From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.
Although time may have felt like a stand still since mid-March, the news has continued to flow.
Emily Nishikawa leads the Canadian team in 32nd in Östersund, Sweden. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Emily Nishikawa:
Emily Nishikawa stepped away from elite level competition announcing her retirement at 30 years old. Having grown up Whitehorse, Yukon she spent nine years as a member of the Canadian National Team, was a two-time Olympian (2014 and 2018) and six-time national champion. For several years running, Nishikawa was the distance skier to beat in Canada. According to the International Ski Federation, she placed in the top-30 (individually) six times on the World Cup.
Nishikawa told a Whitehorse newspaper she would pursue a degree in teaching this fall. She is currently completing a degree in Psychology.
Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen (NOR) rounds the final turn toward the stadium with Katharina Hennig (GER) in hot pursuit during the 2020 Tour de Ski in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Also retiring is Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen (33) of Norway. Jacobsen has been a part of a dominant Norwegian women’s team in recent years. She raced her first World Cup in 2005, and accrued nearly 260 World Cup starts including six individual victories and a 2007 World Championship classic sprint gold medal in Sapporo, Japan. She was a member of the women’s 4 x 5 k Olympic gold medal relay team in 2018.
In total she won 10 World Championship medals with her latest individual medal coming in 2017 in the 30 k mass start classic.
Her expansive career remains an exemplar for her academic pursuits off the snow. Jacobsen has pursued a medical degree in Oslo and has one year remaining for her degree.
Martin Johnsrud Sundby (NOR) takes 4th in the 2020 30 k skiathlon in Oberstdorf. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Martin Johnsrud Sundby:
Lastly, it’s too early to say goodbye. This is no retirement as Martin Johnsrud Sundby has indicated he will compete next season. But the thirty-five-year-old Sundby, a steely veteran of the Norweigan National Team, was not renominated to the team. The Oslo resident has trained and raced as a National Team member for 12 years.
Although we should remind you that oftentimes Google Translate works like a sledgehammer when translating Norwegian to English, according to the Norwegian website NRK, Sundby said being left off the team was “as if the wife after 30 years should divorce and do not want you on the team anymore.”
This past season, Sundby reportedly struggled with a back injury. His best results were a fifth and fourth place, respectively, in the Lillehammer and Obertsdorf 15 k /15 k skiathlons. He also placed fourth in Östersund’s 15 k classic pursuit.
Sundby was an iconic distance skier over the past five years: he won the distance and overall Crystal Globes in 2014, 2016, and 2017. In 2018 he was the second ranked distance skier in the World, and third in 2019. He ranked 15th overall in distance this season, his lowest distance rank since 2011.
The standards for making the Norwegian team? Let’s say they are tough.
World Cup Rank by Season for Martin Johnsrud Sundby. (Source: FIS)
Therese Johaug, untouchable during Stage 6 of the Ski Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)
We’ll start with the weather: think all over the place. A moving target for meteorologist with moisture spitting from the skies, and air masses swirling this way and that making the trees sway like a mamba line along the course. A wax tech’s nightmare scenario? Yes. It certainly trended in that direction.
By all measures, this was Therese Johaug’s, Norway’s latest version of a cross-country skiing record-breaker, stage and tour. Of six stages total, she won five outright, with the lone exception, Saturday’s Stage 5 classic sprint in Trondheim.
Stage 6 featured a 15 k classic pursuit. Call it a pursuit, however, on the race’s sharp end, this was a runaway. Although the field was, in theory, pursuing Johaug, she simply put more time into her challengers on Sunday. She began 2:33 ahead of Norwegians Heidi Weng in second, while Ingvild Flugstad Østberg set off another second back.
Johaug expanded her lead at the finish, by over a minute, to Weng and Østberg. Johaug won the pursuit in 41:13.8. Weng placed second (+3:40.8) with a slight gap over Østberg, who toed the line 0.7 seconds further back. Sweden’s Ebba Andersson, the day’s fourth starter at 4:48, lost time to0, finishing 5:54.3 back to end the Ski Tour in fourth overall.
“I felt really good today and the waxers had done a really good job the whole Ski Tour and today as well I have the perfect skis,” Johaug told FIS after the race. “When the skis are good and the shape is good I can just go out there and enjoy all the people that come here and cheering us.”
Heidi Weng (bib 2) and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg pacing along during Stage 6. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Norway’s Heidi Weng and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (bib 3) pursing Johaug during Stage 6 of the Ski Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)
As far as time of day, Johaug took that prize as well. However, Norway’s Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen placed fifth overall and had the second-fastest race time, 44.8 seconds off Johaug’s winning mark. Krista Pärmäkoski of Finland notched the third-fastest time of day (+1:04.4).
Jessie Diggins of the U.S. was the top placed North American in sixth (+8:40.1). (She skied the 17th fastest time of day.)
“Today, like yesterday, was a crazy day in terms of weather and waxing. It kept snowing on and off, the sun coming out and then the wind picking up as more snow came down! I was pretty much skiing an individual start race as I was alone the entire time, but I was really proud of my pacing and efforts as I held my placing without anyone to work with. There was a really tricky time in the middle of the race when the skis weren’t kicking very well (for much of the field, I think) but I was able to refocus and reset and keep pushing as hard as I could.
“As for the overall tour, I’m really happy with my efforts and how I hit my goals for every race. One of my big goals was to see each day as an entirely separate opportunity and to not put pressure on myself for the overall tour, since there are so many factors that I can’t control that play into that placing. But by hitting my own process goals for each race and staying consistent I was able to have a tour that I’m proud of.
“I’m really proud of our tech team and coaches for their tireless efforts day in and day out through this tour. It’s been exhausting but they’re the hardest working guys out there!”
Jessie Diggins racing to sixth overall in the Ski Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Post Stage 6, a spent Jessie Diggins. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Sadie Maubet Bjornsen ended her tour in 10th (+9:43.8). With the big time gaps, the second wave of skiers (the mass start) began with Pärmäkoski in bib 13, starting at 8:08 back. Maubet Bjornsen (bib 12), began 16 seconds ahead and was the initial target of the wave starters. Maubet Bjornsen held off a charging Pärmäkoski for over 5 k.
“Wow, I made it!! That was one heck of a tough tour! Things were looking mighty rough to begin with, but I knew I had to just keep fighting and believing!,” Maubet Bjornsen emailed.
“But among some challenging times, there were some glimmering hopes in there. Tours are my favorite types of racing, because you have to be so resilient and such a fighter. Day after day, you have to put your fatigue and emotions aside, and just stay so positive.
“The tummy troubles at the beginning of the tour were particularly tough! It was scary to start a tour so depleted, but I was thankful we had our nutritionist, Susie Parker Simmons around to help me stay on my feet! From there it was just a matter or fighting for every second from there on.
“Today was a totally wild scene! Conditions were constantly changing, and it was hard to find the perfect skis! I knew the name of the game was to just keep fighting, because everyone would be struggling at some point out there. I managed to find something to work, and went through some highs and lows out there in the 15k which brought me to 10th overall in the tour! I’m super happy and satisfied with that, given the little fatigue hole I had to crawl out of this past month. Thank you to our team for helping make a tricky classic day at the finish of the tour possible to fight with the others.
“I’m looking forward to taking a rest now, and finding the energy to finish the end of the season strong, for the third tour of the season.
“Thanks to the Ski Tour 2020 for bringing some different types of racing. While it wasn’t always the best type of races for my strengths, it was so refreshing to visit some new locations with some different types of events! These are some of my favorite memories this season!
“And of course, hugest thanks to the staff. We couldn’t race day after day like this without them!!! They are the heroes.”
Sadie Maubet Bjornsen (bib 12) racing to 10th overall in the Ski Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Rosie Brennan, starting in bib 10, 7:27 behind the first starter Johaug, placed 12th (+9:53.3).
“Today was a very challenging day,” Brennan wrote in an email. “Due to the massive time gaps in the overall, the wave started at bib 13 so I had a big pack starting not too far behind. The conditions were very challenging with snow, sun, rain and everything in between and some very icy tracks. I did my best to stay in front of the wave but just didn’t have the skis or the energy to make it happen today. I am very disappointed in myself. After having a great tour, it was hard to end on this note, but I am doing my best to look at all the positives from the tour as a whole and make a nice little work list to improve on the things that were so tough today.”
Rosie Brennan (stars and stripes) during Stage 6 of the Ski Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Also for the U.S., Julia Kern placed 30th (+14:51.4), Caitlin Patterson 36th (+16:38.4), Katharine Ogden 42nd (+20:26.6), Rosie Frankowski 43rd (+20:36.7), Sophie Caldwell 44th (+21:41.2), and Alayna Sonnesyn 48th (+24:34.6).
Canada’s Katherine Stewart-Jones placed in the points for the tour overall, by finishing 29th in the pursuit (+14:46.3). Cendrine Browne was 33rd (+15:47.5), and Emily Nishikawa 35th (+16:08.4).
Katherine Stewart-Jones during Stage 5 of the Ski Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)
This stage concludes the Ski Tour. Racing continues in Lahti, Finland next Saturday.
The day began in Trondheim with a centimeter of snow, which then transitioned to big blue skies for the thousands of fans attending the fifth stage of the Ski Tour 2020, a 1.5 k classic sprint. The Norwegians can throw a cross-country race party. The scene, despite the different setting, was reminiscent of the festive cowbell and camp-out sideshow of Holmenkollen’s Frognerseteren. It’s not quite the Yankee stadium of cross-country skiing, but a sign that in the hot-beds of the sport, fans arrive in droves.
The sprint course was more traditional, meaning this was no simple VO2 max test of an effort — that went down on Stage 3, in Åre, Sweden as athletes ascended an uber steep alpine ski hill to close out that event. Trondheim’s classic sprint was bolstered by two punchy climbs on a three-terrace course, long and fast glide outs, and two speedy corners which swung skiers through a 180-degree direction change to keep it spicy.
Sweden’s Jonna Sundling laid down the fastest qualifying time in 3:22.75, shadowed by her teammate, Linn Svahn, 0.24 seconds back. Maybe, not surprisingly, Therese Johaug was the third-fastest qualifier, 0.83 seconds back. Johaug won her first career sprint on Stage 3 of the Ski Tour.
Jonna Sundling of Sweden in bib 1, during her quarterfinal of the Stage 5 classic sprint in Trondheim, Norway. (Photo: NordicFocus)
The U.S. packed five skiers into the heats. Sadie Maubet Bjornsen qualified in 10th (+6.20). Rosie Brennan in 11th (+6.34), Sophie Caldwell 15th (+7.32), Jessie Diggins 20th (+8.58), and Julia Kern 24th (+9.54). Yet the story on the U.S. women’s side ended earlier than their highwater mark norm, which is most often, representation in the six skier final. In no uncertain terms, this is the golden age of U.S. women’s cross-country skiing. A stars and stripes void marked the semis and final. No U.S. skiers advance beyond the quarterfinals.
In the third quarterfinal, Kern and Brennan lost contact with Sundling and Tiril Udnes Weng who came in 1-2, respectively. Kern was fourth in the heat (+3.7), Brennan fifth (+7.71).
Maubet Bjornsen and Diggins fell off the pace as well in the fourth heat, placing fourth and fifth respectively. Both were over four seconds off Norway’s Anna Svendsen’s pace of 3:19.34 who won that quarterfinal.
Sadie Maubet Bjornsen during the Stage 5 classic sprint in Trondheim, Norway. (Photo: NordicFocus)
“It was an extremely tricky weather day with a combo of rain/snow/sun, and everything in between,” Maubet Bjornsen emailed.
“I was excited to put together a solid qualifier, but felt like a few adjustments would allow things to be even better for the heats. My body felt sharp and powerful, so I knew the key for me was to be quick out of the start, and do my favorite thing… ski from the front. I was quick out of the start, but struggled to hold the speed up the first climb. Since climbing is generally my strength, it’s unclear whether it was skis, body, or both that held me back. But, that’s how ski racing is. You can’t overthink anything too much, you just keep believing, and chasing away!
“It is the tour of crazies for me, so I’m going to let it go, and look on to “the chase” tomorrow. With the tour ending with a 15k classic, I am sitting just outside top 10 overall, and really hoping to climb my way within that tomorrow. Let’s see if I can channel all amounts of frustration towards some constructive racing in the final day!”
The last U.S. athlete eliminated was Caldwell. She placed third in the fifth quarterfinal, 1.53 seconds back on Norway’s Heidi Weng in first. Caldwell placed 14th in the final standings, Maubet Bjornsen 16th, Kern 20th, Brennan 21st, and Diggins 23rd.
Sophie Caldwell (bib 15) during her quarterfinal in Trondheim: Stage 5 of the Is Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Post-race interview with U.S. World Cup Coach Matt Whitcomb
Wintry weather moved in during the men’s quarterfinals. The blue-bird scene morphed quickly into an intermittent snowglobe. With the swift winds swirling around the stadium, the snow squalls eventually moved on as the semifinals progressed.
The 12 skier field in the two women’s semis consisted of six Norwegians, four Swedes, and two Swiss skiers in Laurien van der Graff in the first semi, and Nadine Fähndrich in semi two. Fähndrich kept Swiss hopes alive by advancing to the finals after winning her semi.
The first semifinal featured Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla and Sweden’s Sundling. These two athletes were the skiers to watch. For Falla, by her own high standards, this has been an offseason, as the young Swedish sprint team has pushed her aside for precious top-of-the-podium real estate. Falla won the opening World Cup sprint in Ruka, Finland, otherwise, it’s been a first-place void for the former Crystal Globe sprint winner.
In bib 12, Maiken Caspersen Falla strides it during her quarterfinal in Trondheim. (Photo: NordicFocus)
In Falla’s semi, she and Sudling took first and second, respectively, with Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen and Linn Svahn of Sweden in close contact, only a few tenths of a second back. In the final, Falla was locked in. Although at moments Sundling was side by side with Falla, the Norwegian dictated the decisive move off the front. Over the second climb, at roughly 2:25 into the race, Falla powered over the hill and into the glide out transition with only Sundling able to match two meters back.
Falla took the win in 3:15.55 with Sundling in second (+0.48). Fähndrich was third (+2.88), Anna Dyvik of Sweden fourth (+3.71), Svendsen fifth (+5.26), and Heidi Weng sixth (+6.64).
Maiken Caspersen Falla on her way to her second sprint win of the 2019-2020 World Cup season. (Photo: NordciFocus)
Sealing it: Maiken Caspersen Fall in Trondheim. (Photo: NordicFocus)
“This feels always like the [World Championships] so crowded and so many people screaming my name at the start and after the finish,” Falla told FIS after the race. “It’s an amazing atmosphere and I’m so happy to be here. There has been some hard distance races for me now. The 30 k and also 10 k was really hard so I’m really happy that I stayed in the tour, didn’t go home and got this opportunity to win here and race in this amazing atmosphere.”
This was Falla’s 21st individual sprint win. She sits second overall in total World Cup sprint wins. Marit Bjørgen of Norway still reigns with 40 World Cup sprint victories. For Fähndrich, this was her second career individual podium. Prior to her third place on Saturday, the Swiss skier posted up a second place in Cogne, Italy’s 2019 10 k classic for her first World Cup podium.
Hands up: Nadine Fähndrich earns a third place for the Swiss in Trondheim. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Katharine Ogden in 37th was the top-U.S. skier outside the top-30. Alayna Sonnesyn placed 42nd, Caitlin Patterson 48th, and Rosie Frankowski 51st.
For Canada, Emily Nishikawa finished in 34th, Katherine Stewart-Jones 35th (+14.19), Cendrine Browne 40th,
The Ski Tour overall looks certain for Johaug who placed ninth in Saturday’s sprint. She leads with a total time of 2:19:28. Weng remains in second (+2:33), and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg third (+2:34). Østberg finished 22nd in Stage 5. This Norwegian trio is the likely overall podium, as Sweden’s Ebba Andersson is fourth at 4:48 back. Racing concludes for the Ski Tour on Sunday with Stage 6, a 15 k classic pursuit for the women.
Norway’s Therese Johaug (yellow bib) the Ski Tour’s overall leader was the third overall qualifier. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Therese Johaug (yellow bib) with enough time at the finish to gather skis and watch 2nd, 3rd, and 4th come across the line. (NordicFocus)
The early evening show, under the lights of Östersund, Sweden’s ski stadium, Stage 2 of the Ski Tour 2020 – a 10-kilometer classic pursuit – got underway as the plentiful moisture falling from the sky transitioned from steady rain to big snowflakes.
This was a 10 k race with three discrete tales. First, the story with the least tension.
That would be Norway’s Therese Johuag’s 10 k effort. Which, despite the pursuit format, was a solo time trial affair. She set herself up for that narrative by winning Stage 1’s 10 k individual skate by 45.6 seconds. No skier on the World Cup could fathom closing that gap to a generational distance skier.
Johaug won in 27:29.0 minutes. Her effort gained her even more time in the Ski Tour overall as teammates Heidi Weng placed second (+57.4), and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg third (+57.8). Sweden’s Ebba Andersson lost out on third in the closing meters, as she placed fourth (+58.6).
Therese Johaug for a clean no-one-in-site win. (NordicFocus)
This was Joahug’s 13th World Cup distance win of the season and according to FIS, this brings her closer to a hallowed record. Marit Bjørgen, a legend from Norway holds the World Cup distance win record with 62 victories. Sunday’s win brings Johaug’s total to 59.
Let’s be frank: with a 45.6 second lead on the second starter Weng, 47.3 seconds on Østberg in bib 3, and 53.1 ticks ahead of Andersson in bib 4, this was as much a sure thing as sunrise and sunset.
Ebba Andersson leads Heidi Weng and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg during the Stage 2 10 k classic pursuit. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Behind Johaug, the tactic for the three closest chasers — Weng, Østberg, and Andersson was clear: cede no ground to the All-Star list of skiers starting roughly 20 seconds further back. For much of the race, the threesome kept a tidy buffer of 30 seconds on those in fifth to 16th place. At times Andersson took pulls up front, motivated by chants of “Ebba” from the home-nation fans. Østberg and Weng too remained motivated to secure a potential podium as they burned their matches prudently but with enough gusto to keep the masses at bay.
Taking her turn pacing the premier chase group, Heidi Weng (bib 2), followed by Ingvild Flugstad Østberg and Ebba Andersson. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Heidi Weng (bib) taking second in Stage 2 of the Ski Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Weng led the charge into the final straight. Østberg slotted in behind Weng using her as a double-poling pace machine. Weng and Østberg gained a precious few meters on Andersson to take second and third, respectively.
Johaug leads the Ski Tour 2020 after two stages with a total time of 49:18. Weng is second at 0:57, and Østberg is third overall with the same time back. Andersson sits one second further back in fourth overall.
The race behind the top-four had a different vibe. It was less about fending off a potential chase, and more about how a large group of skiers would coalesce, who would lead, and who would sit back and take advantage of the more skied in tracks.
Jessie Diggins skiing to 11th overall during the Ski Tour 2020 Stage 2 10 k classic pursuit. (Photo: NordicFocus)
American Jessie Diggins, in bib 8, pulled the group through the 3.3 k mark 1:25.2 behind Johaug. In contact with Diggins, and coming through in this order were Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, Ragnhild Haga, Rosie Brennan, Krista Pärmäkoski, Frida Karlsson, and Natalia Nepryaeva. The group from fifth to Austria’s Therese Stadlober in 16th place was separated by 11 seconds.
Brennan took her turn up front though the 4.9 k mark, as did Karlsson later in the race. By the finish, the collective group did not gain time on those ahead, they ceded a few more seconds to the top four. But we would be remiss to make note of Brennan’s determination. You could see it in yesterday’s 10 k skate, and it was evident today; she’s got moxie and now the confidence to take pulls, as she did with Karlsson today, and try to break the pack. In a post-race interview (audio posted below), Brennan noted she had in fact been keen on making a move during the pursuit.
Grit: Rosie Brennan during Stage 2 of the Ski Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Post-race interview with Rosie Brennan
Slovenia’s Anamarija Lampic ended up fifth overall (+1:38.7), as the first finisher of the third group out on course. Brennan ended her day in 10th (+1:43.3), and Diggins in 11th (+1:43.6).
“It was a pretty crazy day out there!” Diggins wrote. “I was actually super stoked about the rain while warming up because klister skiing in the rain is such amazing kick and really fun getting up all the hills on. The snow right before the start made it a really strange race because the one track became exponentially faster as it got skied in, which led to massive packs (for a girls race, anyway) forming. Huge thanks to the tech team because my skis stayed competitive and were kicking well even in the rapidly changing conditions!
“I’m excited for the rest of the tour – the next two races are formats we’ve never done before, so I’m ready to go give it my very best shot!”
Sadie Maubet Bjornsen, who began in bib 22, 1:51.4 behind the first starter Johaug, placed 19th (+2:12.5).
“After recovering from a mild tummy bug or a form of food poisoning that visited the night before the start of this tour, I am feeling thankful and hopeful after the second stage of the tour today,” Maubet Bjornsen emailed. “With a snow/rain downpour, I was feeling right at home strapping classic skis on my feet and heading out in the misery. I have spent plenty of days in this exact condition during summer training up on Eagle Glacier, so I was trying to channel every bit of internal strength I could find. The fact that I was able to work my way up to 19th today, and had encouraging feelings in a somewhat depleted version of myself is something I will take and run with!
“I am excited to have a day to recover and fill up my tank, and take on this tour in the same way I did the last. An imperfect start will just fuel me with the extra fight for the days to come!
“Thanks to the tech team for putting wonderful skis together given the absolute craziness coming out of the sky!”
In speaking to U.S. World Cup Head Coach Matt Whitcomb after the race, he explained that skiers in the back of the field were able to take advantage of the considerably faster skied in tracks. Again, heavy wet snow fell during the race.
Post-race interview with Matt Whitcomb
U.S. skier Hailey Swirbul in bib 36 moved into the points on Sunday to place 24th (+2:20.2). Her trajectory in the standings aligned with her 13th fastest time of day. Along those lines, Julia Kern of the U.S. Ski Team skied from 50th to finish 36th (+2:43.8). Her on course time was the sixth-fastest of the day.
Also for the U.S., Caitlin Patterson was 41st (+2:54.1), Sophie Caldwell 51st (+3:07.0), Alayna Sonnesyn 54th (+3:55.7), Katharine Ogden 55th (+4:03.8), and Rosie Frankowski 62nd (+4:59.7).
For Canada, Katherine Stewart-Jones placed 32nd (+2:37.5) and skied the ninth fastest time of day. Cendrine Browne was 39th (+2:45.9), and Emily Nishikawa 44th (+2:59.8).
Katherine Stewart-Jones (CAN) during Stage 2 of the Ski Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)
As far as the overall standings and how times are calculated, time of day is used to determine a skier’s time for Stage 2.
An all-Norwegian podium in Östersund, Sweden. Therese Johaug won the day ahead of Heidi Weng and Ingvold Flugstad Østberg. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Here we go again. A new Scandinavian Ski Tour takes the spot of a World Championship or Olympic Games during this off-cycle year. Six stages working east from Östersund, Sweden to Trondheim, Norway, beginning with today’s 10-kilometer individual start freestyle event.
Under clear skies, light fading and shadows lengthening as the sunset looms just a few hours away, the women time trialed through the tall conifers to set the tone of the overall tour standings. Crowds arrived in droves to line the course and fill the stadium, a cacophony of cheers creating the soundtrack to the stage.
Today’s format suits the Tour favorite, Therese Johaug, who has expressed that mass start events do not suit her as well. This season, Johaug won the Tour de Ski and has taken the top spot in each of the last ten individual start distance skate events.
Her story today essentially wrote itself. In Devon Kershaw’s words: “Gun to tape annihilate.”
Therese Johaug (NOR) dominates the first stage of the FIS Ski Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Johaug hammered out of the start gate and did not slow down until she crossed the line, her grimacing face making clear the unmatchable power and tempo she was forcing herself to maintain. Stopping the clock at 21:49.7 and raising her arms briefly in the air before collapsing over her poles, Johaug sealed the deal on best in show.
Her time gap on her competitors increased in an almost alarmingly linear fashion throughout the stage. 12.8 seconds at 2.6 k increased to 20 at the halfway mark, growing to 45.6 seconds at the finish.
Victorious in Östersund, Therese Johaug has a strong start to the FIS Ski Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)
“Oh yes, I could never get a better start than this,” a glowing Johaug told FIS at the finish. “I feel that it was my best skating distance in my career, so I am really happy with the skis and with the shape. It was an amazing race today… It’s good to start the Tour and I’m looking forward to the next races.”
Here’s what else went down.
Racing in bib 27 amongst the first wave of 30 skiers, Rosie Brennan set the bar high for the seeded group of top-ranked skiers who followed in bibs 32 – 60, posting some of the fastest time through each checkpoint. Although she faded into the results as the seeded group came through, it was still a noteworthy performance, placing her 9th for the day (+1:25.7) and second American.
Rosie Brennan sets the bar, racing to 9th in the first stage of the FIS Ski Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Of other skiers in her group, Brennan was only challenged by Norway’s Ragnhild Haga and Sweden’s Frida Karlsson, who was recently cleared to return to World Cup competition. Karlsson sat out the majority of the season after failing to meet team health standards for body composition and bone density.
Karlsson took the pace out hot, clearly gunning for the win, or at least for the bonus points available at the 2.6k checkpoint. She had the second fastest overall time there, then she attacked the steady climb with high tempo. But she was unable to hold the effort, fading back into the ranks as the race went on. She ended her day in 19th (+1:46.0).
After a fast start, Frida Karlsson falls to 19th in the 10 k skate. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Among the first starters of the seeded group in bib 36, Heidi Weng (NOR) went hunting. From 4.2 k onward, she knocked down the previous best time, setting a new and short-lived time to beat, as Johaug chased from two bibs behind. Weng, the 2017 and 2018 Tour de Ski winner who is currently ranked third in the overall World Cup standings hung on to take the second podium spot.
Next over the line was Ingvild Flugstad Østberg in third (+47.3), who hovered a few seconds behind Weng at each checkpoint. The trio sealed the deal on an all-Norwegian podium.
Ebba Andersson of Sweden interrupted the string of Norwegians in fourth (+53.1), followed by Haga (+1:04.3) and Astrid Urenholdt Jacobsen (+1:05.0).
Leading the Tour for North America, Jessie Diggins skied to 8th (+1:18.1). Diggins currently sits 5th in both the distance and overall World Cup standings.
Jessie Diggins skates to 8th in the first stage of the FIS Ski Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)
In a post-race call, Diggins described the track in Östersund as a “thinking course”, full of swooping turns that kept athletes focused and on their toes. Diggins explained that she has been experiencing an abnormal amount of fatigue over the last few weeks, but felt some encouraging sensations in today’s event and has a plan in place to optimize her recovery between stages so she can keep going hard.
She also shares insight about some of Tour’s sustainability initiatives to decrease the environmental impact of such an event, and weighs in on the energy generated from a large American team.
Post-race interview with Jessie Diggins.
Jessie Diggins leads the way for Team USA after the first stage of the FIS Ski Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Just behind Diggins, Brennan was the next American. It was the APU/USST athlete’s third top-10 result of the season. Her last two were also earned in stage events; she was 9th in the 10 k skate during the third stage of the Tour de Ski in Toblach, Italy and 6th in the 10 k classic in Ruka. She also skied the 7th fastest time of day up the Alpe Cermis in the final TdS stage.
“It was a good opening day of the Ski Tour 2020 for me,” Brennan wrote in an email to several news outlets. “After a frustrating weekend last week, I was ready to try to turn things around. The course here is hard and has lots of climbing so I felt it suited my strengths. It was fast conditions but there was also little rest so it was a tricky pacing game. I didn’t perfectly pace it and lost a little in the closing kilometers but I had much improved race feelings so I am very satisfied and hope I can continue this way throughout the tour.”
Sophie Caldwell on course in Östersund, Sweden. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Back on the World Cup, Rosie Frankowski races the first stage of the FIS Ski Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Sadie Maubet Bjornen was the next American in 22nd (+1:51.4), followed by her APU teammate Hailey Swirbul in 36th (+2:09.3). Caitlin Patterson was next for the U.S. in 40th (+2:19.1), Alayna Sonnesyn 43rd (+2:27.3), Julia Kern 50th (+2:38.0), Sophie Caldwell 51st (+2:39.3), Katherine Ogden 53rd (+2:48.0), and Rosie Frankowski 56th (+2:50.0).
In a post-race call, Matt Whitcomb sheds light on how the team is approaching the Tour in comparison to the Tour de Ski or a ski tour at the end of the season. Whitcomb explains that a major focus leading into the week was recovery and mental preparation.
“We didn’t focus to much on performance — that’s never a great way to go. We work on the process and getting people psyched by giving them the confidence to know that they’re recovered. Whether or not they’re sharp on the first day or two, they should be sharp by the end. Whether that ends up happening or not, we’ll see. But believing in it is the key.”
Whitcomb explains further how he gages how tired or recovered his athletes are and provides further insight into the women’s performance. Lastly, Whitcomb comments on Swirbul’s noteworthy rise in the ranks this year, attributing it to her fun but focused mental approach and the effect of the strong APU women’s training group.
Post-race interview with Matt Whitcomb.
On the Canadian side, Emily Nishikawa was the top finisher just outside the FIS points in 32nd (+2:05.0). She started one bib ahead of Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla, who she marked and followed to the finish once caught.
Emily Nishikawa leads the Canadian team in 32nd in Östersund, Sweden. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Next up was Cendrine Browne in 35th (+2:09.0), followed by Katherine Stewart-Jones in 46th (+2:29.8).
The tour is young. Racing continues tomorrow with a 10 k pursuit start classic on the tracks in Östersund.
Early race agitators: Norway’s Therese Johaug and Heidi Weng. (Photo: NordicFocus)
As always, it was a reset: a new day at the start of a World Cup race. On Sunday, the ribbon of snow in Falun, Sweden offered an opportunity for a sixty-six women field to race head to head in a 10 k mass start freestyle race.
With a course that some noted was softened in difficulty by eliminating the infamous Moderbakken climb — which has become a feared incline on the World Cup circuit — the racing was expected to be a close contact affair. The women raced four laps of a roughly 2.5 k circuit featuring punchy hills and terrain requiring athletes to work with little opportunity to recover.
Coming into the race, Norway’s Therese Johaug had been synonymous with the words distance race and victory. She has been unstoppable. She has won 11 of the last 13 individual distance events on the World Cup. According to FIS, in a string of 24 distance races, Johaug has placed first or second in 23 of them: the only outlier a 4th place in the 10 k mass start classic in Val di Fiemme, Italy during the fifth stage of the 2019-2020 Tour de Ski.
Again, it has been a year in which Johaug has been dominant in the win column, but not necessarily in her margin of victory. In year’s past, seeing Johaug way off the front, a minute plus ahead of the field was not uncommon. This season, the gaps have been more humane.
From the start on Sunday, Johaug was out front and the skier to match. Through the first lap, it was Johaug, Heidi Weng of Norway, Ebba Andersson of Sweden, Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen of Norway, and Sweden’s reassimilating Frida Karlsson who had been off the World Cup this season since the opening weekend in Ruka, Finland for failing to meet team body-metric requirements, who looked poised to keep pace.
Early on, Weng took pulls and Andersson contributed to a pace that would snap any imaginable cord to those wishing to gap up. At 3.6 k Johaug, Weng, and Andersson pushed discernibly ahead, as Jacobsen and Karlsson fell off to a bit more than six seconds back. Jessie Diggins, starting in bib 5 for the U.S., came through the 3.6 k check in eighth, at 17.2 seconds behind, as the Norwegians and Swedes kept the tempo hot.
Frida Karlsson back on the World Cup for Sweden. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Although a mass start, the race at the sharp end whittled away at the masses. Three off the front was for real. Morderbakken or not, there would be no catching them: the three leaders had 18.8 seconds on Karlsson in fourth and 19.4 seconds on Jacobsen in fifth by 6.7 k.
Weng hung on until the closing 1.5 k when she too began to wither as Johaug began to write the conclusion to this 10 k script. The overall World Cup distance leader, Johaug, won in 25:04.1. And as she crossed the line, arms raised to the sky, Johaug displayed a stoke often reserved for bigger championship stages. Andersson, who missed the first part of the season with an injury, placed second (+6.5). For Andersson, her second place matched her season best result during the fourth stage of the Tour de Ski, a 10 k mass start classic. Weng hung on for third (+23.8).
Johaug stoke: the 10 k mass start win in Falun. (Photo: NordicFocus)
After Sunday’s race, Johaug has a commanding lead in the distance standings with 1011 points. Weng sits in second with 665 points.
“It was tough conditions and of course with a mass start in Skating it’s not my favorite but I think the tracks were so slow and it was better than I had expected it,” Johaug told FIS after the race.
Diggins was the top American in 14th, 57 seconds back. At moments Diggins appeared poised to link up with Jacobsen and Karlsson in the early stages, but oftentimes she found herself working alone. In the windy conditions, the effort became too taxing.
“It wasn’t my best day out there but I was proud how I just kept fighting even as a large pack was moving in to catch me up, I did everything I could in the moment,” Diggins said after the race.
She comes off a training camp at mid-altitude in Seefeld, Austria and a mystery kink in her neck that appeared the morning of Saturday’s classic sprint in Falun. (In the audio posted below, Diggins discussed how she has been handling the pressure of expectations after realizing the dream of an Olympic gold medal.)
Diggins driving during the 10 k mass start skate in Falun. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Post-race interview with Jessie Diggins
U.S. skiers Sadie Maubet Bjornsen placed 21st (+1:28.2), and Rosie Brennan 23rd (+1:31.1).
“I had a challenging day today,” Brennan emailed. “Nothing went particularly wrong but I just wasn’t moving as fast as I thought I should be. It was very tough conditions with no natural snow and warm temperatures and falling rain. It was a short 2.5km loop that didn’t provide much rest but also not too many climbs. While this type of race has never been my forte, I did expect a little bit more of myself. I will take the week to hopefully find a little more speed and be ready for the Ski Tour 2020.”
Also for the U.S., Hailey Swribul placed 35th (+1:56.2), Sophie Caldwell 38th (+2:11.3), Alayna Sonnesyn 49th (+2:38.8), and Julia Kern 57th (+3:20.1).
Post-race interview with World Cup Coach Matt Whitcomb
Canada’s Cendrine Browne scored in the points with a season best 29th place (+1:40.1). Katherine Stewart-Jones skied to 37th (+1:59.9), Dahria Beatty 40th (+2:14.1), and Emily Nishikawa 46th (+2:35.5).
Canada’s Cendrine Browne racing into the points in Falun. (Photo: NordicFocus)
Racing continues next Saturday with a skate sprint in Åre, Sweden — the start of the Ski Tour 2020.
The 10 k mass start podium from Falun: Ebba Andersson (SWE) second, Therese Johaug (NOR) first, and Heidi Weng (NOR) third, (l-r). (Photo: NordicFocus)
Emily Nishikawa (bib 1) leads out the U20 and Open 15km at MSA Trials. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
Mont Sainte-Anne brought great ski conditions on a weekend where the best in Canada fought to qualify for four different race trips: U20/U23 World Championships in Oberwiesenthal, Germany; Falun and the Scando Tour; the sprint tour of Québec and Minnesota; and World Cup finals in Canmore. Combine this with the usual NorAm action and COC leader competition and you have all the ingredients for a great weekend.
Over 400 athletes raced in five age groups with over 150 competing for U20 selection.
For all four trip selections, Nordiq Canada will be making a list and checking it twice. Or maybe more than twice. For U20, five athletes of each gender are selected, starting with the top skier on Sunday, then Friday, then Saturday and starting again with Sunday’s second place. For U23, four or five skiers will be selected the same way. The Sprint Tour averages the qualification and heats points to rank athletes to be selected after pre-qualified athletes. The Canmore weekend similarly sums the two distance days. With 10 Host Nation starts allocated in addition to the ones Canada has earned, there are many start opportunities. Most of the paths to guarantee a spot on next year’s National Team begin with qualifying for one of the above. But no pressure.
Each COC leader gets their own start allocation at every World Cup for the period. As there are no more NorAm (Continental Cup) events until Nationals beginning on March 26, the COC leader as of today retains this for the rest of the World Cup season. The best five of nine races are counted, which means Katherine Stewart-Jones had the women’s spot locked up in December. Antoine Cyr came into this weekend with the leader’s bib and a win Saturday was enough to keep it, according to Nordiq Canada.
The U20 and open women started the day with 15km on the same hilly 5km course as Saturday. Emily Nishikawa and CNEPH’s Cendrine Browne got away early before Nishikawa broke clear on the final long climb to win in 43:44.1, with Browne 13.4 seconds back. Browne’s teammate Laura Leclair spent most of the race alone and held off a charging pack to finish third for the top U23 result, 1:45.4 behind, just 0.8 seconds ahead of the top U20 finisher, Revelstoke’s Elizabeth Elliott. Black Jack’s Jasmine Drolet was edged out into 5th but should still have earned the trip to U20’s in Oberwiesenthal.
Nishikawa spent a rare winter period back in Canada and enjoyed the change.
“It was great to be home in Canmore, and I got a good block of training in before heading back to the World Cup,” Nishikawa emailed. “It was very fun to be able to race in Canada – in Whistler and here in MSA, and now I feel ready to get back on the World Cup.”
Nishikawa, who was 25th overall in the 2019 Tour de Ski, is focussed on the Scando Tour and racing back home in Canmore.
Browne, who is bouncing back from a tough year, was happy to be back in the game. “The race felt really good, I had good legs and great skis. I really liked skiing with Emily, it was fun to race with her again,” Browne wrote. “I should’ve taken more relays and rested more so I maybe could’ve followed Emily when she attacked at 14km. Unfortunately, when she did attack, my legs were fried!”
Browne, a distance specialist who loves the skate days, was also excited to have won the sprint on Friday.
“Winning a sprint was very fun! It was a big confidence boost! It was also a pretty tactic race, which was very fun too.”
The applause and support is always there for the good days, but no athlete has only good days.
“Last year was very tough for me, as for many athletes after the Olympics, Browne continued. “I was very depressed and wasn’t having fun anymore. It was also very hard to lose all support from my federation. After that tough year, I had a severe concussion (in the end of August till mid November) so coming back strong is such a big relief. I feel so much better, physically and mentally and I’m confident that I have a good form.”
Writing about the tough times feels like kicking an athlete when they are down. It is much easier to write about an athlete when they are scrambling to catch a flight to Falun. It looks like some athletes will be at the airport before we have a confirmed published list of who is joining Browne and Nishikawa for period 4 of the World Cup. (To be fair, that list is one of four that has to be written and double-checked by officials who also have flights to make today.)
“Today’s race was tough,” Leclair wrote to FasterSkier. “I skied alone and had a pack of 10 skiers chasing me the whole time. I would have liked to ski with Emily and Cendrine but lost them in the first lap. However, I did what I had to do and I am happy with how I skied considering I was alone.” Leclair will be going to a CNEPH elevation camp in Livigno, Italy, on her way to U23 Worlds.
Russell Kennedy leads the pack early, with Rémi Drolet (#108), Philippe Boucher (#104), Sam Hendry (#107), and Ricardo Izquierdo-Bernier (#106) keeping a close eye. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
The men skied 30km and many said they were feeling the big climb by lap six. Black Jack’s Rémi Drolet animated the race early before Canmore’s Sam Hendry made a big move on the final lap to explode the pack of ten. In the end, it was Team R.A.D.’s Evan Palmer-Charrette who emerged to take the win in 1:15:49.7, with Fondeurs-Laurentides’ Ricardo Izquierdo-Bernier at 0.3 seconds and top U23 Hendry at 0.4. CNEPH’s Phil Boucher was fifth at 5.3 ahead of Rémi Drolet who took his third U20 win at 11.2 seconds back.
Foothills’ Tom Stephen popped out of the second pack to book his trip to Germany as the second fastest U20, 2:04.6 behind the winner and 11th overall.
“The race today went very well for me,” Palmer-Charrette explained in an email. “My plan from the get go was to match any move and stay in contact, the final kilometre is very high speed and my plan was to wait until there to make a move, so it played out perfectly.”
“Race went pretty well today,” Hendry wrote of his Sunday. “I skied in the group and did the best job I could to save energy. Coming up to the last climb I moved into the front of the pack to avoid traffic and found myself pulling away from the group so went all in and attacked hard over the final climb. I then had a few second lead and tried to hang on until the end of the course but blew up in the final meters and was passed by Evan and Ricky.”
Like many of the other athletes, Hendry is balancing full time studies with skiing.
“Full time school and racing is going great. The University of Utah is super accommodating and want to see me succeed in not only academics and college racing but also international competitions such as these trials and U23’s.” That balance only goes so far. In addition to collegiate racing and U23’s, Hendry is hoping to ski World Cup Finals in Canmore (which may require a good result from him in Germany), but nationals is not on the program.
Boucher should have earned his trip to Canmore with a 4th and a 5th in distance this weekend.
“The race went well,” he wrote. “I managed to react well on Sam’s move in the last km. It blew the pack in small groups. So the only tactic here was to survive until the end. But in general, the plan for today was to try to stay in the front of the pack in the uphills, so I dont get caught behind if someone makes a move.”
While many athletes are enjoying the new race calendar with less east/west flights to races, Boucher also sees a downside: less races.
“I think there’s a lack of races. We currently race 1 weekend per month… I train all summer long to race in the winter so it’s a shame when we dont have a lot of racing to do in North America. I had a difficult start in December but at least I had some good racing at the U.S. Nationals in Houghton early in January. And then here at MSA, it’s been one of my best racing weekends of the season so far. My race shape is raising and that’s good sign for the coming races.”
Nordiq Canada’s Jeff Ellis, Joel Jaques, and Erik Bråten have talked to FasterSkier about balancing the need for lots of races, reduced travel costs, and reduced challenges to host regional races. Watch this space.
While some athletes will go home happy with their race efforts and others won’t, it seems like everyone enjoyed their weekend. Palmer-Charrette put it best: “The conditions here for the whole weekend were really good, the [Organizing Committee] did a great job with the trails. Yesterday turned out to be a slightly tricky waxing day and on a relatively flat high speed course there were definitely a few athletes caught out with icing issues, however that’s the game of classic racing. For the sprint and today, conditions couldn’t get any better really, so it made for exciting races.”
Photographer Doug Stephen has more evidence of the great trails in his Sunday Gallery. Athletes are welcome to download and use full resolution images if they give credit to ‘Doug Stephen’ or @vr45photography.
Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt leads Jasmine Drolet, Elizabeth Elliott and Liliane Gagnon in pursuit of the top 3. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
Russell Kennedy (#46) caught Sam Hendry (#45) and Nicolas Beaulieu (#44) on his way to third place in the 15km. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
Fresh snow greeted day two of the Mont Sainte-Anne Trials for the interval start classic. With athletes battling to qualify for U20/U23 World Championships in Oberwiesenthal, Germany and three separate World Cup trips (Falun/Scando Tour, Sprint Tour, Canmore), it was never going to be a simple matter of skier against the clock.
Antoine Cyr rocking the NorAm leader’s bib on the way to victory. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
Racing started with the open men’s 15km on a 5km loop that was shared by all the elite categories. Early on, it looked like a tight four way battle, but CNEPH’s Antoine Cyr, starting last, was 14 seconds ahead after the first lap. Cyr was fastest on all three laps to win in 40:05.1, 47.5 seconds ahead of Fondeurs Laurentides’ Ricardo Izquierdo-Bernier and 51.6 ahead of Canmore’s Russell Kennedy. Cyr should be selected for U23’s based on this win. In the interview posted below, he talks about his relief to know that his form is still good after a disappointing first World Cup in Europe.
The U20 and U18 men raced 10km and once again Black Jack’s Rémi Drolet displayed that full time students can be competitive, as he won both laps to finish in 26:46.2. CNEPH’s Olivier Léveillé took advantage of a late start bib to narrowly beat ULLR’s Xavier McKeever, finishing at 35.4 and 39.1 seconds respectively. This result combined with Thursday’s sprint should see both Léveillé and McKeever selected for U20 Worlds.
Olivier Léveillé took second place and penciled his name on a ticket to Oberwiesenthal. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
(Drolet’s post-race interview starts with the punchline to a joke, but without the setup we miss the laugh.)
In the women’s 10km, Emily Nishikawa continued the theme of winning every lap on her way to a clear victory in 29:51.2. CNEPH’s Cendrine Browne showed that her recovery is going well with a strong second place in her less-favoured technique, finishing 48.7 back. Laval University’s Andrée-Anne Théberge completed the podium, 2:04.7 back.
Emily Nishikawa on a mission. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
AWCA’s Annika Richardson was 4th at 2:15.4 to take the top U23 finish and what should be a selection for U23 Worlds.
By the time the U20 and U18 women headed out, the tracks were showing some wear, but that didn’t stop Black Jack’s Molly Miller from winning the 5km in 15:24.8, 10.9 seconds ahead of teammate Jasmine Drolet, and 11.0 ahead of Revelstoke’s Beth Granstrom. Revelstoke also took fourth with Alexandra Luxmoore at 11.1 seconds, only 0.2 seconds away from silver.
Molly Miller attacking the 5km classic at MSA Trials. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
Black Jack defended their club’s reputation for developing young skiers with three U20 wins so far this weekend. Revelstoke is also starting to make waves with yesterday’s winner Elizabeth Elliott 11th today at 47.6 seconds. With 86 U20 and U18 men and 72 U20 and U18 women competing today, the future of Canadian skiing is starting to look brighter.
Sunday’s free technique mass starts should be exciting, with the U20 and Open categories merged so the younger athletes can measure themselves against the top seniors.
Photographer Doug Stephen has a new gallery for Saturday. Athletes are welcome to download and use full resolution images if they give credit to ‘Doug Stephen’ or @vr45photography.
Cendrine Browne leads her semifinal at MSA Trials. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
In Canadian domestic ski racing, it doesn’t get much bigger than this. Mont Sainte-Anne (MSA) is hosting the NorAm weekend that also serves as U23/U20 World Championships qualification and has special significance in selection for World Cup starts.
Any skier who hasn’t already qualified for World Cup period 4 has had this event as a major focus for the season. The only certain paths to National Team selection for next season start with top 30 results on either the World Cup or U20 World Championships. Most of these paths start at MSA Trials.
For U20 and U23 selection, the top finisher in each of the three races is guaranteed one of the 18 to 20 places on the trip to Oberwiesenthal, Germany, with a pre-camp in Norway.
And finally, the weekend is a NorAm, which means COC leader points are on the line.
On Thursday, the action started with free technique sprints on a short but difficult course. Men, women, and U20’s all skied the same distance. Nordiq Canada’s Jeff Ellis continued the tradition of winner’s interviews, FasterSkier has the unedited videos below.
Elizabeth Elliott in charge of the U20 final. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
CNEPH’s Cendrine Browne won the qualifier in 3:04.79 before winning three heats to dominate on her home trails, finishing the final in 3:01.37. Browne’s teammate Laura Leclair was second, 0.53 seconds back, for the top U23 finish ahead of Emily Nishikawa at 0.76 seconds. The presence of distance specialists Browne and Nishikawa on the podium is evidence of the sprint course’s difficulty.
For the U20 women, AWCA’s Elizabeth Elliott qualified 4th overall and swept the heats to win the final in 3:06.85. Her teammate Benita Peiffer was second, 1.66 back, narrowly ahead of Black Jack’s Molly Miller at 1.81 seconds.
For the men, NTDC Thunder Bay’s Graham Ritchie recovered well from his time in Europe to win in 2:35.69 after qualifying second, grabbing the top U23 finish along the way. Team ULLR’s Jess Cockney continued to redefine the word ‘retired’ in second place, 0.52 back. TBay’s Pierre Grall-Johnson who converted on his latest qualification win with his first open category podium, was third at 0.76 seconds.
Graham Ritchie taking advantage of the downhill finish for the win. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
The U20 men provided no surprises, with the favourites front and centre in the final. Black Jack and Harvard’s Rémi Drolet dominated the day, sweeping through to the final to win by 2.57 seconds in 2:34.75. ULLR’s Xavier McKeever was second after qualifying 29th overall for 5th U20, with teammate Tom Stephen taking bronze a further 1.09 back.
Speculating on selections using the criteria documents always comes with a risk of error. That said, Leclair, Ritchie, Elliott, and Drolet should definitely be eligible for Obwiersenthal. Peiffer and McKeever should be selected as the 5th U20 athletes.
Photographer Doug Stephen has a gallery for the Sprints and Official Training. Athletes are welcome to download and use full resolution images if they give credit to ‘Doug Stephen’ or @vr45photography.
Rémi Drolet leads Xavier McKeever, Kai Meekis, and Tom Stephen in the U20 final. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
Katherine Stewart-Jones leads the mass start on the way to a Canadian 1-2 at the OPA Cup in Pragelato, Italy. (Photo: Athlete Instagram, credited to @damianobenedettophoto)
Canada took a step back from the World Cup circuit this weekend and focussed attention into development series. As the country tries to build momentum in a post Alex Harvey world, the focus has moved away from World Cup podiums and towards a consistent presence in the top 30. The road to the World Cup goes through local and regional races on the way to national/continental races.
One of the development challenges in Canada is size. The second largest country has roughly the same population as California. Skiers from Newfoundland live closer to Holmenkollen than Whistler Olympic Park.
The Continental Cup series in each FIS ‘continent’ is the top level race series below the World Cup. Canada has the NorAm series. The USA has the SuperTour series. France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Switzerland, and Austria share the OPA Cup series. This distribution of ‘continents’ may seem odd, but remember that the combined land area of the OPA countries is equal to British Columbia and Nova Scotia. Canada has three more time zones separating those two provinces.
As part of an effort to reduce travel demands on developing skiers in Canada, Nordiq Canada has been making changes. For the second year in a row, Westerns is not a NorAm event, but a regional event (albeit for a region larger than continental Europe). While this eliminates one east/west flight for eastern-based skiers, western athletes from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nunavut, North West Territories, and the Yukon still have a flight to pay for.
8 young Canadians are in Lausanne, Switzerland, for the Youth Olympic Games. Another 8 were in Pragelato, Italy, for an OPA Cup event, where two Canadians won. If you know someone who doesn’t think winning an OPA Cup is a big deal, listen to what Devon Kershaw and Jess Cockney think in the latest podcast. Cockney may ‘only’ have four top 10 results on the World Cup before he ‘retired’, but he did win a combined NorAm/SuperTour earlier this season.
As Cockney reminded us in the podcast, development comes in cycles. It is hard to remember that ten years ago Norway needed to borrow a biathlete to make a mens relay team for the Olympics, the same Olympics when Canada had four different men with top 10 individual finishes. The glory of being at the top of the roller coaster comes with an unseen cost of getting a big machine up a steep hill. This weekend was part of that climb.
Western Canada Cup, Whistler Olympic Park
Russell Kennedy leads the A final out of a corner that Petra Majdič remembers well from the 2010 Olympics. (Photo: Weisheng Wang)
Western Canadians was held at Whistler Olympic Park, with over 250 athletes competing for titles under a slightly changed name: Western Canada Cup. Record-setting snow storms and very challenging driving conditions should make for some good stories from the athletes who completed the trip.
The embedded videos are the full-length interviews by Nordiq Canada’s Jeff Ellis. Social media has edited versions.
On a spectacularly sunny Friday, AWCA’s Annika Richardson won the 1.3km classic sprint on a course that will bring back Olympic memories for older fans. Richardson’s 3:16.95 put her 1.45 seconds ahead of Benita Peiffer and 2.11 seconds clear of Elizabeth Elliott which made an all-AWCA podium. Peiffer and Elliot are in their final season of U20.
Bragg Creek’s Sebastien Boehmler-Dandurand edged out Canmore’s Russell Kennedy by 0.28 seconds to win the men’s 1.3km in 2:41.37. Telemark’s Gareth Williams grabbed third at 1.90 seconds, well ahead of his brother Ian in 4th who claimed the top U20 finish.
On Saturday, WOP showed the changeable weather with falling snow and soft tracks after a heavy overnight snowfall. In the men’s 15km classic interval start, Kennedy confirmed his favourite status with a win in 46:57.6, 45.3 seconds clear of Gareth Williams. AWCA’s Jack Carlyle grabbed the bronze at 1:20.3 back. Ian Williams was again 4th overall to take the U20 win.
In the women’s 10km, Emily Nishikawa showed why she was Canada’s top distance skier on the World Cup last season with a 35:42.4 time. Sprint winner Richardson claimed second, 2:51.4 back followed by AWCA teammate Sadie White at 3:09.0 Whitehorse’s Amanda Thomson was 5th at 3:45.5 to take the U20 title.
Sunday continued the domination by the favourites. Nishikawa won the 15km free mass start in 43:06, 2:07.6 ahead of Elliott and 2:13.8 ahead of Revelstoke’s Gina Cinelli.
In the men’s 15km, Kennedy snatched a second win in 37:29.4, 1.6 seconds ahead of Gareth Williams and 19.4 seconds ahead of Carlyle.
“It is fun to be back in Canada and see how well people are skiing here!,” Kennedy wrote to FasterSkier. “Whistler is so pretty but it is super tricky with weather. Always unpredictable but really good for testing skis I don’t use that much.”
While the regional field may not have been as deep as MSA will be, the return of Nishikawa and Kennedy from World Cup period 1 gave nearly 300 athletes a good vision into what the next level of competition looks like.
Dahria Beatty wins the OPA Cup ahead of Katherine Stewart-Jones. (Photo: Beatty’s Instagram)
While the western athletes were at the 2010 Olympic venue, eight Canadians made the trek to the 2006 Olympic venue to compete in the OPA cup. Dahria Beatty won the Saturday’s mass start 15km classic in 49:09.0, 8.1 seconds ahead of teammate Katherine Stewart-Jones. Italy’s Sara Pellegrini was third at 38.7.
In the men’s 30km, Antoine Cyr edged out Bob Thompson for 22nd place at 5:56.1 back from winner Paolo Ventura who won in 1:26.36.3.
On Sunday, Stewart-Jones moved up, taking first in the 5km free in 14:03.5, 5.2 seconds ahead of Italy’s Elisa Brocard and 10.4 seconds ahead of Beatty in third.
“Being on the podium for both races is a huge confidence booster going into next weekend’s World Cup races, especially because the courses in Pragelato are World Cup level,” Stewart-Jones wrote in an email. “With Dahria also on the podium the last two days I couldn’t be more excited with how well our Canadian Women’s team is performing.”
Stewart-Jones is targeting the Scando Tour, starting in Åre, Sweden, on February 18th and ending in Trondheim, Norway, on the 23rd.
“The courses here in Pragelato are awesome which made for some good hard racing this weekend,” Beatty wrote after her third OPA podium of the season.
“I had only done one distance race this season before this weekend so it was really good for me to get some high caliber race kilometres in. My distance skiing is feeling strong right now so I am excited to do a few distance World Cups in the next month and do some classic skiing since Saturday was also my first classic race of the year.”
Canadian men recovering from the 30km classic in Pragelato’s OPA Cup. (Photo: Erik Bråten)
In the men’s 10km, Cyr was again top Canadian, finishing 23rd, 1:38.2 behind France’s Jean Tiberghien who won in 24:05.1.
Thompson is a sprinter by preference and was in Pragelato with Oberstdorf’s sprint in mind.
“The main focus for me this weekend was to get some longer really hard work in, which a 1.5 hour 30k definitely accomplished,” Thompson wrote. “I think the OPA’s are a great chance to find near World Cup level racing and for those who are looking to get a bit more experience at that level they are a great challenge for those looking to make a jump in their racing.”
The OPA cup is a continental cup series (like the NorAm and SuperTour) and the field is studded with athletes who move up and down between the World Cup and this series. The athletes best known to North Americans would probably be France’s Richard Jouve (8th here) and Italy’s Elisa Brocard (12th and 2nd).
Head coach Erik Bråten is with the team until Oberstdorf and back to Canada briefly for MSA Trials. He is excited with the progress this season and happy with the visit to Pragelato.
“What I take away is that we have some young athletes that is getting great race experience outside of North America, and a couple of girls that really showed a high level even in a tough training week.”
The YOG started off with a ‘cross country cross’ event including obstacles on Saturday, followed by the more traditional events: Sprints Saturday, classic mass starts Tuesday, and a mixed relay on Wednesday. The American athletes outshone the Canadians over the obstacles on the first day, taking 4th in each gender before working up to podiums on Tuesday. Full results for the event are here.
While this is an important event in young athlete’s lives’ and there have been some great individual results, fans and media alike have to be careful not to apply expectations and pressure to the developing minds in those developing bodies.
Hosting a World Cup gives the host country an extra 10 ‘nations group’ starts. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
Canada is moving into a new era in skiing. An era with less World Cup podiums and more emphasis on developing future podium athletes.
“Train at what you want to be good at. If its climbing, climb. If it is chess, play chess. Ski training has many elements of course, but in the end the best training to race fast is to race.” — Erik Bråten, National Team Head Coach
In the near future, more Canadians will spend more time racing in North America. The trip criteria is clear that any athlete who wants to stay on the World Cup all season has to demonstrate multiple top 12 finishes. Team selection follows the same path.
For this season, there are six World Cup race days in North America. Canada gets ten Nations Group start positions for the five race days hosted in Canada plus a bonus of another ten Nations Group starts in Minnesota. With these starts available, Nordiq Canada (NC) seems very comfortable skipping the first two World Cup weekends in Ruka and Lillehammer. Three Canadians, however, Emily Nishikawa, Dahria Beatty, and Russell Kennedy, will race in Davos and Planica. Smaller than usual teams are expected again in the new year.
The overall picture is three less World Cup weekends than last season, and fewer athletes all the way through. That doesn’t mean less racing, but it does mean less travel.
The era when the top US skiers came up to Canada to improve their FIS points seems to have ended. At that time, US skiers were excited to find more competitive events to push them harder. For the last few years, it has been Canadian skiers who are happy to get pushed out of the top five by foreigners.
For the last few years, Canada and the US have cooperated to increase the level at select weekends with joint NorAm/SuperTour events. While this adds work for the organizers, the athletes have universally been excited to reach across the border. Both NC and US Ski & Snowboard (USSA) seem happy with the development potential.
“It’s a lot cheaper to race south of the border than fly to Europe”, NC’s new Events Coordinator Jeff Ellis told FasterSkier, explaining that it was cheaper for both athletes and the team. The shorter trips also allow more days training at home where the athletes have a higher level of support.
“Merging a select few Canadian and American Continental Cup events helps strengthen the competitive field,” USSA’s Bryan Fish wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “Both the Scandinavian Cup and Alpen (OPA) Cup have eight nations involved in their respective Continental Cup series. Their robust competitive fields are a strong method of preparing their next generation.”
For 2020, NC decided to hold nationals right after the World Cup Finals in Canmore. Scheduling nationals three days later and six hours drive away at Sovereign Lake makes it possible for all the top Canadians to attend which raises the level of competition and gives younger athletes more exposure to senior level speed.
The same factors were also important when USSA was planning SuperTour finals.
“Most of North America’s strongest World Cup athletes remain in Europe for a majority of the season so they have the best chance to succeed at the World Cup level,” Fish wrote. “This is critical for their success on World Cup, however that can leave a gap in competitive strength in North America.”
Combining SuperTour finals and Canadian nationals into a single event will raises the level of competition. It also creates another opportunity for younger athletes to combine in a single trip a full week of racing and the chance to be trailside at the World Cup.
In the future, NC may revisit other European series as a way to add more rungs to the ladder to the World Cup. “Having development trips to Europe, and doing other kinds of racing could be interesting: If it’s OPA cup, or Scandinavian cup, or whatever it is.” Bråten said.
Kikkan Randall (bib #52) might have had her first classic day of the season on a race course, but the real action was in the younger categories.
There is also a push to add more races in every region. Tier 2 events like the Sovereign Open, might draw a few big names, like Caitlin Gregg, on their way to the opening NorAm/SuperTour the following weekend in Canmore. But, the main goal of the event was to provide one or two extra race days for 300 young regional skiers.
The National Team is committed to a hands-on approach. They are modeling best-practices and enhancing institutional knowledge by working directly with clubs at lower levels of the development pyramid. Recently, Bråten, along with some National Team athletes, assisted with club youth and masters programs during an on-snow camp at Sovereign Lake before the NorAm/SuperTour kickoff. High Performance Manager Joel Jaques, who is also the waxing lead for Canada, hosted a waxing talk and demo for the local coaches and athletes. (The FIS announcement claiming they will implement a fluoro ban next season came four days before the demo and changed the planned content, as applying powders will not be required next season.)
Another (apparent) first this season is having full National Team members who are outside the Canadian system. Sam Hendry attends the University of Utah and Rémi Drolet studies at Harvard.
Sam Hendry leads Graham Ritchie in the 10km free. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
“This has provided me with some awesome opportunities and an incredible team,” Hendry wrote during Nordiq Thunder. “It was really nice for me to have the chance to come home and ski on snow in Frozen Thunder especially with the lack of snow in Utah.”
Utah is a perennial powerhouse — winning the NCAA team title in 2017 and 2019. Utah is (relatively speaking) close to Canmore, which makes it easier for Hendry to connect with his home team.
“Sam is at Utah, so he has a personal coach, but I’m communicating with Miles [Havlick, Utah’s coach],” Bråten said, “and we have a good relationship.”
Harvard might be a top school for physics, but it is less well known as a skiing centre.
Time Machine: Petter Northug (NOR) (l) high fives Rémi Drolet (spectator) as he finishes his final lap during the men’s 1.5 k classic sprint at the Ski Tour Canada on Tuesday in Canmore. (Photo: Peggy Hung)
“On paper, Rémi is by far the best skier [at Harvard],” Bråten told FasterSkier, “but I think he sees that value of having that team around.”
Those paper results include ranking 7th of 23 North Americans in the 2019 World Cup final mini-tour in Québec, narrowly edging out American Gus Schumacher as the top overall junior.
“At Harvard, we are lucky to be led by head coach Christopher City and assistant coach Jefferson Tucker, ” Drolet said. “They are fantastic people, as well as coaches, and I have very much enjoyed working with both of them this fall. I am also continuing to work very closely with my coach at Black Jack, Dave Wood, and I am also talking regularly with Canadian National Team head coach Erik Bråten. I have to say that it is interesting to be working with four different coaches, but things have been going well so far, and everyone seems happy to collaborate in making sure my preparation for the season is as good as it can be!”
While Canadians view Harvard as a more expensive education than local universities or full-ride scholarships at NCAA schools, Drolet explained the reality at one of the top-ranked physics programs in the world.
“As an Ivy League school, Harvard College offers neither academic nor athletic scholarships. However, they do offer financial aid scholarships which ensures that all Harvard students pay what their families can afford without going into debt.
“This program has worked out very well in allowing me to pursue an education, which from the outside, is often viewed as having an excessively high price tag.”
Drolet has an ambitious racing calendar, which doesn’t include Nationals even though it is just four hours drive from his hometown.
“The college racing circuit starts for real in mid-January with the Harvard Carnival. Afterwards, I will be racing at the UVM Carnival/Supertour in Craftsbury, followed by the Canadian World Junior Trials Races at Mt. Sainte-Anne.”
The easiest path to qualify for World Cup starts is a top result in Mt Ste Anne, as that weekend has two routes to selection.
“If all goes well at trials, I will hopefully be headed to Germany for the World Junior Championships after racing at a few more Carnivals,” continued Drolet. “I would also be very happy to qualify for some more World Cup starts during the North American circuit at the end of the season, and if there is time for it all, I would love to go to the NCAA Skiing Championships in Bozeman, Montana.”
While this might sound easier than the full NorAm/SuperTour schedule, it’s coupled with demanding academics.
“Training long hours at university while attempting to stay competitive with all of the students who may not have such a major commitment outside of school is certainly a challenge, but it is one that Harvard has allowed me to meet successfully so far.”
Asked about the National Team working with US schools going forward, Bråten had a simple answer.
“This is one of the questions where I will be most likely listening more than I’m speaking when we take a decision.”
Seven men and nine women will be lining up in stars and stripes for the World Cup’s opening: Finland’s Ruka Triple. Three race series features a classic sprint followed by a two-day distance pursuit.
Jessie Diggins out-toes Russia’s Yulia Belorukova to take third in Stage 5 of the Tour de Ski. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
At the top of the ranks, Jessie Diggins (USST/SMS T2) finished the 2019 season 6th in distance and 7th in sprint. It was a year of navigating the life of a gold medalist whose training time was suddenly competing with travel, media attention, and collaborating with sponsors. According to her blog, she packed in 25 events in the first 50 days after the Olympics. Diggins admitted this swell of opportunities also left her feeling mentally and physically fatigued during the season.
That said, you know American women’s skiing has come a long way when feeling flat leads to finishing 6th overall in the World Cup Standings. Diggins won the freestyle sprint in Cogne, Italy and took 3rd in the 10 k skate in Falun, Sweden. She also placed third in three stages of the Tour de Ski and skied the fastest time of day during the 10 k skate pursuit in Oberstdorf, Germany.
Presuming Diggins achieved her goal of finding a work-life balance that allowed her to better recover and absorb training, we can expect her to consistently remain one of the top athletes on the World Cup.
One thing is certain: The Minneapolis World Cup race on March 17th features a freestyle sprint, and Diggins will be racing in front of a home crowd amidst a cacophony of cowbell.
Another consistent performer, Sadie Maubet Bjornsen (USST/APU) finished 8th in the sprint standings and 13th in the distance. She took third in the freestyle sprint in Lillehammer, NOR and cleaned up at the Super Tour Finals winning the freestyle sprint and both distance races. Another testament to how high the standard has been set for the American women, Maubet Bjornsen’s season was not particularly novel, despite consistently measuring up as one of the best all-around skiers in the world. We have come to expect her to perform, and she continues to meet our expectations. This year we expect no less.
Leading the American women on the short track, Sophie Caldwell (USST/SMS T2) finished the season ranked 4th in the overall sprint standings. Caldwell took second place in Davos, Val Muestair, and Lahti, and landed inside the top ten an additional three times. After posting the second fastest qualifying time in the World Championships in Seefeld, AUT, Caldwell was eliminated in the quarterfinals after throwing her boot across the line a three-way photo finish. Because the heat was slow and she was deemed third, she was unable to advance.
Julia Kern (L) and Sophie Caldwell after finishing fourth place in the team sprint (Photo: Garrott Kuzzy / LumiExperiences.com)
Julia Kern (USST/ earned her first Period 1 starts as the overall SuperTour leader in 2019. The 22-year-old also displayed her readiness to race at the World Cup level by scoring points in five events. Her best individual performance came during the freestyle sprint in Cogne, ITA where she finished 11th. She also battled for a gritty fourth place result while racing with Caldwell during the Dresden team sprint, and shone at US Nationals earning two sprint podiums.
Racing fearlessly with the best in the world, Kern cracked the top-20 in the skiathlon in Seefeld, finishing 19th. She also finished 23rd in the freestyle sprint two days prior. With another year of training and experience under her belt, Kern will certainly be worth following.
After recovering from mono, Rosie Brennan rebounded with a phenomenal season in 2019 and consequently was nominated once more to the U.S. Ski Team. Last year, Brennan blew through Period 1 with a vengeance, placing inside the top 30 and mostly within the top 15 in all of the distance races she entered. She cracked the top-10 in the 10 k skate in Davos, with a career best sixth place, and again in the skiathlon when the competition was at its peak in Seefeld.
The remainder of the women starting in Ruka who earned discretionary selection includes: Caitlin Patterson (USST B Team/CGRP) who landed inside the top 30 in the 10 k skate in both Lillhammer and Ulricehamn, SWE, Hailey Swirbul (USST B Team/APU) who stood on the podium after three Opa Cup distance races and landed inside the top 10 at U23 World Championships, and Rosie Frankowski (APU) who finished 24th during the skiathlon at the World Ski Championships in Seefeld.
The second weekend of racing in Lillehammer features a distance pursuit, followed by two sprint events in Davos, SUI and Planica, SLO. These women will be able to focus on the races that best suit their strengths in Period 1.
Before heading to the American men’s field, FasterSkier sends well-wishes to Hannah Halvorsen who was slated to contest the Period 1 sprint races. Halvorsen was struck by a car while crossing a street in Anchorage on November 1st, fracturing her skull and badly injuring her left leg and knee. According to her father who posted information on Facebook, Halvorsen will have a long road ahead of her, but doctors are optimistic that full recovery will be possible. FasterSkier wants to respect the privacy of the Halvorsen family, but will report when they are ready to share further information.
The U.S. women’s relay after taking a historic third in the 4 x 3.3 k relay at 2017 Junior World Championships on Sunday at Soldier Hollow in Midway Utah, with (from left to right) Hailey Swirbul, Julia Kern, Hannah Halvorsen, and Katharine Ogden. (Photo: U.S. Ski Team/Tom Kelly)
Deep breath. Back to the World Cup.
Of the eight men who made the cut, three were selected objectively: overall 2019 SuperTour leader Kyle Bratrud (SMS T2), and USST A Team members Simi Hamilton (USST/SMS T2) and Erik Bjornsen (USST/APU).
Returning with a wealth of World Cup experience, Hamilton is a consummate contender in sprint races. His most noteworthy performance was aptly timed at the World Championships in Seefeld where he finished ninth. Hamilton advanced from the quarters in a lightning fast heat, then got hung up with another skier in the semi, losing both his momentum and contact with the leaders. On home turf, Hamilton also won the freestyle sprint during the SuperTour finals.
American Simi Hamilton (r) leading Great Britain’s Andrew Young during the 6 x 1.6 k classic team sprint semifinal at World Ski Championships in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
Before World Champs, Hamilton had a strong performance in Cogne, finishing just off the podium in 4th. Displaying the agility and sure-footedness for which he is known, Hamilton dodged a crash in both the quarter and semifinals. This race marked a turning point in his season as crashes and illness prevented him from capitalizing on the fitness he felt confident he possessed. When the pieces come together, Hamilton is both a force to be reckoned with and a thrill to watch.
After popping the third fastest time of day during the 15 k classic pursuit in Lillehammer, Bjornsen has been promoted to the USST A-Team. Last season, Bjornsen whittled his way up the results list, particularly in distance racing. He finished 16th the 15 k classic Cogne, followed by a 17th place finish in the same event in Seefeld. Are you noticing a theme here?
Once again in the 15 k classic in Quebec City, Bjornsen finished 18th followed by a second top 20 (19th fastest time of day) in the subsequent 15 k skate pursuit. At the SuperTour finals, Bjornsen took the win in both the distance races and finished second in the freestyle sprint, demonstrating his versatility as an athlete.
Bratrud’s lead in the SuperTour was primarily garnered through strong results in distance skiing, which also translated to encouraging results on the World Cup. The Minnesota native stood on the podium six times in NorAm and SuperTour distance races, taking the top spot in four of them. At US Nationals, he won the the 15 k classic and took second in the 30 k skate. During his mid-winter international stint, Bratrud landed inside the points in the 15 k classic in Cogne. This will be his first season racing on the World Cup in Period 1.
The remainder of the men to watch in Period 1 include Scott Patterson (USST/APU) and David Norris (APU), who will be focusing on distance racing, and Kevin Bolger (USST/SVSEF) and Logan Hanneman (APU) who will focus on sprint events. Hanneman will not start in Ruka, but plans to compete in both Davos and Planica.
The men’s podium from the 30 k skate mass start at U.S. Nationals in Craftsbury, VT. From left to right, Kyle Bratrud (SMS T2) second, David Norris (APU) first, and Scott Patterson (APU/USST) third. (Photo: John Lazenby)
Several athletes who were offered starts in Period 1 declined to focus on the SuperTour. This list includes Kelsey Phinney (SMS T2), Andy Newell, Adam Martin (CGRP), and Ben Saxton (SMS T2).
Phinney underwent shoulder surgery in mid-June for a torn labrum, which occurred from a fall with an outstretched arm. He doctors estimated a six to twelve month recovery process. Phinney spent six-weeks in a shoulder sling, then began to slowly reintroduce strength training and outdoor activities. So far, she has done some no-pole and one-pole skiing.
“My biggest priority is making sure my shoulder heals properly and gets back full range of motion,” wrote Phinney in an email on her return to competition. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back to racing, perhaps later this season if things go really well with rehab. In the meantime, I’m enjoying time at home in Boulder – it’s been nice to see friends and family here, and to explore life outside of the bubble of training and racing. And then in a couple weeks, I‘ll be at the first SuperTour races of the year to help my SMST2 team out with ski testing, driving around, and cheering very loudly! I’m hoping to start using two poles in the next few weeks, and ideally I’ll be able to ski quite a bit in Canmore and Sun Valley and see where I can go from there!”
Canada
Overall in Nations Cup Last Year: 11th
Women’s Ranking 2018/2019: 15th
Men’s Ranking 2018/2019: 9th
Canadians to Watch:
Alex Harvey takes in the cheers after placing second in the men’s 15 k classic in Québec City. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
Canada’s top skier, Alex Harvey, retired at the end of the 2019 season. He ended his career on a high note. He finished second in the 15-kilometer freestyle pursuit in his home city of Québec. Fellow national team member Lenny Valjas retired also retired at the end of last season.
Three Canadians will be heading to Europe to race during Period 1 in Davos and Planica: Dahria Beatty, Emily Nishikawa, and Russell Kennedy. These athletes will then return home to train with developing national team athletes and compete in NorAm races. Canada will not be contesting the Tour de Ski. Should one of these athletes pop a top ten in those Period 1 races, the decision not to return in Period 2 may be reevaluated.
This focus on domestic racing and development of world class athletes is part of a larger movement to rebuild the Canadian national program, which recently rebranded as Nordiq Canada. You can find more information on this here.
Beatty posted strong results in 2019. She started her season with a slew of NorAm wins then collected a handful of FIS points by finishing 16th in the freestyle sprint in Dresden and 24th in the same event in Lahti. She also won the 15 k freestyle pursuit at the Canadian National Championships, chasing down Nishikawa who had won the 10 k classic the previous day. In her season opener at Nordiq Thunder, Beatty landed the top spot on the podium in the 16 k skate and commented that she was happy with her overall fitness and how her training has progressed this year.
Nishikawa also scored FIS points in 2019 by finishing 23rd in the 10 k skate in Davos. She also placed 25th in last season’s Tour de Ski.
Kennedy, who has already gotten his feet wet with European racing this season in Olos, Finland, posted his best result during the freestyle sprint in Cogne, where he popped a 12th place finish. Domestically, he landed on the podium in five NorAm races.
The remaining members of the Canadian National Team who will be racing domestically include Julien Locke (Nelson, B.C.), Katherine Stewart-Jones (Chelsea, Que.), Graham Ritchie (Parry Sound, Ont.), Antoine Cyr (Gatineau, Que.), Sam Hendry (Canmore, Alta.), and Julien Smith (Thunder Bay, Ont.).
“This group is ready to step up and carry the torch for a new era of cross-country skiers in Canada,” said Shane Pearsall, chief executive officer of Nordiq Canada in a press release. “They are equally as fierce and determined to deliver medal winning performances as their heroes before them. We are going to work with our sport and funding partners to deliver this dynamic group of athletes the tools they require to succeed on the road to 2022 and beyond.” The site https://x100casino.com contains the best 100 online casinos in the world
Dahria Beatty on course during the 10-kilometer skate in Ulricehamn, Sweden. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
Erik Bråten talking technique with athletes at Frozen Thunder 2019. (Photo: Nordiq Canada)
When Cross Country Canada announced last March that they would be rebranding as Nordiq Canada, they were emphatic the new name was a symbol of their readiness to make changes. Those changes are starting to happen.
One holdover from last season is Erik Bråten, the young Norwegian brought in to shape the development pipeline. After one year on the job, Bråten is still enthusiastic and now the sole head coach.
Louis Bouchard has stepped down as National Team Coach, reverting to his preferred role at Centre National d’Entraînement Pierre Harvey (CNEPH). The role of training centres in Canada is shifting and there appears to be more change coming.
Nic Lemyre, who served as a part-time High Performance Director on a one year contract, has moved on. Joel Jacques — long time waxer, logistics manager, and long-ago racer — will take over as acting HP manager for the Olympic program while Kate Boyd has the same role for the Para program.
Dave Dyer, the long serving events lead and a perennial presence at Canadian races, is sharing that role with Jeff Ellis this year. Ellis will take over the travel and race jury duties this year before completing the transition to take over the Event Director position for next season.
For the first time ever, Canadian Championships will be combined with US SuperTour finals, a continuation of a trend towards hosting joint NorAm/SuperTour events and attemptig to raise the level of competition in North America.
The most visible changes are likely to be the Canadian presence on the World Cup. With the retirement of Alex Harvey and Lenny Valjas, Canada can no longer expect regular podiums and consistent top ten finishes. Harvey’s retirement announcement also resulted in a large change in funding for the national program, with Own The Podium dropping the sport and bringing an end to the richest period in national team history.
In the new world of financial scarcity and likely fewer podiums, the program is focused on bringing athletes up to the same performance level as the Para program.
For this and future years, the athletes nominated for World Cup period 1 will based based on the previous season’s results, allowing athletes to plan ahead and avoid peaking for qualification races in October. The selection criteria boils down to World Cup top 30’s and COC leaders. Period 2 selections will be based on results, with at least one top 30 required to stay in Europe for the next period.
For an athlete to stay on the World Cup for a full season, multiple top 12 results are required. The net effect will be more top athletes spending more time in Canada, where they can help lift the level locally and also have a better training environment.
“The vision is to integrate various performance levels and stages of athletes: World Cup, senior development, and junior development, into one cohesive high performing Team where each athlete is learning, mentoring and being pushed by their team mates to reach their peak performance,” Nordiq Canada’s CEO Shane Pearsall wrote to FasterSkier. “We want our NST athletes to continually improve and challenge themselves year over year to reach their maximum potential and ultimately the World Cup and Olympic podium.”
Shaylynn Loewen is supervised by NTDC TBay’s Timo Puiras at a combined NST camp. (Photo: NTDC TBay)
For period 1 this year, Dahria Beatty, Russell Kennedy, and Emily Nishikawa will be racing in Davos and Planica. Canada will skip the Kuusamo, Lillehammer, and the Tour de Ski. With the World Cup coming to Québec City, Minnesota, and Canmore in March, most athletes will get their World Cup opportunities closer to home.
“I’m not expecting anyone to be winning world cups this year, that would be a big step up,” Bråten said on the phone. “We still have Russell Kennedy doing 12th, even if it’s just one occasion, but it’s showing the level that he’s in on the best day. We’ve seen Dahria have plenty of World Cup points last year, and Lahti the year before. Katherine [Stewart-Jones] never did points, but she was top 30 at the World Championships. Of course, Emily was doing really well until she crashed in Cogne, she was top 20 with 1.5 km to go, before she fell and unfortunately had to go the hospital.”
Beatty scored World Cup points in Dresden and Lahti last season and added one more national title to her collection. Kennedy made the semi-final in the Cogne sprint last season. Nishikawa finished 25th overall in the Tour de Ski and was on her way to a best ever result in the Cogne 10km classic, moving up to 19th at the 8.1km time check.
The National Team is smaller this season, to match the smaller budget, with 8 seniors and 5 juniors. Add in Russell Kennedy, who is also a guide on the ParaNordic national team, and it is still a smaller and less experienced group.
Nishikawa is now the most experienced racer on the national team after nine seasons. Asked about her new role as a team leader at the end of a snow camp in May, she told FasterSkier “It’s been a natural progression. Just help the girls get the ski bags on the roof and make sure they’re strapped down well.”
Nishikawa is a quiet person, far more enthusiastic when talking about the upcoming Canmore World Cup than about her own successes. Asked about the season changing crash in Cogne, she said “It was bad, I couldn’t finish.” Behind all that quiet, she is the person the other athletes talk about when describing their transition into World Cup racing.
More detail on the staff, the structure, and the path ahead will follow.
It is no secret that the lineup of coaches, wax techs, and support staff in high level cross country skiing is predominantly male; while the percentage of female coaches and support staff varies by country, it is far from 50-50 across the board. The degree to which nations are addressing this disparity also varies.
Allison McArdle is a high performance coach for Alberta World Cup Academy and is the chair of Nordiq Canada’s Women’s Committee. (Photo: Alberta World Cup Academy)
On March 20th, the Women’s Committee of Nordiq Canada launched its second iteration of the Female Coach Mentorship program, which provides support and resources to women who are interested in becoming a high performance coach in Canada.
“The reason the Women’s Committee started this was because there is a distinct lack of female role models within the sport of cross-country skiing in Canada,” Women’s Committee Chair Allison McArdle told FasterSkier in a call. “On the national team level there are no female coaches, and of the three national training centers, only one training center has had a female coach. And it has been two different female coaches but each of the coaches have only been in the position for one year.”
She continued that there are very few female coaches above the U14 level, let alone at an elite level. The phenomenon extends across all sports, not just cross-country skiing.
“In collegiate sport, which is where the most number of full time coaches exist in Canada, it’s less than 20 percent of coaches are female, I think it’s only 16 or so percent now,” McArdle said.
Beyond her work with the Women’s Committee, McArdle leads by example with a long list of credentials and leadership roles in the sport. Currently, she is the Alberta Ski Team Director and chair of Cross Country Alberta. Formerly, she was a high performance coach for the Alberta World Cup Academy where she worked with top Canadian athletes, such as World Cup racers Dahria Beatty and Emily Nishikawa. McArdle has also been the National Coaching Director for cross country skiing with Ski and Snowboard Australia and is on the Nation Selection Committee of the Ski and Snowboard Australia Cross Country Committee. She is also a two-time recipient of the Australian Sports Commission’s Women’s Leadership in Sport Grant. Her advocacy for women in cross country skiing continues as she also sits on the FIS Women’s Committee, and has been the co-manager of Fast and Female Australia (her home country).
The mentorship program selects two female applicants that are interested in advancing within the sport and connects them with a mentor, male or female, who is coaching at the level that the mentee aspires to one day work. The pair works through a workbook put together by the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women in Sport and Physical Activity(CAAWS), which is a framework of educational resources, goal setting tools, and prompts for purposeful discussions.
“We know that to get [female coaches] into a high performance role we need to be able to support them and one of the best ways to do that is to connect them with each other,” McArdle explained.
While the long term goal is to achieve gender balance in the highest level of the sport, applicants to the program do not need to aspire to become national team coaches to be selected. The program supports female coaches from the club level upward.
“Some of these people might work with athletes aged 16, 17, 18 or they are they are new to the role and they are already an elite coach of a club, because they belong to a small club,” McArdle explained. “And they want the knowledge to be able to make sure they can support their athletes from the sort of 15 to 20 age range of competition.”
She added, “The goal is to mentor them towards being a coach who can coach athletes at a national champion and successful international performance level.”
The CAAWS curriculum encompasses a wide array of topics including physiology, best practices, and psychology. But, the coaches selected for the program are able to tailor their experience based on their individual strengths and areas of weakness. The mentee sets personal growth goals, then charters a plan for improvement with her mentor.
“A lot of the time people are just looking for new ideas on how to do things with their athletes. I’d say in particular, the writing training plans for the higher level athlete is one of the main reasons people want to be part of the program. Because they want to learn more about that and they want to be connected with someone who has experience at a level above them so they can bounce ideas about yearly training plans or polarized training, that kind of thing.”
The mentee and mentor check in monthly to progress through the CAAWS workbook and to discuss any questions either person has. The mentee also receives a grant which provides funding over the course of two years to facilitate an in-person meeting, typically at a camp run by her mentor. Ideally, the face-to-face correspondence can happen twice each year, but at a minimum, the pair meets once.
Katie McMahon, a mentee in the first iteration of Nordiq Canada’s Female Coach Mentorship program, smiles for a shot while on a trail run during a camp she attended with the Pierre Harvey Training Centre in Ramsau, Austria. (Courtesy Photo)
The female coach mentorship program is one of many initiatives that the Women’s Committee is working on.
“We also provide grants for women wanting to attend coaching courses or, for example, there is a high performance coaching seminar in Canmore in May, and you have to be of a certain level to be able to attend this seminar,” explained McArdle. “We provided full grants for coaches who want to attend the seminar in May, so we provided two grants for women who have to travel longer than 700 kilometers to attend and then two smaller grants for people who are traveling less than 100 kilometers.”
Beyond providing education and support for developing female coaches, the Women’s Committee also passed a mandate to create opportunities for qualified women to assist Nordiq Canada as trainers, doctors, or therapists.
“The Women’s committee was involved in a change in policy for national team camps and trips,” McArdle shared. “It’s now stipulated for those trips and camps with Nordiq Canada that there must be a female staff member. That doesn’t have to be a coach, there just has to be a female staff member. The reason that we went there is that we thought we should just start with a female represented on staff before we started demanding that there is at least a female coach, too.”
The work of the committee extends to the next generation of athletes and staff as well. A similar mentorship program was created which pairs female high school athletes with current or retired elite level female athletes with the goal of retaining and encouraging developing skiers. The committee also offers small grants to women pursuing ski racing at a high level while attending university, as they noticed a significant drop out at this juncture.
“We’re trying to do some good work,” McArdle concluded. “We’re lucky that we have some really good and passionate people involved in our programs that drive things forward.”
Dahria Beatty (left) and Katherine Stewart-Jones chasing hard in the pursuit. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
This article has been updated to correct an interpretation of the selection criteria.
Day two of nationals was day two of the pursuit at Nakkertok trails in Gatineau, Québec. The two-day pursuit format (classic interval start on day one, free technique pursuit start day two) was held for the second time at nationals. With both national titles and starts at World Cup Finals in Québec City up for grabs, it was always going to be an exciting day.
Lenny Valjas (CNST) justified his decision to come back to race in Canada with a second national title, out-sprinting the pack to finish the 10km+15km pursuit in 1:08.18.6. Philippe Boucher (CNEPH) turned in the fastest time of the day to take second, 0.7 seconds behind, and 0.3 seconds ahead of teammate Alexis Dumas.
Lenny Valjas wins the pursuit, ahead of Phillipe Boucher, Alexis Dumas, and Rémi Drolet. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
Rémi Drolet (Black Jack) was top junior in 4th place, 4.4 seconds back.
“On the last little bit of the 7.5k loop, on the flats, I decided to attack early before the final sprint hill,” Valjas told the LOC after the race, “because some of those young guys are so quick. I couldn’t trust myself on just the last hill, so I made them hurt with a couple km to go. It worked out, we all had a fun sprint up the last sprint hill into the finish.”
“No tactics for me today,” Boucher wrote. “I pushed hard from the start to the finish. I was targeting the best time of the day so I would qualify for World cups finals and become the national champion.”
The early group of eight shrank as Boucher pushed the pace and Valjas struggled to cling on. Dumas described it best: “They was not a lot of tactic today, Philippe Boucher was just too strong. The only thing I could do was following him and hope for the best in the sprint finish at the end.”
Skiing with the final four until the very end, Drolet battled cramps on the second lap.
“On the final hill, I had a lot of trouble moving, but I still managed to stay pretty close to the front and finished in 4th,” Drolet said after the race. “I was really happy about how I fought, considering everything else.”
Neither Boucher nor Dumas were fans of the pursuit format when it was brought back earlier in the season. As both have been on the podium at both editions, maybe they will grow to like it more.
“After the results I’ve got in the pursuit this year, I can only enjoy them,” Boucher wrote when asked if he still prefers mini-tours to pursuits.
Wednesday’s race featured two 5km classic loops in great conditions. Valjas was happy to get his win with nearly even lap times.
“Today was great,” Valjas told the LOC after the race. “I’m excited to be out here, and seeing all the kids. It’s a little bit of inspiration for me to be leading into the last World Cup in my career.”
Asked about edging out the 18 year old Drolet in the interval start, Valjas said “You’ve got to be on your A game to beat him, and I’m happy I got him, but he’s the future. I’m happy to see the young guys nipping at my heels.”
Drolet was happy with his classic race, finishing 9.9 seconds behind Valjas despite skiing his second lap 21 seconds slower than the first.
“Perhaps if I had paced the race better, I could have had a slightly better performance,” Drolet wrote in an email. “The course profile, however, does allow you to go really hard a lot of the time since there are usually long downhills after the climbs.”
Bob Thompson was third in the classic, which qualified him for World Cup Finals.
“I feel I am in a good place to have some great results this week,” Thompson wrote. “This was my first medal as a senior man so I’m really happy to finally be in top form again to finish the year. Very excited about World Cup finals!”
***
Dahria Beatty leads Emily Nishikawa towards the finish. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
Dahria Beatty (CNST) put in the fastest time of the day to win the women’s 5km+10km pursuit in 40:50.8, completing Thursday’s two 5km skate laps in 26:45.8. Beatty and Katherine Stewart-Jones (CNST) worked together to catch Emily Nishikawa (CNST) just before the finish, with Beatty pulling clear for the win ahead of Nishikawa (7.3 seconds) and Stewart-Jones (9.8 seconds).
“Emily skied a really strong race and we were trailing her by between 7 and 15 seconds almost the entire race,” Beatty wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “Working together gave Katherine and I a slight advantage and I was able to finally close the gap on the second last downhill. After that we were on the sprint course and my mind went into sprint mode and I was able to open up a small gap.”
Beatty shared her tactical plan after her second place in the pursuit’s day one classic race. “Tomorrow the goal will be to try to catch those 8 seconds off the start and race with Emily.”
Stewart-Jones had a similar tactical plan, but executed it better. “I wanted to catch Dahria as fast as possible because I knew it would be much easier if we worked together. I was able to do that and we skied together most of the race,” Stewart-Jones wrote. “Dahria broke away with one hill to go and I caught Emily but she had me at the finish line!”
Emily Nishikawa winning the 5km classic at nationals. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
CNST’s Cendrine Browne was unable to close the gap and had a lonely ski in 4th, finishing 1:17.7 back. Sadie White (NTDC TBay) delivered the 5th fastest time of the day to move from 12th to 5th at 2:45.6 back.
Nishikawa earned her lead by winning the classic race Wednesday.
“I am really happy with my race today,” she wrote about her win. “It is always an honour to win a national title. Racing here at Nakkertok is so awesome and seeing so many young skiers out is really inspiring.”
Stewart-Jones was happy with her 3rd in the classic race on her home trails, but not as happy with her pacing.
“I started off hard because I knew it would be a quick race,” she wrote, “but I think that I probably could have paced it better.”
There were a lot of athletes enjoying the atmosphere at Nakkertok. There were 215 junior boys and juvenile boys, 185 junior girls and juvenile girls, 107 junior men and senior men, 76 junior women and senior women who finished the pursuit.
Qualifying for World Cup Finals
Twelve athletes have already qualified, leaving seventeen spots to be decided at nationals: 8 men and 9 women.
The criteria says that the top Canadian in each of the freestyle sprint, then individual start classic, then pursuit, then time-of-day from the pursuit will be selected in that order. As there are more spots, the sequence will be repeated for 2nd place, 3rd place, until all spots are allocated. Athletes who have already qualified are skipped over. Clear and simple? Not exactly, but it became clearer with results from three of the four events.
On the women’s side, the first four places were filled by pre-qualified athletes in all three events. The selection order becomes the first five women in Saturday’s A final, then not Anne-Marie Petitclerc (5th in classic and top junior, but not eligible according to CCC), then White (5th in pursuit), the sixth placed sprinter, then Hannah Mehain (6th in classic). These respective athletes have earned their WCF start, assuming CCC’s interpretation is the same.
If anyone in the top six on Saturday has already qualified, the seventh place sprinter is selected, followed by Annika Richardson (8th in time-of-day counts as 7th because Germany’s Julie Richter isn’t eligible). Having fun yet? CCC will announce the final selection on Sunday.
For the men, we have seven pre-selected and eight spots to go. The first five sprinters on Saturday, along with Philippe Boucher (1st in time-of-day), Alexis Dumas (3rd in pursuit), and Bob Thompson (3rd in classic) are locked in. The sixth place sprinter and Ricardo Izquierdo-Bernier (6th in time-of-day) are waiting on someone higher in the list making the A final.
Rémi Drolet (bib 13, left) caught Angus Foster at the line to finish second. (Photo: Rob Smith)
Canadian Ski Championships, better known as ‘nationals’, kicked off today at the Nakkertok trails in Québec with individual start classic racing.
342 men started the 10km and 293 women started the 5km, both using the same 5km loop on an overcast day at -8C. The field is more stacked than usual, with only two athletes (Alex Harvey and Jack Carlyle) in Europe right now.
Lenny Valjas (CNST) won the 10km in 25:09.3, 9.9 seconds ahead of Rémi Drolet (Black Jack) and 15.7 seconds ahead of Bob Thompson (NTDC TBay). As Drolet is a junior, host club skier Antoine Cyr (Skinouk) took third place on the senior podium at 16.8 seconds back.
In the second half of the two-day pursuit on Thursday, Thompson will lead a group of seven chasing down the two leaders.
Nishikawa winning the individual start and another national title. (Photo: Rob Smith)
In the women’s 5km, Emily Nishikawa (CNST) continued her strong season with another national title, finishing in 13:58.0. Dahria Beatty (CNST) took seconds at 7.7 back, followed by Nakkertok local Katherine Stewart-Jones (CNST) at 12.4. Cendrine Browne (CNST) left herself some work to do on Thursday at 41.2 seconds in fourth.
Four results from nationals are being used to select 17 athletes for the World Cup Finals in Québec City on March 22nd to 24th. The top finishers in Saturday’s free technique sprint, today’s interval start, Thursday’s pursuit, and the pursuit time of day will be selected in rotation to fill the roster. This selection process will be explained in more detail tomorrow, when most of the possible permutations will be eliminated by actual results.
Twelve athletes have already been named to the World Cup Final team:
Alex Harvey, Lenny Valjas, Emily Nishikawa, Dahria Beatty based on World Cup or Olympic results.
Katherine Stewart-Jones and Jack Carlyle (AWCA) as COC leaders.
Cendrine Browne, Maya MacIsaac-Jones (CNST), Russell Kennedy (Team R.A.D.), Scott Hill (Hardwood), and Evan Palmer-Charrette (Team R.A.D.) by qualifying for World Championships.
Rémi Drolet with a top ten at World Juniors.
There are 8 places for men and 9 for women to be earned at Nationals.
Soggy snow could not stop the V-1 perfection of Therese Johaug as she soloed to win the women’s 30 k skate at the 2019 World Championships. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
From start to finish on Saturday, Norway’s Therese Johaug commanded the front without missing a beat.
By the 5 k mark, the top seven skiers, which included Norwegians Ingvild Flugstad Østberg and Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, Austrian Teresa Stadlober, Sweden’s Ebba Andersson and Frida Karlsson and American Jessie Diggins, as well as Johaug, had a close to 30 second gap on the field’s remaining 41 starters.
But for anyone familiar with Johaug, it isn’t enough to just be in the front.
In another kilometer and a half, the Norwegian had separated herself completely from the pack. Anyone looking to challenge her for the gold medal win had a 15 second gap to close. By the 8.6 k mark, that deficit had grown to 30 seconds.
Andersson and Karlsson led the group charging for second place, which almost a third of the way through the race, was a battle between Diggins, the two Swedes, Stadlober, Østberg and Switzerland’s Nathalie von Siebenthal.
Diggins began to pull at the front of that chase group at the 9 k mark, maintaining her press for the next 5 k. Johaug, however, continued to hold them off.
Jessie Diggins (bib 5) chasing Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg in the women’s 30 k skate at Seefeld, Austria’s 2019 World Championships. Diggins placed fourth, Østberg second . (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
“I felt really good today,”Johaug said during an interview with the International Ski Federation (FIS) after Saturday’s 30 kilometer mass start. “I wanted to go fast from the beginning. When I get a gap I think I have to try. Then I just went as fast as I could all the way.”
When Johaug exchanged skis at the 18.75 k mark, she had entered all too familiar race territory as the solo frontrunner. Forty-three seconds after Johaug’s ski switch, Diggins had also swapped boards and was once again, leading the chase group.
The American medal favorite for Saturday’s race, Diggins was also looking to best her previous highest ranked World Championships 30 k result, which prior to Saturday was a 5th place in the Lahti World Champs 30 k skate.
By the top of the next major course climb, Diggins faced a challenge from behind. Karlsson swept past her, appearing to have an untapped energy reserve with still close to 10 k to go.
At the 22.5 k mark, Østberg passed Diggins and the American slipped into fourth place with more than two thirds of the race complete. Though Diggins was visibly working, she could not bridge the gap back up to second and third place.
Having maintained her blistering pace in the front, Johaug crossed first in a time of 1 1:14:26.2 hours for the gold medal. Østberg finished 36.8 later for second place, while Karlsson crossed 7.2 seconds behind Østberg to snag third place (+44.0).
With the 30 k capping this season’s World Champs women’s events, Johaug will depart Seefeld with three gold medals–the 30-year-old Norwegian also won the 10 k classic race earlier in the week, as well as last Saturday’s skiathlon.
“I am really happy for the goldtoday,” Johaug told FIS. “I came here to Seefeld hoping for one gold medal and now I have three.”
Johaug now has a grand total of 10 World Championships gold medals, seven of those being individual accomplishments. The second place finish is Østberg’s fifth podium at the Seefeld World Champs alone. Prior to Seefeld, she had one World Champs medal to her name, a gold from the 2015 Team Sprint in Falun.
The 19-year-old-Karlsson will close out her first World Champs with three medals: Saturday’s 30 k bronze, as well as a silver from the 10 k classic and a gold from the women’s 4 x 5 k relay.
Finishing 20 seconds off the podium was Diggins in fourth (+1:05.9).
Therese Johuag of Norway leads Jessie Diggins (U.S.) and Ebba Andersson (SWE) during the 30 k skate at the 2019 World Championships. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
“I tried everything I could and I had the best skis in the world,” Diggins said. “It’s funny, I think if the race had been 2 k longer I might not have made it because my legs were cramping up…I did everything I could I held nothing back and that’s a good feeling.”
“I tried to go with [Karlsson]” Diggins said of her third lap when the Swede made her move around the American. “But that’s when my legs started cramping up and I still had 5 k to go. … I was just at my limit, fighting the whole way,” Diggins said.
Following Diggins, U.S. skier Sadie Bjornsen finished the day in 15th (+4:42.9). Bjornsen explained that due to the hot pace from the start, she lost contact with the lead group earlier on in the race.
“I definitely spent some kilometers out there struggling and wanting to drop out and I guess questioning where I’m at,” Bjornsen said of the beginning of her race.
Mid-way through the 30 k, Russian skier Anastasia Sedova joined Bjornsen and as the two skied together, Bjornsen began to feel better. Though her finish was not as strong as she would have liked, the ups and downs of the race offered Bjornsen a bit of insight.
“It was definitely one of those races that had some good moments and some bad moments and I think in a way it was really good for me because it kind of made me assess where I’m at right now,” Bjornsen said. “I think that my body is in a really good place. I think that keeping your brain in a really good place as an athlete is really difficult and maybe something that I struggled with this week.”
For Bjornsen, this World Champs has had its challenges, not so much with her skiing, but as she explained, with her skis and confidence.
“I definitely feel really good skiing out there so I know that my muscles are ready, I just need to make sure that I get my mind there,” Bjornsen said. “It’s just so hard because you can’t control what you have on your feet a lot of the times. And I think I just have to get to a place that that doesn’t affect me. That I keep my belief through it. So I’m looking forward to challenging myself for the last block of the season with that.”
Rosie Brennan and Sadie Bjornsen (bib 11) congratulate one another after the women’s 30 k skate at the 2019 World Championship’s (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
“At this level you have to have your skis at a level that can compete,” she added. “If you’re going to fight for a medal or even Top 10, Top 20 and there were some races this week that that was not the case.”
Following Bjornsen, American Rosie Brennan placed 16th (+5:21.0). After battling mono last season and not being renamed to the U.S. Ski Team, Brennan remained positive of where she’s taken her skiing this year leading up to and during World Championships in Seefeld.
“I never really know what I am going to feel in a month or so,” Brennan said. “I feel so proud of myself for having navigated last year or last summer basically and come out stronger. I hope that that is a clear message that is sent to everybody. I hope that inspires juniors to not be afraid of when something bad comes along or when they have a hiccup or they miss out on the pipeline that is the perfect pipeline or whatever it is.
“It motivates me to keep going and I want to be that example,” Brennan continued. “I want to be that person that doesn’t give up because something bad has been put in front of them. It also taught me that maybe I do know myself best.”
Rosie Brennan (bib 16) and Caitlin Patterson (bib 24) both of the U.S., charging in the women’s 30 k skate at the 2019 World Championships. Brennan placed 16th overall, Paterson 34th. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
“The way I look at it, it makes me really proud of what I have accomplished doing it in a clean way,” Brennan said. “I just look at those guys and think they have just ruined their lives. And they have no future in skiing now and that is not why I do this. That is not a place I want to ever be in.
“As shocking as it is, it makes me really proud of who I am,” Brennan added. “I try focusing on that aspect of that and not wonder what else is going on in the field. Those guys are a pretty good example, here they were doing some really bad things and they weren’t winning races. I don’t know that you have to do that to win and I choose not to believe that otherwise there is no sense in going out and fighting. I believe you can do it cleanly and I am going to try my hardest to do that.”
Racing for Canada, Katherine Stewart-Jonescrossed in 28th (+8:17.9) for her best career individual World Champs result.
Placing just outside the Top 30 was American Caitlin Patterson in 34th (+8:49.4). Canadians Emily Nishikawa placed 39th (+10.11.5), Dahria Beatty 41st (+11:34.5), and Cendrine Browne46th (+14.50.0).
Therese Johaug of Norway takes the win in the 30 k skate at the 2019 World Championships. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
The women’s podium from the 2019 World Championship’s 30 k skate. From left to right, Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østbergin second, teammate Therese Johaug in first, and Sweden’s Frida Karlsson placed third. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
Jessie Diggins at the finish of the women’s 30 k skate at World Championships. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
Jessie Diggins of the U.S. receives a feed women’s 30 k skate at the 2019 World Championships. Diggins placed fourth overall. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
Rosie Brennan during the the women’s 30 k skate at World Championships. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
Sadie Bjornsen the women’s 30 k skate at World Championships. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
Canada’s Katherine Stewart-Jones skiing to a 28th overall in the 30 k skate at the 2019 World Championships. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
Emily Nishikawa of Canada skiing to 39th overall in the 30 k skate at the 2019 World Championships. (Photo: John Lazenby/lanzenbyphoto.com)
Saturday closed out the racing for the women with the 30-kilometer freestyle at the 2019 World Championships in Seefeld, Austria.
Norway’s Therese Johaug, already the winner of the skiathlon and 10 k classic at these championships, secured her third gold in a time of 1:14:26.2 hours. Her teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg placed second (+36.8). Sweden’s nineteen-year-old Frida Karlsson took third (+44.0).
Jessie Diggins for the U.S. was 21 seconds from the podium after skiing to fourth (+1:05.9). Also for the U.S., Sadie Bjornsen was 15th (+4:42.9), Rosie Brennan (16th (+5:21.0), and Caitlin Patterson 33rd (+8:49.4).
Sweden’s Ebba Andersson leads Norway’s Therese Johaug, Jessie Diggins (U.S.) during the 30 k freestyle at the 2019 World Championships. (Photo: lumiexperiences.com)
Holding off Norway’s Therese Johaug is Sweden’s Stina Nilsson during the 2019 World Championship 4 x 5 k relay in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
The beautiful chess match on snow came down to the wire in Thursday’s 4 x 5-kilometer relay at the Seefeld, Austria World Championships. The chaser was Norway’s Therese Johaug, hustling to close an 18.8-second gap to Sweden’s Stina Nilsson. Known as a sprinter who comes to distance events with aerobic chops, Nilsson, who won bronze in the 2018 Olympic 30 k classic mass start, couldn’t be rattled as Johaug lurked ever closer as the 5 k leg ticked down to the final straight.
For the closing kilometer, it was Johaug, the consummate endurance animal, against Nilsson, the consummate sprint closer, as they played check mate skiing for the win.
Let’s take a step back to when the sharp end of the race began to form in earnest. Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg and Sweden’s Frida Karlsson sent pacing-tremors through the field during leg two. Østberg ultimately came through to tag Norway’s third leg skier Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen with a 1.4 second lead on Sweden’s third skier Charlotte Kalla. Russia and Germany trailed by more than ten seconds.
Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla is clutch. She gave the Swedes a chance for the win as she skied the third leg of the 2019 World Championship 4 x 5 k relay in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
With the freestyle legs in play and 10 k of skiing to go, Sweden was able to lean on a reliable closer in Kalla. She skied big and bold, sitting on the tails of Jacobsen for much of her race. In this 4 x 5 k hunt, Sweden tried to bag the big-game of Norway with a little less than 1.5 k to go in Kalla’s leg – at the 39:20 minute mark Kalla sent it.
Up the course’s most notable climb, Kalla’s formidable V1 put 15 then 20 meters between herself and Jacobsen. In the last four World Championship 4 x 5 k relays, Sweden has played runner-up. As if fueled by that burden, Kalla handed Nilsson the gift of those previously mentioned and oh so precious 18.8 seconds as Sweden’s anchor leg sped away to find her own defining 5 k moment.
Norway came into the race with an untested line-up. In the early season World Cup 4 x 5 k relay in Beitostølen, Norway Johaug skied Norway’s second classic leg. Back then she did not irreparably smash the race apart. She added enough spicy tempo to give Norway a lead of 9.8 seconds as she tagged off. And Ingvild Flugstad Østberg skied the anchor when Norway won by 37.3 seconds.
We do not often consider Norway as the chasers in a women’s relay. So often they are off the front. On Thursday, as Johaug’s double-time turnover inched her incrementally closer to Nilsson, the race was wrought with tension. Nilsson skied in control, with a slower cadence than Johaug but generating a near equal amount of power with each cycle.
Churning and chugging -Norway’s Therese Johaug during the fourth leg of the 2019 World Championship 4 x 5 k relay in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
There was no doubt Johaug was at or near her limit. Nilsson too was pushing, but she appeared willing to eventually be caught by Johaug as the racecourse real estate dwindled.
The Johaug-Nilsson link-up came at 52:40 minutes, near the apex of the last lap’s decisive climb. A meter separated a wind breaking Johaug from a drafting Nilsson as they descended. Nilsson skis gave her the lead as they glided and free skated into the final bump before the finish. Johaug pushed again. She could not surge as a red-suited Norway paced side by side with a white-suited Sweden.
Nilsson took the lead over the top. Now it was Johaug in the draft as they schussed into the straight. But with Nilsson’s big lever V2 engaged, Johaug’s sprint couldn’t deliver. She drifted off the back as Nilsson played her winning hand to win for Sweden in 55:21.0 minutes.
For Ebba Andersson, Frida Karlsson, Charlotte Kalla, Stina Nilsson and all of Sweden the wait for a World Championship 4 x 5 k relay was over.
Norway’s Heidi Weng, Ingvild Flugstad Østberg, Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, and Therese Johaug placed second (+3.1).
Russia came on strong in their fourth leg to take third (+2:03.8) over a once close Germany in fourth (+2:46.3).
“It is a dream coming true because we have been working hard all summer and fall and it has been a great effort from the whole team,” Kalla told FIS after the race.
“The conditions were tough out there,” Nilsson said. “It was a real struggle to push hard. And I was so hunted by Theresa [Johaug] so that was a bit stressing but I am so happy the girls gave me a big advantage because I needed it today to be first on the finish line.”
Sweden celebrates the 2019 World Championship 4 x 5 k relay win in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
A New Look for the U.S.
The U.S. finished in fifth with a line-up of Julia Kern, Sadie Bjornsen, Rosie Brennan, and Jessie Diggins. Relay socks and glitter adorned the foursome as they navigated a warmed-up slushy course in Seefeld.
For U.S. Ski Team Head Coach Chris Grover, along with his longtime coaching partners Matt Whitcomb and Jason Cork, determining the U.S. relay roster is no plug and play task. As witnessed in the Sweden vs. Norway race, parsing out the strengths and weaknesses of every athlete comes with a cost-benefit analysis worthy of hiring a PhD. in probability theory.
“It was a difficult task in terms of figuring out how to put together this relay team a couple of days ago after we had seen the women’s 10 k,” Grover said in a phone call. At that point, we knew we wanted to have Sadie and Rosie Brennan and Jessie going to the race. I had a really robust discussion around Julia and Caitlin and even potentially Rosie Frankowski in a skate leg. She had a great skate portion of her skiathlon the other day but also had a short illness after that. In trying to figure out the right way to put together the team, Julia has been feeling so good this week and skiing so well that we tried to do something a little bit different.”
In doing something different, Grover stated that the landscape within which the U.S. operates has changed. With Norway a known quantity and still a force, other nations like Sweden and Russia have built consistently strong 4 x 5 k relay teams. Concurrent with the rise of other nations is the continual development and support for U.S. athletes to determine a podium combination.
“We have had moments where all the women have skied great classic legs but we just need a little bit more flexibility, we need another woman or two in there that can be top ten or top fifteen on the World Cup on a given day to just fill out that roster,” Grover explained. “With relays, I think ideally you need, we have talked about it before, you need six athletes so that when you come to a championship you can pick the four that are in the best shape and you can use their technical strengths in the right places. I think at the same time, the other thing we have really seen is some of these other nations have raised their game in the meantime. … You have Sweden that is having an outstanding year with their women’s program. Across distance and sprint everyone has really taken a step forward within the Swedish team. They just don’t have weak legs anymore. There used to be a time when once in a while maybe we could really threaten Sweden but they are so strong across the board. And Russia too.”
Julia Kern of the U.S. (second from right) during the start of the 2019 World Championship 4 x 5 k relay in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
For Kern, who has raced numerous relays at the Junior National and World Juniors level, this was her biggest relay scene yet.
“I was excited about going into today relays, they are my favorite day,” Kern said in a call. “I love 5 ks and I love mass starts. I have scrambled a lot in relays in the past and at JNs and World Juniors, I was really psyched to be in that position because usually, it is a good place for me to start and I have had some of my best races in relays as well. So I was really psyched to be on this team with these older girls and I was feeling good.”
At 3.5 k Kern maintained pace with the 17 team field. She passed through the time check 3.2 seconds behind. At that point, Kern said she began to feel the combo of heat, wet tracks, and a championship level pace.
“I felt like I was doing a lot of work there from 2.5 to 3.5 k and everything was feeling awesome and then I just kind of blew up a little bit,” said Kern. “I never experienced something like that before or that extreme but I really sent it and gave it my all. I just went for it because that is what you have to do in relays.”
The twenty-one-year-old Kern noted she had been balancing the teeter-totter of effort between full-send mode and just under the red line.
“The pace was fast, but I felt in control and I don’t know if it was the heat or what happened,” Kern added. “But it was a reminder that in relays it is hard because you have to ride that balance between sending it and risking it and trying to go with the leaders and also race your own race. In a mass start event that is really hard. I think my takeaways were to remember to ski your own race but also I think you don’t want to walk away at the end of the day wishing you could have gone harder. All you ask is that you went for it.”
Kern tagged to Bjornsen for the second classic leg in 11th (+44.2).
Sadie Bjornsen of the U.S. during the second leg of the 2019 World Championship 4 x 5 k relay in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
Bjornsen strode off with a gap of 20 seconds on 12th place Kazakhstan and seven seconds behind 10th place Czech Republic. With no team to ski behind, Bjornsen forged ahead in slow snow and towards a divided field.
“Out of the start I tried to get that first group and then I as soon as got to the hills I started attacking,” said Bjornsen in a call. “But it was remarkably hard to close gaps out there when there are groups working together. When you are working alone there is no rest. It is 5 k of full work.”
In the second half of her leg, Bjornsen’s pulse of effort paid dividends. She bridged up to and passed the Czechs, Japan, Canada, and France to leapfrog into sixth place.
“When I finally caught that group in front of me I tried to not to sit behind them in the draft which felt very comfortable,” Bjornsen said. “I reminded myself that every second counts. I have got to keep powering past.”
Rosie Brennan of the U.S. during the third leg of the 2019 World Championship 4 x 5 k relay in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
She tagged Brennan in sixth, 34 seconds down on fourth-place Finland. Brennan has proved an integral part of the U.S. World Cup presence this season. Her presence on the relay team in Seefeld comes as no surprise. Although earlier prognostications would have predicted her as a classic leg selection.
“I have never done a skate leg in a relay at this level so I was excited to try something new and I’ve had such an improvement in skating this year so I was kind of excited to put that to use,” Brennan stated over the phone.
Ahead of Brennan was Riitta-Liisa Roponen of Finland, thirty-five seconds out. Close behind was a three team cluster all within fifteen seconds.
“I didn’t want to give them a free ride so I tried to start off really hard to open up that gap enough that they didn’t get any ideas,” Brennan said of her quick start. “Then I could see Finland in front, and it was so deceiving because the snow was so slow that you could see the person in front of you for quite a ways. … I just kept my eyes on Finland and kept trying to ski strong, and ski to my strengths and just try to make that gap as small as possible”
Brennan’s push created some sixth place breathing room for the U.S. She closed down on the Finns. Roponen tagged Evelina Piippo with a diminished buffer of 13.3 seconds as Diggins was tagged.
By 17.5 k, a no-fan of hot weather skiing Diggins had passed Piippo and placed the U.S. in fifth by 10.5 seconds. With the Diggins anchor leg and a rookie scrambler in Kern, the U.S. placed fifth overall (+3:06.0).
Custom race suit for Jessie Diggins of the U.S. She anchored the fifth place U.S. team during the 2019 World Championship 4 x 5 k relay in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
As the U.S. women’s 4 x 5 k roster evolves they will continue to find themselves in a hyper-competitive field with three teams in a Norway, Sweden, and Russia as a winning threat. If cross-country skiing were a salary cap sport, those three nations would have incurred a massive luxury tax.
But you cannot buy moxy when it comes to the bury-yourself athlete.
Bjornsen noticed a trait today about Kern which can also be attributed to the day’s collective U.S. effort.
“I was proud of [Julia Kern] today,” Bjornsen said. “As I told her after my race, I think guts is something that you cannot necessarily train into somebody. And when I see someone explode in a race like that the first thing that comes to my mind is that girl has got guts.”
The work-from-the-back fifth place was a collective gutsy affair for the U.S.
Canada’s Katherine Stewart-Jones, Emily Nishikawa, Cendrine Browne, and Dahria Beatty were 12th on the day (+5:02.7).
Swedish fans are delivered the win in Thursday’s 2019 World Championships 4 x 5 k relay in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
Canada’s Emily Nishikawa skiing the second leg of the women’s 4 x 5 k relay at the 2019 World Championships in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
Rosie Brennan testing skis at the 2019 World Championships in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
Jessie Diggins of the U.S. greeted by her teammates after racing the fourth leg in the 2019 World Championships 4 x 5 k relay in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
Canada’s Cendrine Browne skis the third leg of the 2019 World Championships 4 x 5 k relay in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
(From left to right) Ebba Andersson, Frida Karlsson, Charlotte Kalla, and Stina Nilsson of Sweden. The winning team in the women’s 4 x 5 k relay at the 2019 World Championship in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg leads the relay train during the second leg of the 4 x 5 k relay at the 2019 World Championships in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
Spent fuel: Norway’s Therese Johaug cooling off after her her team’s second place in the 2019 World Championship 4 x 5 k relay in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
(Front row l-r) Ebba Andersson and Charlotte Kalla (back row l-r) and Frida Karlsson and Stina Nilsson winners of the 2019 World Championship 4 x 5 k relay in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
FIS Nordic World Ski Championships Seefeld, Austria Women’s 4 x 5 k Relay
The race pack held together until the 3.5-kilometer mark of the scramble leg during the women’s World Championship 4 x 5 k relay in Seefeld, Austria. A bit over three seconds separated the top-six teams through the time check.
By the time the third leg began, Sweden and Norway had surged and defined the race as a two team competition for first. That fate began to change as Sweden’s third skier, Charlotte Kalla, surged to a 18.8 second lead over Norway as she tagged to the team’s anchor, Stina Nilsson.
With Norway’s anchor Therese Johaug, it appeared inevitable she would catch Nilsson. The high-turnover Johaug, mouth agape, churned up the hills and did eventually secure the Swede’s draft. But Nilsson’s long-gliding effort in the finish straight gave Sweden the edge and the win.
Spent fuel: Norway’s Therese Johaug cooling off after her team’s second place in the 2019 World Championship 4 x 5 k relay in Seefeld, Austria. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenbyphoto.com)
Ebba Andersson, Frida Karlsson, Kalla, and Nilsson of Sweden won in 55:21.0 minutes. Norway’s Heidi Weng, Ingvild Flugstad Østberg, Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, and Johaug placed second (+3.1).
Russia’s Yulia Belorukova, Anastasia Sedova, Anna Nechaevskaya, and Natalia Nepryaeva skied to third (+2:03.8).
The U.S. foursome of Julia Kern, Sadie Bjornsen, Rosie Brennan, and Jessie Diggins placed fifth (+3:06.0). Canada’s Katherine Stewart-Jones, Emily Nishikawa, Cendrine Browne, and Dahria Beatty were 12th on the day (+5:02.7).
