(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Vidar Løfshus, head of the Norwegian cross-country ski team, and the team’s former performance manager, Åge Skinstad.) The News in English.no. “We had many fun years together on the national team.” Odd-Bjørn Hjelmeset, a former skier who competed until 2011 and became a national team coach, recalled her “infectious humor”. Erik Røste, president of the Norwegian Ski Federation since 2012, said she was “an important ambassador for...
Petter Northug of Norway, who was a World Champion last season over the same distance, will not start today's 15 k individual race - and neither will Alexander Legkov and Maxim Vylegzhanin of Russia, Johannes Duerr of Austria, or Maurice Manificat of France. Norwegian and Russian coaches chat about the reasoning.
On Saturday, Marit Bjørgen and the Norwegian women wore black armbands in the Olympic skiathlon to honor teammate Astrid Jacobsen's brother, who died unexpectedly the day before. The IOC didn't like that one bit, likening it to a political statement, which is banned at the Games.
Petter Northug, Jr., joined rare company on Sunday in becoming the second Norwegian in history to win more than one overall World Cup crystal globe. He kept Alexander Legkov and Dario Cologna at bay with his victory in the 15 k pursuit at World Cup Finals to finish off a memorable season in Falun, Sweden.
Want to win a race at World Championships or the Olympics? Then you might want to stay away from the top step of the Tour de Ski podium.
At the 2009 World Championships in the Czech Republic, Finland’s Matti Heikkinen combined a well-timed peak with a great pair of skis to take bronze in the 15 k classic, on a challenging wax day. That medal was Heikkinen’s first time on the podium in an international race. Since then, he’d finished in the top three a few times more—twice on the World Cup, and also in a couple of stages of the Tour de...
Stupid, nonsensical, and “completely in the wrong.” Those were the descriptions by elite cross-country skiers and coaches of German sprinter Josef Wenzl’s actions in the Dusseldorf team sprint on Sunday. Wenzl’s his own Wenzl-esque kamikaze attack against Swedish skier Marcus Hellner. “I moved in on him, when there was absolutely no reason to—and we both went down,” Kershaw wrote in an e-mail on Monday. “I had qualified first, and was poised to perhaps slot into...
For the last few weeks, Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland has been training five to six hours a day. Seriously. We asked her four times, just to be sure. Granted, she said that only three to four of those hours were skiing—the rest were in the gym. But it’s still a lot of volume in advance of a World Cup. Kowalczyk’s approach to her training underscores athletes’ varying strategies during this final period leading up to...