Another day at Whistler and another day of great skiing. The day started just below freezing with a little new snow overnight, intermittent sunshine, no wind, and no snowfall until after the last skier finished. The course was two laps of the Olympic Red 5km, the same course used in 2010 for the classic races. About 3km of the loop was the same as used in the classic 20km Monday and Tuesday. There is a...
Day five of racing at Whistler Olympic Park delivered with an interval start 10km free technique race in great conditions and intermittent sunshine. The tracks were fast and almost silky, the corners held up all day, the glide was exceptional, and (if anyone cared to classic on a great skating day) VR45 was magic. Early on, North American skiers spent quality time in the leader’s chair before the top ranked skiers took over. Norway put...
Day four of the Junior Worlds at Whistler Olympic Park brought new weather and more excitement in mass start racing. The day dawned with a light snowfall at -8C. The wax techs were as secretive as ever, but it was clear at the finish that most athletes were on hard wax. While Norway, Germany, and France owned the podiums, it was also a good day for North American skiers. Women’s 20 k Classic The women’s...
The U20/U23 World Championships kicked off in Whistler Olympic Park with classic sprints on a bluebird day. While the finals were filled with athletes from Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Italy, it was a good day for many more nations. Coaches from Canada, the US, Andorra, and Taiwan were agreed on one thing: U20 results won’t make or break your skiing career, but what you learn here can change your life. That said, results are what...
By U.S. Ski & Snowboard January 25, 2022 U.S. Ski & Snowboard has announced 24 athletes to represent the United States at the FIS Junior & U23 World Cross Country Championships Feb. 22-27 in Lygna, Norway. “Following a year filled with constant changes, I am so pleased to see a team fielded with such depth among our roster,” said U.S. Ski & Snowboard Head Cross Country Development Coach Greta Anderson. “We have several spots on...
Last week, U.S. Ski & Snowboard announced team nominations for 2021 FIS Nordic Junior and U23 World Ski Championships, which will be held in Vuokatti, Finland, in early February. The athletes selected were as follows: U23 World Championships Team Women: Hailey Swirbul (APU Nordic Ski Center/El Jebel, Colo.) Sophia Laukli (Middlebury College/Yarmouth, Maine) Alex Lawson (Middlebury College/West Burke, Vt.) Hannah Halvorsen (APU/Anchorage, Alaska) Renae Anderson (Loppet Nordic Racing/Golden Valley, Minn.) Alternate 1: Leah Lange (University...
Last Saturday, the American women placed fourth in the U20 relay at 2019 World Junior Ski Championships. In any other year before 2017 this result would probably be headline news; considering that the Americans had the youngest team in the race (you can compare athlete birthdates from the women’s race here if you really want to get into the minutiae), this may well be headline news next year, or the year after that, when the same...
With the Olympics starting Thursday and jam-packed week behind us, it’s almost futile to try and recap it all. But here’s the lowdown of what happened: The Junior/U23 World Champion began in Val di Fiemme, Italy, the final World Cup weekend before the Olympics took place in Toblach, Italy and NorAm racing continued at the Eastern Canadian Championships in Cantly, Quebec.
Team Russia completed an impressive World Junior/U23 Championships in Erzurum, Turkey by winning both the men’s and women’s Junior relays on the final day of the week-long event. The women’s team of Elena Serokhvostova, Natalia Zhukova, Nadezhda Shuniaeva, and Elena Soboleva skied to a 13.4 second victory over Sweden. The Swedes bested Slovenia with a lunge at the line to capture the silver. Sweden’s Evelina Settlin, who took silver in the sprint earlier in the week,...
FasterSkier’s Audrey Mangan is on-site in Erzurum, Turkey reporting on the World Junior/U23 Championships. Here is a selection of photos from the 5km classic. Complete Race Report Men’s 10km Classic Photos [smugmug url=”http://fasterskier.smugmug.com/hack/feed.mg?Type=gallery&Data=21613304_htCFsP&format=rss200″ imagecount=”100″ start=”1″ num=”100″ thumbsize=”Th” link=”smugmug” captions=”true” sort=”true” window=”false” smugmug=”false” size=”M”]
FasterSkier’s Audrey Mangan is on-site in Erzurum, Turkey reporting on the World Junior/U23 Championships. Here is a selection of photos from the 10km classic. Complete Race Report Women’s 5km Classic Photo Gallery [smugmug url=”feed://fasterskier.smugmug.com/hack/feed.mg?Type=gallery&Data=21613056_zvwgmb&format=rss200″ imagecount=”100″ start=”1″ num=”100″ thumbsize=”Th” link=”lightbox” captions=”true” sort=”true” window=”false” smugmug=”false” size=”M”]
FasterSkier’s Audrey Mangan in on-site in Erzurum, Turkey reporting on the World Junior/U23 Championships. Here is a selection of photos from the junior skate sprint. Related Race Reports: Nilsson Charges Down Homestretch to Take Sprint Victory in Erzurum [smugmug url=”http://fasterskier.smugmug.com/hack/feed.mg?Type=gallery&Data=21617174_874gZf&format=rss200″ imagecount=”100″ start=”1″ num=”100″ thumbsize=”Th” link=”smugmug” captions=”false” sort=”true” window=”false” smugmug=”false” size=”M”]
After a World Junior Championships where it has already proven dominant in the medal counts, Russia sealed the deal by winning both the youth men’s and women’s relays in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic on Friday. And it wasn’t even close: both teams won by more than a minute, the men over Italy and the women over Ukraine. Elena Badanina, the leadoff skier for the Russian women’s team, doesn’t see herself as becoming a star, despite...
How poor was the shooting on the third day of biathlon World Junior Championships in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic? In two races on Tuesday – the youth men’s and women’s individual – only a single athlete, Pavel Hancharou of Belarus, shot clean for the four stages of the race. He was rewarded with a 48-second victory in the 12.5 k race and his first World Juniors gold medal. Second-place Steffen Bartscher of Germany was so...
When American biathlete Kelly Kjorlien arrived in the Czech Republic for IBU Youth/Junior World Championships, she was confident – but she also came down with a cough. Has that slowed her down so far? No, not at all. After finishing 27th in Saturday’s youth women’s 6 k sprint, Kjorlien told FasterSkier that she was excited going into the pursuit, because shooting was her “strong point” and there were four shooting stages in which to best...
While all of the medalists from Saturday’s youth and junior men’s sprints repeated on the podium in Sunday’s pursuits, there was still plenty of excitement on the second day of World Youth and Junior Biathlon Championships in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. In the junior men’s 12.5 k pursuit, Germany’s Tom Barth, who started with bib one and a 16-second advantage over teammate Johannes Kuhn, had to fight just to stay on the podium after missing...
It’s not very often that one hears the Canadian national anthem at the medals ceremony for a World Championships cross-country ski race. But sure enough, there it was on Monday, ringing out in the stadium in Otepaa, Estonia. Canadian Alex Harvey had just outsprinted Russian Evgeniy Belov to win the 30-kilometer U-23 pursuit race, collecting his first-ever gold medal from the International Ski Federation. “This year, even though there’s World Championships coming, I really wanted...
The single most dominating performance on the first day of Biathlon World Youth and Junior Championships came in the second race on Saturday, the junior women’s 7.5 k sprint. Dorothea Wierer of Italy shot clean to win the race by over a minute. It wasn’t an entirely surprising result: Wierer has contested every Junior Worlds series since 2007, and won a gold medal in Ruhpolding in 2008 and one in Canmore in 2009. And of...
After a tough first day of competition at the World Youth and Junior Biathlon Championships in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic on Saturday, the American and Canadian men will be on the offensive in Sunday’s pursuit. With the top 60 finishers from today’s sprint races qualifying to move on, the North American teams – which notched just two top-30 performances – will have plenty of pursuing to do. “Overall the Canadian team didn’t have a stellar...
When the World Youth and Junior Biathlon Championships kick off in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic on Saturday, both the U.S. and Canadian teams will have high hopes. How high? In 2010 in Torsby, Sweden, Canadian Rose-Marie Cote won a bronze medal in the youth 10 k individual. In 2009 in Canmore, Canada, American Grace Boutot won silver in the same event, and Canadian Yolaine Oddou was one spot behind her. That was a banner year...