that of Cross Country Program Director. Besides the title change, he remains the leader for the cross-country staff and athletes. Grover was at his...
On Friday in Norway athletes gathered for a double-header day of rollerski races at the Toppidrettsveka festival. First up was a 25-kilometer skate race for both the men and women that concluded with a 1.5 k classic sprint in Aure. Below are the sprint race results. The U.S. Ski Team’s (USST) Sadie Bjornsen placed seventh overall, while Sophie Caldwell (USST) was 13th. Katie Feldman of the SVSEF Gold Team placed 27th overall. Women’s sprint...
Day two of the Toppidrettsveka rollerski races began in Aure, Norway with a 25-kilometer skate race. U.S. Ski Team (USST) athlete Sadie Bjornsen won the women’s race in 1:10:12.4 hours. Katie Feldman of the SVSEF Gold Team finshed in 25th (+8:08.8). Thirty-one women finished the race. According to a translated article from Norway’s NRK, several athletes used faulty rollerskis. As a result, race favorite Fridda Karlsson crashed and did not finish. Full men’s results
As the title suggests, catching up with Kendall Kramer is no small task. The 17-year-old (as of late June) caught the attention of the cross-country world this past winter with stunning and consistent performances at Lahti, Finland’s Junior World Ski Championships. Although we’re about to rattle off some 2018-2019 results, to be clear this is no athlete who defines themselves solely by the metric of finish rank. That will come across in the interview below. ...
By the time you read this piece, some skiers from the U.S. Ski Team (USST) will be settling in Trondheim, Norway for a two and a half week training camp. In total, five are making the journey from the U.S. The sixth skier, Kevin Bolger, no stranger to training in the region, has been in Trondheim for nearly a month. Bolger’s experience in Trondheim goes deep. He has trained there in the off season for...
This piece written by Noah Hoffman is republished from the State of Formation Blog, a publication of the Boston Interfaith Leadership Initiative. Many readers know Hoffman as a U.S. Ski Team member and Olympic skier. He is currently enrolled in Brown University’s Resumed Undergraduate Education (RUE) program; he will be a sophomore this fall. He is pursuing a bachelor’s degree while focusing on Economics and Public Policy with an emphasis on opportunity inequality. He also works...
There are days skiing here in Bend, Ore. when the privilege of sliding on groomed trails becomes ho-hum. Maybe you’re not feeling the energy buzz. Maybe the technique is breaking down. First world problems. But we stress about them anyhow. Those are the days when it’s a sight to see Bernie Nelson gliding along. She gobbles up the meters as she presents a holy grail of vertically stacked imagery. Hip, knee, and ankle perfectly aligned....
“Everyday has been a new adventure,” were the words from the U.S. Ski Team’s (USST) Kevin Bolger as he summarized his first full-time season on the World Cup. At twenty-six-years-old, Bolger is a relatively new face on the team’s evolving crop of sprint skiers. He was re-nominated to the USST for a second consecutive year this past May. Bolger’s ski path took him to Sun Valley for two seasons as a post-graduate skier. He matured physically...