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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.

Tag: freestyle prologue

  • U.S. Women Come Out Firing in 7th, 8th with Bjornsen, Stephen in Tour Prologue; Two More in the Points

    U.S. Women Come Out Firing in 7th, 8th with Bjornsen, Stephen in Tour Prologue; Two More in the Points

    Sadie Bjornsen skating to seventh place in the 3.3 k Tour de Ski prologue in Oberstdorf, Germany. Photo: Marcel Hilger.
    Sadie Bjornsen skating to seventh place in the 3.3 k Tour de Ski prologue in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Marcel Hilger)

    The Tour de Ski 3.3-kilometer prologue in Oberstdorf, Germany, looked a little sluggish, with the biggest climb on course – a whopping 35 meters of elevation gain – reducing the world’s best skiers to exhaustion. That was until Liz Stephen hit the course.

    The American skier showed up in bib 18 with her trademark quick tempo. Usually a specialist over much longer distances, Stephen’s quick skating added some heat to the competition, which suddenly looked a little more alive. First she turned in the leading time at the first checkpoint, 1.2 k, and then crossed the finish line in the lead.

    Although less than a third of the racers had yet to finish, Stephen’s tempo went unmatched until Heidi Weng of Norway set off up the hill more than 20 minutes later.

    “I think the course being a little longer than the Oberhof distance of 2.5 to 2.75 k, depending on the year, as well as the four solid climbs on this course and the fast, but not scary decent definitely suited the type of skier I am,” Stephen wrote in an email to FasterSkier.

    But light and quick – matching the body’s speed with the idea of the speed needed to win a 3.3 k race – wasn’t the only way to excel on the challenging Oberstdorf loop. When Stephen was dethroned, it was by her teammate Sadie Bjornsen, who had skied with a slower tempo up the big climb, but used more power.

    While the pair stayed 1-2 for quite some time, they were eventually replaced at the top of the leaderboard by five Norwegians and Nicole Fessel of Germany. Still, they ended up seventh and eighth overall, just seven seconds from the podium.

    Liz Stephen (USA) setting an early best time in the 3.3 k prologue. Photo: Marcel Hilger.
    Liz Stephen (USA) setting an early best time in the 3.3 k prologue. (Photo: Marcel Hilger)

    “My reaction was just pure excitement because I would’ve never guessed I could do that in a skate race,” Bjornsen said in a phone interview. “It’s tied for my best result in classic, so I was pretty ecstatic.”

    They were joined in the points by teammates Jessie Diggins, who placed 14th, and Kikkan Randall in 22nd.

    “It’s also sweet to see the team, the group of girls, I think we all had an awesome break and I think we’re all ready to fight now,” Bjornsen said. “It’s like a little mini army ready for the battle. I think it’s going to be great for all the girls. We’re all in a good place and we’re all ready to just see what can happen, and we’re all in good spirits and that’s the best way to start.”

    Sophie Caldwell placed 44th and Ida Sargent was 58th to round out the U.S. women’s team results.

    Crashing the Party, Not Their Skis

    A number of the Americans are fans of the prologue format, which helped them prep for today’s race. Diggins has had success before – she finished fifth in the Tour de Ski prologue last season. She even shared her prologue training workout with FasterSkier earlier this week.

    “I’ve always kind of liked the prologue format because I feel like it’s a long sprint, which I would always prefer,” Bjornsen laughed.

    “Skate prologues are one of my favorite events and it was fun to start racing again after a couple weeks of training over the Christmas break,” Randall agreed in an email sent to members of the press.

    A race so short would seem to mean hammering hard the whole time, but the key to the Americans’ success was actually to start fairly conservatively.

    “What I like about it is that it’s long but it’s a really skiable grade,” Diggins said of the climb. “It’s not like, ‘Well, should I herringbone on my skate skis?’ It makes sense. It’s just challenging because it’s very long, and if you start hammering on the bottom, about halfway up there’s a little part where you can throw in some V2 and if you’re not feeling quite fresh enough then you’re going to lose steam there.”

    Being able to accelerate up the hill on the second of two laps was essential.

    “I didn’t have much of a strategy other than to remember to stay light on the uphills so that’s what I was kind of thinking about the whole time,” Bjornsen said. “Based on the splits, I had a more conservative start, but I really was trying to go hard from the start. It’s the usual thing for me, that I feel like I’m doing a sprint-race pace, but it’s maybe not the case. But I think it worked out well for me today because I had some energy to really hammer the hill the last time.”

    Diggins agreed that she had started perhaps too conservatively, but it worked out in the end.

    Kikkan Randall, 22nd place. Photo: Marcel Hilger.
    Kikkan Randall, 22nd place. (Photo: Marcel Hilger)

    “I did practice for the prolog specifically, but it was at altitude,” she explained. “Then I came down and I was a little bit conservative, especially on that first lap. It was better than blowing up, but at the same time, if I was going to do it again, I definitely would have hit the gas a little earlier on. I think that’s been a pattern for me this year, not wanting to blow up because I’m scared of falling on the downhills if my legs are too tired.”

    And those downhills – they were momentum-killers. Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland, who has four Tour de Ski victories under her belt, was denied a podium position on Saturday in part because she snowplowed the fast, slick downhills.

    Downhills have been a challenge for Stephen so far this year, but today she tackled them head-on and excelled.

    “I have been really working on the mental side of the downhills as I mentioned and this one went well for me today,” she explained to FasterSkier. “Attack over the top and don’t overthink it. Look ahead, ski it a bunch in training and just go for it.”

    Diggins, too, was surprised to find that the downhills were a huge source of help today. She chalked it up in part to some time she spent alpine skiing in Davos, Switzerland, over the holidays.

    “I think the alpine skiing really paid off!” she exclaimed. “As well as our wax techs making us some amazing skis. I had the fastest downhill split both laps. So I was proud of my aggressive downhills and not falling down.”

    All in all, it added up to one of the Americans’ best days so far this season. Even though the team had a goal of peaking for World Championships, the squad was sometimes frustrated not to be starting off the season at full speed.

    The Other Accomplishment

    Sadie Bjornsen also recently presented her senior thesis through Alaska Pacific University, where she double-majored in accounting and nonprofit business management. “That’s why it took me five years :)” she wrote in a Skype chat. She counts it as one of her proudest accomplishments – to finish school studying something she’s passionate about, while competing at the sport’s highest level and going to the Olympics:

    “I did my senior presentation for the big audience in Lillehammer, and then turned in my final papers for my last classes in Davos, so we had some champagne toasts for that one! I think it was Thursday of the first week of Davos [Dec. 11], so I am sure I had the load of all the stress from the past weeks hit me there… but I was just trying to not think about it. Who knows if that was part of my exhaustion…
    I don’t feel it was much harder than normal, because I am so used to doing school on the road now for four years. There was just more pressure, because it was my senior presentation, so it was the final thing to allow me to graduate.
    I have always felt my school really enhances my ski racing, so I feel like it didn’t really affect me. In fact, it was almost better to have something really stressful to focus on rather than skiing. But now, I am done with school, and I will have the actual ‘ceremony’ this spring when I get home in April.
    It feels SOOO good [to be done]!! Normally I am so stressed about internet connection for attending class early in the morning… but now I don’t even have that terrible stress in the back on my head every day!
    It is one of the things I will be most proud about when I think back on my ‘ski career’. It has been hard, but I think it has really helped my ski racing!! I need that stress somewhere else!”

    In fact, the U.S. women only had two previous individual top-10’s so far this season: Sargent finishing fifth in the opening sprint in Ruka, Finland, and Randall placing ninth in the last sprint of period one in Davos, Switzerland.

    By doubling that tally in a single day and putting two more women in the points, the team is looking more like the squad that finished fourth in the Nations Cup standings last season.

    “We were aware that this event has been good to us in the past, and that many athletes on the team are rested and ready,” U.S. Ski Team women’s coach Matt Whitcomb wrote in an email. “2 top 10s was the goal, but it’s a thing of its own to make that come to fruition. It feels good.”

    Break Makes It Better

    One key to that success was a relaxing holiday break, which the U.S. athletes spent in Europe. Diggins’ family came to join her in Davos, where Stephen, Sargent, and Randall also stayed to ski; Bjornsen headed to Meribel, a ski station in France, with her boyfriend. For all, it was an essential mental break from racing.

    “There wasn’t much snow,” Bjornsen reported. “I think it forced me to actually take some rest, which is maybe a blessing in disguise, and I was getting to do more things like hiking and jogging… then we went to Villard de Lans, where there was excellent skiing, so I had some time to do some intervals and just get the race feelings back. It was good to just take a break from the group and a break from the really focused mental place, I was spending time with people that are not racers and for me I think that’s really important, to just have that break in them middle of the season, you know?”

    Diggins absolutely agreed.

    “I think mentally I’m in a really good place because I had a really good break with my family,” she said. “I really needed that. I had some time to get away from racing and just be really happy – not that racing doesn’t make me happy, but you know – some time to do some alpine skiing and all that fun stuff and now I’m just really psyched to be back.”

    The team now has a calm attitude towards the upcoming travails: many more competitions in the span of days, starting with a 10 k classic pursuit on Sunday. Not all the women are planning on completing the Tour – Bjornsen specified that she’s only doing the first four stages, at least at this point – but regardless, it’s a lot of racing in a short amount of time.

    “It’s hard to have so many goals in the Tour de Ski because I don’t really know what to expect,” Bjornsen said. “I’ve never done it before. We’ve done Spring Series where we’ve done a lot of racing in a row and so I’m [getting] good at recovering and coming into each race day knowing I did a good job recovering from the day before. I think it’s just going to be a mystery how the results are. Maybe one day it’s going to be great, maybe the next day…. You can never get worked up in the results and that’s maybe the ideal world.”

    Diggins, on the other hand, has some Tour experience. Her takeaway is similar — not to stress the small stuff when it comes to results.

    “For the Tour, you don’t really need any standout races,” she explained. “But if you can put together a collection of A-, B+, B efforts, and string them all together, it turns into a really great overall tour. You don’t have to have any A+ days… knowing that we’re getting the wax dialed and everything is working smoothly, having all those pieces in place to put out consistent days, is a really big part of getting through a Tour well.”

    Results

    –Alex Kochon contributed reporting

  • Harvey Leads Canadians in Tour Prologue; USA’s Hamilton Scores First Distance Points

    Harvey Leads Canadians in Tour Prologue; USA’s Hamilton Scores First Distance Points

    Alex Harvey placed 13th in the 4.4 k Tour de Ski prologue in Oberstdorf, Germany, today. Photo: Marcel Hilger.
    Alex Harvey placed 13th in the 4.4 k Tour de Ski prologue in Oberstdorf, Germany, today. (Photo: Marcel Hilger)

    It wasn’t a win like last year, but Canadian Alex Harvey had a respectable start to the 2015 Tour de Ski (TDS) on Saturday, finishing 13th in the 4.4 k freestyle prologue in Oberstdorf, Germany.

    Sochi gold-medal winner Dario Cologna of Switzerland won the stage in a time of 9:54.2, while the 26-year-old Harvey ended up 14.6 seconds back.

    “I felt good in the warm-up today and was happy with the race,” Harvey told Cross Country Canada (CCC) in a press release. “I haven’t quite found my groove in skating this year, but it is coming and today was a sign of that.”

    Harvey has an impressive résumé in prologues, having won last year’s TDS prologue and a World Cup prologue at the 2012 World Cup Finals in Falun, Sweden. He was in seventh place after the first lap on Saturday, but lost ground on the second lap, and said the race being 600 meters longer than normal along with three big climbs proved to be a struggle.

    Ivan Babikov, Canada. Photo: Marcel Hilger.
    Ivan Babikov, Canada. Photo: Marcel Hilger.

    “It was a little more difficult and you could really feel it in the end,” he explained.

    Meanwhile, the other Canadian men placed in the middle of the pack. After finishing the first lap in the 74th position, Devon Kershaw skied a strong second lap to finish 47th (+33.1). Lenny Valjas finished 51st (+34.8), weeks after an impressive showing in World Cup sprints in Davos, where he finished 10th and 18th in two consecutive weeks. Ivan Babikov was 57th (+36.6) after clocking through the first lap in 86th.

    “Not the best start of the Tour for me, but that’s just a beginning,” Babikov tweeted following the race.

    Kershaw was disappointed with Saturday’s result. Last season, he placed second behind Harvey in the opening competition of the Tour.

    “Prologues suit me very well, and to finish mid-pack in a race that should be a strength isn’t where I want to be,” Kershaw wrote in an email. “That said, the second lap was better than the first.”

    The 32 year old explained that he had a difficult first lap, adding that the “snappiness and power” he had felt all week eluded him from the start and made him rely on technique rather than power to stay in the race.

    Simi Hamilton (USA) en route to his first distance points ever in World Cup competition. Photo: Marcel Hilger.
    Simi Hamilton (USA) en route to his first distance points ever in World Cup competition. Photo: Marcel Hilger.

    “I was a bit lucky that the race ended up being slightly longer than most prologues are – to ski my way back into it a little bit,” he wrote.

    However, Kershaw is optimistic about having good races in the Tour, adding that his plan is to begin skiing with more confidence while focusing on a smoother, more-effective technique. He hopes he can put together a race based on how he has felt throughout the last week.

    “This was a good opportunity lost, but there’s more to come,” he wrote.

    No Canadian women competed in the opening prologue.

    Hamilton Scores First Distance Points

    The U.S. men were led by, in some ways, an unlikely face: Simi Hamilton had the best distance result of his career, finishing 26th, 23.5 seconds behind Cologna, and scoring his first distance points.

    “I’m definitely psyched,” Hamilton wrote in an email. “I think that prologues generally ski a little more like sprint qualifiers than they do distance races, but the course here was extremely hard and on the longer side, so it feels good to have a decent ‘distance’ race under my belt this year. I knew that pacing it well was pretty key, and I mostly just focused on skiing a smooth and relaxed first lap and then gradually increasing my effort throughout the second lap.”

    Erik Bjornsen (USA) competing in the Tour de Ski prologue. Photo: Marcel Hilger.
    Erik Bjornsen (USA) competing in the Tour de Ski prologue. Photo: Marcel Hilger.

    Just as the American men were led by a sprinter in a “distance” race, the women had been led, early on, by distance specialist Liz Stephen in a race much shorter than those where she usually excels. Watching Stephen and Sadie Bjornsen, who finished eighth and seventh, respectively, as well as Jessie Diggins in 14th and Kikkan Randall in 22nd, gave Hamilton a little boost to believe that anything might be possible.

    “The girls’ strong performances were definitely a motivating factor, and I knew that our skis were running really well… our techs did a great job dialing things in,” he wrote.

    Erik Bjornsen was the next American, placing 48th, 11 additional seconds back, and Andy Newell finished 82nd.

    For Hamilton, it was good to simply feel good. He sat out the second-to-last weekend of racing in period one, skipping a skate sprint in Davos, Switzerland, because he caught a virus. He wrote that he hadn’t realized how much it took out of him. Spending the holiday break in Davos, he was able to train and rest and explained he now feels like he’s back to 100 percent.

    “We’ll see what tomorrow brings, but I don’t have any huge expectations,” he wrote of the upcoming 15 k classic pursuit. “I think that if I stay relaxed I have a chance of having a good race, but with such a strong field on a hard course we’ll just have to see. With that said, I’m excited to race again and I’m hoping that I can continue to carry some good momentum into the sprint on Tuesday.”

    Tuesday: the sprint in Val Müstair, Switzerland, is the third race of the tour. Last season Hamilton collected his first-ever World Cup victory in the Tour de Ski sprint, that time held in Lenzerheide, Switzerland. He has never raced in Val Müstair (not coincidentally, Cologna’s hometown) before, but he’s pretty ramped up for the sprint. It’s the focus of his Tour.

    “I think I’ll always feel a little bit of pressure after having such a good sprint during the Tour last year, but ski racing is ski racing and the only thing that is in my control is showing up on Tuesday, going all out, racing smart, and believing in my ability to ski fast,” he wrote. “I haven’t raced in Val Mustair before, but I’ve heard that it’s a great course and we’re hopefully looking at a good weather forecast that will setup the course fast and hard. I’m definitely very excited for it.”

    Hamilton plans to compete in the first distance race in Toblach, Italy (the Tour’s fourth stage), then reevaluate. He’ll likely drop out at that point to stay fresh for sprint racing at the next two World Cup weekends after the Tour concludes.

    Results

  • Wednesday Workout: Tour de Ski Prologue Prep with Diggins

    Wednesday Workout: Tour de Ski Prologue Prep with Diggins

    Jessie Diggins (U.S. Ski Team) on her prologue-race prep day about a week ago in Davos, Switzerland. (Courtesy photo)
    Jessie Diggins (U.S. Ski Team) on her prologue-practice day about a week ago in Davos, Switzerland. (Courtesy photo)

    When it comes to Tour de Ski prep, World Cup racers do a lot more than just chill over the holidays and rest up for the seven-stage tour. Jessie Diggins is one of two U.S. Ski Team members who plans on completing the tour (along with Liz Stephen), and to kick things off on the right foot, she does a “prologue practice day” about a week-and-a-half out from the first event: the freestyle prologue in Obertsdorf, Germany (which takes place this Saturday).

    Jessie Diggins ready to go in her Podiumwear race suit during her prologue-practice day about a week ago in Davos, Switzerland.
    Jessie Diggins ready to go in her Podiumwear race suit during her prologue-practice day about a week ago in Davos, Switzerland.

    “We almost never race prologues, and it’s such a funny distance at 3 km, but in the start of the Tour de Ski we race one!” Diggins, 23, explained in an email. “I like to take an interval workout and turn it into a time trial to practice my pacing and tempo for a 3km. If I have good energy that day, I’ll do two of them, so that I can play around with my pacing and tactics and learn from the different times.

    “I’ll also skate it since for whatever reason it seems like the World Cup prologues are usually skate,” she added.

    The workout takes about 1:45 to 2 hours from start to finish.

    • 30 minute warmup: just skiing easy
    • 5-8 minute Level 3 “to get my body going and warm up my lungs”
    • Ski back to the start area, start first prologue. “I will have mapped out a course beforehand —figured out where about 3km is on the trail and given myself a fairly realistic course. This week, I just raced part of the Davos course!”
    • After first prologue, ski easy for 10 minutes to let legs recover and lower heart rate back to normal
    • Start second prologue
    • Cool down: slow ski for 20-30 minutes

    “I also like to wear a full race suit and bib when I’m doing this so I can get into the racing mindset a little easier,” Diggins explained. “And of course, if the trails are crowded people tend to let you pass easier if you’re wearing a race bib! :)”

  • With Diggins in Fifth, Three Americans Start Tour in Top 20; Canadian Women Just Outside the Points (Updated)

    With Diggins in Fifth, Three Americans Start Tour in Top 20; Canadian Women Just Outside the Points (Updated)

    Jessie Diggins (USA) climbs her way to a 23rd-place finish in the women's 10 k freestyle at World Championships on Tuesday.
    Jessie Diggins (U.S. Ski Team) racing to 23rd in the women’s 10 k freestyle at 2013 World Championships in Val di Fiemme, Italy. On Saturday, she started the Tour de Ski with her best-ever stage result of fifth in the 3 k freestyle prologue.

    Note: This recap has been updated to include quotes from Andy Newell.

    Whether the distance is 3 or 4 ½ kilometers, it’s all a blur when you’re pushing from start to finish. Prologues have no additional rounds, no time to hold back, yet a racer stands to lose everything if they go out too hard.

    The first of seven stages in the Tour de Ski, Saturday’s freestyle prologue was no different. Jessie Diggins didn’t hear splits as she rounded the 1.5 k course twice in Oberhof, Germany; her U.S. Ski Team (USST) coaches had told the athletes beforehand that they wouldn’t call out information during the individual start. Even if they did, there was hardly time to think, let alone change a pacing strategy.

    Diggins distinctively remembered two points of her 3 k race. First, she heard the Caldwells – her teammate Sophie Caldwell’s mother, father, sister and brother – cheering while hanging over the fence.

    Sophie Caldwell (c) with her sister Isabel and brother Austin at the World Cup in Asiago, Italy. (Photo: Austin Caldwell)
    Sophie Caldwell (c) with her sister Isabel and brother Austin at the World Cup in Asiago, Italy. (Photo: Austin Caldwell)

    “I’ve never heard Izzy so loud; it was awesome,” Diggins said of Caldwell’s sister. “The other person I heard was [coach Jason] Cork yelling at the top of one of the hills.”

    His cues were exactly what the 22-year-old Minnesota native needed: push over the top, remember technique. Diggins was trying to get on top of her poles throughout the race and she was pretty sure it worked, even in the slushy snow on a rainy afternoon.

    “I’m one of those girls that tries really hard, but isn’t always very efficient,” Diggins said.

    She churned out a fifth-place performance, tying her career-best World Cup individual finish (from two seasons ago in the 10 k freestyle mass start in Rybinsk, Russia). Last year, Diggins opened the Tour with 62nd in the 3 k freestyle prologue in Oberhof. She went on to place 50th in the classic pursuit there, then 21st in the overall Tour.

    This time around, she’s set a goal for a solid overall performance.

    “I don’t need any ‘A’-plus days, but if I can get some ‘B’-plus days … it’ll be a really good Tour,” she said.

    Saturday was a good start. Starting 33rd of 80, Diggins crossed the line with the fastest time by 1.5 seconds over  Slovenia’s Alenka Cebasek, who ended up eighth behind Norwegian winner Marit Bjørgen. Her split through 0.8 k held up as the third-fastest overall and she ranked fourth through 2.3 k, finishing 9.2 seconds after Bjørgen in fifth.

    “Every once in a while I would pop my head out to see if I had been knocked out of the top three and if so I could go and get pants.” — Jessie Diggins, fifth

    But for about 15 minutes, Diggins was the top dog. Soaked and freezing in the 36-degree temperatures, she would’ve loved to warm up in a large blanket while sitting in the leader’s chair. However, there was no leader’s chair.

    “This is probably the one time that I could make it … and they didn’t have a leader’s chair,” she said with a laugh.

    Instead, Diggins waited in the finish-area changing tent – but she didn’t have any clothes to change into. FIS media coordinator Jeff Ellis told her to stick around in case she made the podium.

    “Every once in a while I would pop my head out to see if I had been knocked out of the top three and if so I could go and get pants,” Diggins said. “It wasn’t until the end there that I realized I was fourth.”

    The 65th starter, Bjørgen bumped Diggins to fourth behind Germany’s Denise Herrmann. Poland’s Sylwia Jaśkowiec in bib 67 bested Herrmann’s time by 1.4 seconds for third, Herrmann moved to fourth, and Diggins finally settled in fifth.

    “I was psyched,” Diggins said after taking some time to celebrate, then refocus for Sunday’s freestyle sprint in Oberhof. “Since the Tour’s so long you don’t have time to dwell on any one race so it was like, ‘Sweet, that was awesome. It was a good race … and I learned some things for tomorrow, and now it’s time to eat and change and get ready.’ ”

    Sophie Caldwell racing to ninth in Davos (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
    Sophie Caldwell racing to a career-best ninth two weekends ago in the freestyle sprint in Davos, Switzerland. On Saturday, she tied the result in the Tour de Ski 3 k freestyle prologue. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)

    Her teammate, Caldwell also tied a personal best of ninth in her first Tour de Ski. The 54th starter, she ranked third through 0.8 k and was fifth at the finish, 2.6 seconds behind Diggins in first.

    “We had really fast skis today,” Caldwell wrote in an email, a notable bonus on a course that broke down with every lap.

    After opening hard, she felt fast and Cork confirmed that she was in third less than a kilometer in.

    “I thought that was awesome, but it was also at .8k, so I knew times were probably tight and that it could shift around a lot after that,” wrote the 23-year-old Caldwell. “When I came around the 2nd lap, my dad cheered something along the lines of ‘you’re flying!!!’, so I thought I could be having a good race, but that could also just be my dad being nice.”

    Through 2.3 k, she was 10th fastest overall, turning it up for the final 700 meters.

    “I’m not sure exactly what about this distance, course, or conditions suited me, but I think it paid to relax and try not to be frantic out there,” she explained. “I had been fighting a little sickness since Davos and was really tired after Asiago. I took a few days really easy or off and just enjoyed time relaxing with my family over Christmas. I wanted to come into the tour recharged and healthy and I think I was able to accomplish that by taking the week really easy.”

    As for the rest of the Tour, Caldwell plans to take it day by day. She’ll race Sunday in Oberhof and probably the following freestyle sprint on Tuesday in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, but she might drop out before or after the 10 k classic on Jan. 1.

    “My goals are to focus on recovering well and getting in a lot of good racing,” she wrote.

    Teammate Holly Brooks decided to start the Tour as well after what she described as “an abnormally slow start to the season.”

    “I felt like I needed more racing to get up to speed,” Brooks wrote. “Besides the tour provides lots of race chances and that’s why I train so hard year round!”

    Brooks finished 21st on Saturday, 21.4 seconds back from Bjørgen, after leading through 0.8 k as the 22nd starter. Her time there stood as the ninth fastest.

    “I had a good split at .8k today so perhaps it will bode well for tomorrow’s one lap race!” Brooks wrote. “I feel like I’m headed in the right direction. While not ecstatic with my result today I have to be satisfied because it’s [my] best result this season to date. That said, last year in this race I was 11th and in the Falun skate prologue I was 7th so I was hoping for better.”

    Above all, she was excited for Diggins and Caldwell and thankful that Oberhof race organizers were able to host the event with above-freezing temperatures and no natural snow.

    “I just heard this evening that the base of our course came from crushed ice from a fish processing plant 500 [kilometers] away!” she wrote. “They are putting some serious resources into making this happen!”

    The other U.S. woman who plans to race the entire Tour, Liz Stephen placed 34th (+25.1). With the 44th-ranked time through 0.8 k, she improved to 35th by 2.3 k.

    “My goal was to build into the race,” Stephen wrote. “I had the goal of being in the top 30, but was just out, and I am happy with my performance today. The conditions were tough for everyone, but the organizers have worked some sort of magic to have been able to pull these races off at all. I am really impressed given the weather they have been given so far this winter.”

    In the men’s 4.5 k prologue, Americans Andy Newell placed 20th, Simi Hamilton 42nd and Noah Hoffman 82nd out of 106 finishers.

    “The team’s performance was amazing today,” Stephen wrote. “To have Jessie and Sophie both in the top 10, Holly and Newell in the points and Simi and I just out is a good day. Noah’s days are coming, but first we distance skiers need to channel our sprint gears!”

    They’ll have a chance in Sunday’s 1.5 k freestyle sprints – the same one-lap race for the men and women.

    “I am really excited to get my skate sprinting on,” Stephen wrote. “I have hopes of qualifying like I was able to do last year, but these are big fields here so far, so I will have to do everything just right, but really fun to get two chances in a row to try out some strategies.”

    Newell Leads U.S. Men in 20th

    Newell was a strong early starter in bib 12, posting a top-10 time through 0.8 k. Skiing with Great Britain’s Andrew Musgrave for his first two laps, Newell went on to finish 20.4 seconds behind Canadian winner Alex Harvey and less than seven seconds off the podium. Musgrave tied two Russians, Evgeniy Belov and Alexander Legkov, for 17th, which put Newell as the next finisher in 20th.

    “I felt pretty good out there and started right as Musgrave was lapping through,” Newell wrote. “I

    Andy Newell (U.S. Ski Team) racing to 20th in the 4.5 k freestyle prologue, the first stage of the Tour de Ski. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
    Andy Newell (U.S. Ski Team) racing to 20th in the 4.5 k freestyle prologue, the first stage of the Tour de Ski. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)

    thought about jumping in behind him because there were some points on the course where the wind was really ripping, so it would have helped to follow someone. Pacing is so important in a short distance race like this so I decided I just couldn’t chance skiing someone else’s pace, so ended up pulling him around for a lap or two.

    “It was my goal to be in the top 15.. and it turns out I was .7 seconds from 15th,” he added.

    Hamilton started last and hovered around the mid-40s throughout the race before finishing 3.5 seconds out of 30th.

    “I’m happy with how today turned out, although being only 3 seconds from my first distance points is kind of a hard pill to swallow,” he wrote. “It was tough skiing out of the back as conditions were deteriorating a bit throughout the day, but that’s just something I’ll have to deal with for a bit as I recover from the fact that illness allowed me to only ski 3 distance races last year.”

    With three laps to tackle, Hamilton reflected that he might have been too conservative the second time around.

    “It was hard to find relaxation at any point in the course because of the terrain and the conditions, and I felt like I lost some valuable seconds because of that,” he added. “Tomorrow should be a good day. It’s a short course that should suit me well.”

    Canadian Women Finish Strong

    Two Canadian women plan to do the first few stages of the Tour, and Dasha Gaiazova led them in 37th, 1.8 seconds behind Stephen and 3 seconds out of 30th. Perianne Jones was 47th, another 1.9 seconds back.

    “Both the ladies finished strong; they finished last half a k with quite good speed,” Canadian Head Coach Justin Wadsworth said. “That’s a good sign for fitness, a good sign that they’re coming back. I want them to do these first three stages and do the process, too. We’re still aiming for Sochi, so every race we’re aiming to be the best we can in all respects, but they both put in solid races today and I’m really happy with how they finished the last part of the race.”

    Perianne Jones, who finished 47th, racing in her third international race of the season. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
    Perianne Jones, who finished 47th, racing in her third international race of the season. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)

    In an email, Jones explained she could’ve started harder, but was cautious in her third international race of the season.

    “After not having done too much hard work longer than a few minutes in the recent months I was maybe a little bit apprehensive,” she wrote. “I was able to ski faster on the second lap, which came as a bit of a surprise. It’s a good sign that my fitness is coming.

    “When I knew the finish line was around the corner I definitely dug deep and used every last bit of energy I had,” she added. “Tomorrow I’ll be doing that right from the start! … Although the result wasn’t great today it was a positive indicator for me that things are coming around, and I had much better feelings than last weekend, so I can’t wait for these next two races.”

    — Seth Adams and Pasha Kahn contributed reporting

    Results: women | men

  • Canada’s Harvey, Kershaw Notch Historic 1-2 Finish in First Race of Tour de Ski

    Canada’s Harvey, Kershaw Notch Historic 1-2 Finish in First Race of Tour de Ski

    Alex Harvey racing to first in the men's 4.5 k freestyle prologue on Saturday, the first of seven stages in the 2013/2014 Tour de Ski. His teammate Devon Kershaw (not shown) placed second to make for a historic 1-2 finish for Canada. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
    Alex Harvey racing to first in the men’s 4.5 k freestyle prologue on Saturday, the first of seven stages in the 2013/2014 Tour de Ski. His teammate Devon Kershaw (not shown) placed second to make for a historic 1-2 finish for Canada. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)

    Alex Harvey and Devon Kershaw topped the podium Saturday in the 4.5-kilometer freestyle prologue in Oberhof, Germany, the first of seven stages in the nine-day Tour de Ski.

    Dogged by a slower start to their season than they would have liked, the Canadians announced that they are back on form after weathering drizzly conditions to achieve their nation’s first 1-2 finish in an elite international event.

    Canadian Alex Harvey celebrates his second career individual World Cup stage win on Saturday after taking first in the 4.5 k freestyle prologue on the first day of the 2013/2014 Tour de Ski. Harvey captured the leader's bib just 4 seconds ahead of teammate Devon Kershaw in second. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
    Canadian Alex Harvey celebrates his second career individual World Cup stage win on Saturday after taking first in the 4.5 k freestyle prologue on the first day of the 2013/2014 Tour de Ski. Harvey captured the leader’s bib just 4 seconds ahead of teammate Devon Kershaw in second. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)

    With the air temperature around 2 degrees Celsius (36 Fahrenheit), and three laps of a 1.5 k loop on dirty manmade snow, the race was not so much topographically difficult as it was technically challenging to find the best snow and maintain technique.

    During his warmup, Harvey focused on finding the fastest path through the slush.

    “When I skied the course before the race that’s all I did, we just skied a couple laps looking for the hard, firm snow, the clean snow, too,” he said on the phone after winning Saturday’s race for his first individual top 10 of the season. The last time the 25-year-old Harvey won a World Cup event was in the 3.3 k freestyle prologue at 2012 World Cup Finals in Falun, Sweden.

    On Saturday, he won it by 4.1 seconds over Kershaw, his teammate and friend, in 9:03.4. A late starter, Norway’s Chris Jespersen couldn’t come close enough and placed third, 10.6 seconds behind Harvey.

    There were initially concerns that the course might slow as the race progressed, but instead, pacing proved crucial, and the early pace setters faded on their final lap.

    Jens Ericksson of Sweden was an early leader, setting the splits and fastest-finishing time until Austria’s Bernhard Tritscher came through 2.3 k three-tenths of a second faster. However, Tritscher could not maintain that pace and ended up 27th. Kershaw’s 2.3 k time ranked ninth. Hammering hard late in the race, Kershaw swept into the finish in first place, ousting Ericksson from the top spot by 11.4 seconds. Kershaw’s finishing kick was strong enough that he gained five seconds on the Swede in the last 700 meters.

    “I really wanted to ski into the race, even though it’s a prologue, that’s not usually my style,” Kershaw said. “When I’m on the podium on the World Cup I’m usually very aggressive and attacking, but it’s just been so hard to believe in myself lately that I just had to ski into it.”

    A couple minutes in, Kershaw quickly realized that he could go faster.

    “Like ‘Nope, the body is actually there and I have to actually take this chance and go for it’ because you don’t get those kinds of feelings racing every day,” he said. “From there I just attacked, and when I went across the line in first I was surprised, but I think the most surprising thing was I didn’t think it would hold for anything, I thought it would be a great race for me, maybe top 10 or something, but to finish the day second and have only Alex beat me was a real shocker for me.”

    After Kershaw, France’s Robin Duvillard crossed the line, visibly frustrated as he looked at the clock and saw his time was 9.7 seconds slower than Kershaw’s to put him in second for the moment. The likes of Germany’s Axel Teichmann (who ended up 33rd) and Sweden’s Anders Södergren (24th) also could not come close to matching Kershaw’s time.

    Throughout the race, a fog continued to steadily descend on the Oberhof track, as soaked spectators tried to make out the action and view the stadium TV screen through the mist. The slushy snow was difficult on ski poles as well, with Norway’s Tord Asle Gjerdalen breaking a pole and then missing the hand off of a spare, which cost him seconds and ultimately put him in 58th of 106 finishers.

    Harvey started the race under control and steadily sped up. He nearly tangled with Germany’s Tobias Angerer, who started just as he came through the stadium on his second lap, but the incident didn’t throw him off.

    At 2.3 k, Harvey was 3.8 seconds down on Tritscher’s time, and in the running in a tightly grouped race.

    “I was getting splits off of the guy that started ahead of me, so I knew I was just one or two seconds off the pace early on,”  Harvey said. “I knew at one point starting my last lap, I was like one second or maybe equal to Devon according to [coach Justin Wadsworth’s] splits and then I just went hard on the last lap.”

    That was his strategy: conserve to have enough to go all-out for the last 1.5 k.

    “It’s a really flat prologue, but I think it makes it really hard because there’s no recovery at all,” he explained. “I wanted good juice for the last lap, and I think it paid off. ”

    The difficult snow also brought out a number of different technical styles for dealing with the conditions, many of them rough and at a high tempo. Harvey looked to be skiing smooth with a lot of glide, much like Kershaw had skied, and his final lap powered him into first, four seconds ahead of Kershaw.

    Some skiers complained about the conditions in Oberhof with Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby telling NRK before the race that it was a “parody” of cross-country skiing. Harvey, on the other hand, found the conditions this year better than last year’s prologue at the same venue.

    “Last year it was so sugary in the stadium, and this year it was still sugary but not as deep,” Harvey said. “I actually think the rain kept it more stable. For me, I was gliding the same or just a bit more because I was pushing more at the end.”

    After Harvey finished, no late starters could threaten his lead. Russia’s Illia Chernousov started 66th and finished third before Jespersen, continuing his impressive form, bested him by 3.2 seconds.

    A Norwegian favorite, Petter Northug started late in the race with a explosive exit out of the start and a fast early pace. At 2.3 k he was 0.8 seconds ahead of Harvey’s split and appeared to be a threat. It was not his day though, and the Norwegian looked visibly tired as he finished 23.6 seconds behind Harvey in 24th.

    Besides Harvey and Kershaw’s historic finish, Canadian Ivan Babikov posted his best prologue finish of 26th (+24.8).

    Andy Newell led the American in 20th, Simi Hamilton was 42nd, and Noah Hoffman 82nd for the U.S. Ski Team.

    Harvey called his victory a surprise.

    “I wanted top five … I was sixth last year,” he said. “I’ve been good in prologues in the past so I was hoping for top five, maybe podium but the win was a bit of a surprise for sure.”

    Devon Kershaw racing to second, his first top 30 of the season, in the opening stage of the Tour de Ski -- the 4.5 k freestyle prologue -- in Oberhof, Germany. Kershaw placed second to teammate Alex Harvey in a historic 1-2 finish for Canada. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
    Devon Kershaw racing to second, his first top 30 of the season, in the opening stage of the Tour de Ski — the 4.5 k freestyle prologue — in Oberhof, Germany. Kershaw placed second to teammate Alex Harvey in a historic 1-2 finish for Canada. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)

    For Kershaw, placing second in the first race of his eighth Tour de Ski was important to his self belief. In 2011, he won four medals at the Tour, but had yet to crack the top 30 this season.

    “My confidence has been really shaken this year,” Kershaw said. “I know I’ve done great training and great preparations, but the feeling while racing just hasn’t been there. So today, even though I’ve been feeling really great all week, I was having a hard time trusting those feelings. It was like really, ‘Do I really feel good? I haven’t felt good in awhile so I hope so.’ ”

    He’s written some of his results off to “really, really hard” training, but he didn’t expect to be so far off the pace in and back from the leaders in each of his Period 1 races.

    “That’s been really hard on me mentally, to be honest,” he said. “Last year was a tough season for me and I know I did great preparations all year in the off season, so it’s just really hard to be patient and stay believing in myself. But this week something clicked after [the World Cup in] Asiago.”

    There, Kershaw came as close to making the points as he has all season, placing 33rd in the classic sprint.

    For Kershaw, Saturday’s race was something of a moment of truth.

    “I felt good in the warm up and [thought] if I don’t have these good feelings in the race, then I’m totally lost and I don’t understand cross-country ski racing anymore,” he said. “Then the race happened and those good feelings remained.”

    Canada’s head coach, Wadsworth has been confident that these results were on their way throughout the first period of World Cup racing.

    “You’re always surprised to go one, two, even when things are going really well,” Wadsworth said. “It was a bit of a surprise for sure, but I knew after the first workout the guys did in Davos and they all said they felt good, that everything was leading in the right direction.  We know where the fitness was and it’s starting to show now in the results.”

    For the Canadian team, their standout results in the prologue are nothing new. At World Cup Finals in 2012, Harvey and Kershaw placed first and third.

    Harvey said the prologue’s format suits them.

    “We’re good at distance and sprinting and the prologue is right in between there,” Harvey said. “But I also think that with the prologue, you get super filled with lactate and you need to hold onto your technique, and I think we worked really hard in the summer on technique and things like that and pacing, too. We really work on building in interval sessions, we do the last two or three really fast. I think in the prologue that’s what you want, to have the last kilometer or two really fast, so I think that can explain that.”

    Wadsworth also praised the work of the team’s wax technicians.

    “Our skis were really good,” he said. “Our wax technicians did an amazing job with the skis so that helped for sure.”

    He also tried to lessen the emphasis on results in a pre-race team meeting Friday night.

    “I told the athletes to do two things: one is to do a really good process, and that means thinking about the warmup, technique, everything, the same stuff you do when you’re doing a hard workout,” Wadsworth said. “The second thing is to just really fight no matter what, I don’t care if you guys get 80th tomorrow, if you show me you warmed up well and did everything and you can fight, then we’ll be satisfied. I really wanted to pull the thinking away from the results.”

    For Kershaw, the Tour remains a “day-by-day thing,” he said. “It is all for Sochi, even though I had a great start today that’s wonderful and it’s actually really nice for my head, but it is prep for Sochi. Justin and I decided after having a bit of a tough start that we’ll re-evaluate midway through the Tour whether we keep going or not. I love the Tour though, it’s my favorite race, and all the events are good for me, if I’m in shape and I’m in shape today, but we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

    In other news, Kershaw arrived in Oberhof with much less hair than he had in Asiago.

    “I had a couple days in Davos were the temperatures were warm, and it just got in my eyes on an intensity session on Christmas and was just all round unruly,” he said. “So I went to the massage therapist we have here, Scott Edmunds, and I was like, ‘Man can you help me cut this a little shorter?’ One thing led to another, and the next thing you know it’s all gone. I’ll tell you right now, it felt so good today racing without having hair jamming in my eyes. Sometimes you do have to change it up.”

    The Tour continues Sunday with a 1.5 k freestyle sprint on the same course as the prologue.  Harvey’s Tour is now aided by his possession of the leader’s bib and a 15-second time bonus, but he has no intention of contesting the title in the final climb up Alpe Cermis in Val di Fiemme, Italy, next weekend. His back can’t take it, and even if it can, he’s usually cautious about it.

    Alex Harvey (c) atop the podium with teammate Devon Kershaw (l) and Norway's Chris Jespersen (r). (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
    Alex Harvey (c) atop the podium with teammate Devon Kershaw (l) and Norway’s Chris Jespersen (r). (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)

    “I’m not planning on finishing,” Harvey said. “Just like last year I’m planning to do everything but the last climb, but for tomorrow I’m hoping to have another solid day.  Top five, top ten, the shape is good and it’s going to be the exact same course, so I’m hoping to fight up there. But it’s sprinting so anything can happen.”

    Also of note: Canada’s fourth man, Lenny Valjas is on his way back to Canada on Sunday to rehab his knee after surgery this summer.

    “The knee hasn’t been great lately, and with the first three stages being skating, that puts a lot of stress on his knee and we just felt that it’s really better for him to go back to Canada and start the rehab process again,” Wadsworth said. “He was getting to the point in Kuusamo [Finland] were it was pretty good, but since then his leg has started to atrophy a bit, and we need to get him back on track.

    “Once we saw the schedule with the Tour, all things pointed for him to go back to Canada and work with our trainers there and really try and get him ready for Sochi.  The guy’s an amazing talent, and it’s not like he hasn’t been doing anything, he’s been racing and training, he just really needs to get his leg back where it should be. We got him out on the first reasonably priced flight, so he’s going to head back tomorrow.”

    — Alex Matthews contributed reporting

    Results

  • Bjørgen Opens Tour with Slushy Prologue Win; Two U.S. Women in Top 10

    Bjørgen Opens Tour with Slushy Prologue Win; Two U.S. Women in Top 10

    Norway's Marit Bjørgen racing to victory in the opening 3 k freestyle prologue of the 2013/2014 Tour de Ski in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
    Norway’s Marit Bjørgen racing to victory in the opening 3 k freestyle prologue of the 2013/2014 Tour de Ski in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)

    Saturday morning was sunny in Oberhof, Germany. Jessie Diggins probably wasn’t the only one surprised to wake up to that, and she and the U.S. women’s team packed raincoats anyway.

    “I’ve actually never seen the sun in Oberhof,” Diggins said on the phone later Saturday.

    It started raining well before the 2 p.m. start of the women’s 3-kilometer freestyle prologue – the first of seven races in the Tour de Ski. Organizers emergency salted the course to keep the few precious uphills on the 1.5 k course in tact, and “there were apparently 300 dudes out shoveling the snow from the woods,” Diggins said.

    The track at Oberhof, Germany, the first of three venues in the 2013/2014 Tour de Ski.
    The track at Oberhof, Germany, the first of three venues in the 2013/2014 Tour de Ski.

    She, for one, was impressed. Had they not added snow to the manmade track and re-salted the course, course times would’ve been 30 seconds slower – easily.

    The 65th starter out of 80, Norway’s Marit Bjørgen quickly accelerated along the flat-and-twisting course. The rain stopped just before the women’s race, but it wasn’t pretty out there. The snow felt slow, even for Bjørgen, and without time or much use for splits in an all-out 3 k, it was hard to know how one was doing.

    With each passing checkpoint, it became evident that Bjørgen was on her way to the podium. At 0.8 k, she was two-tenths of a second faster than 23-year-old teammate Ingvlid Flugstad Østberg (first at the time, she ended up 13th). By 2.3 k, Bjørgen, 33, had extended her lead by 2.5 seconds on another Norwegian at least seven years younger than her, Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen.

    “I found it difficult to find the right speed along the way,” Bjørgen told NRK, according to a translation. “I thought to myself, ‘This can not go fast. This does not go fast.’ ”

    Norway's Marit Bjørgen (c) in first, teammate Astrid Jacobsen (l) in second, and Poland's in third at the 3 k freestyle prologue, the first stage of the 2013/2014 Tour de Ski. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
    Norway’s Marit Bjørgen (c) in first, teammate Astrid Jacobsen (l) in second, and Poland’s Sylwia Jaskowiec in third at the 3 k freestyle prologue, the first stage of the 2013/2014 Tour de Ski. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)

    But she willed her way to the finish and held her speed for the duration, winning in 6:34.4 minutes, bumping Jacobsen out of the non-existent leader’s chair by 1.9 seconds. The 57th starter, Jacobsen, 26, ultimately placed second.

    Earlier in the race, Diggins in bib 33 finished with the fastest time of 6:43.6, besting Slovenia’s Alenka Cebasek by 1.5 seconds. Soaked to the core, Diggins said she kept poking her head out of the changing tent to see if she was still in the lead, or in the top three once Jacobsen came through 7.3 seconds faster. Two starters after Jacobsen, German Denise Herrmann edged Diggins by 0.8 seconds for second place at the time, then Bjørgen bumped Herrmann back and Diggins off the podium.

    A Polish woman other than Justyna Kowalczyk made the podium in third, as 27-year-old Sylwia Jaśkowiec captured a career-best third, 7 seconds behind Bjørgen. The 67th starter, she moved Diggins to fifth, another 2.2 seconds back.

    “This was a big surprise for me. I’m very happy,” Jaśkowiec said in a press conference.

    Bjørgen congratulated her. “It’s great to have a new Polish girl on the podium,” she said at the press conference.

    On Saturday morning, Kowalczyk, the overall winner of the last four Tour de Skis, announced on Facebook that she was withdrawing from this year’s eighth edition of the Tour.  The decision came from her frustration with Tour organizers who changed several races due to low-snow restrictions – making five of seven races freestyle.

    A perennial rival, Bjørgen wasn’t happy, either. Norway has yet to win the Tour, and with Bjørgen and teammate Therese Johaug as two strong favorites, this isn’t the way they wanted it.

    “Possible victory, mine or Therese, has no taste or value without Justyna,” Bjørgen told NRK, according to a translation.

    Johaug finished 11th on Saturday, 13.1 seconds behind Bjørgen, despite a fast start in which she clocked the sixth- and ninth-fastest intermediate checkpoint times. Bjørgen gained 15 bonus seconds for the win, putting her 28.1 seconds ahead of Johaug in the overall Tour.

    With back-to-back freestyle sprints next – Bjørgen’s forte – that’s not necessarily the greatest start for Johaug.

    “I’m not stopping,” Johaug told NRK. “I’ve been training for sprints, so it will be good.”

    After Diggins, three Finns made the top 10 with Anne Kyllönen in sixth, Aino-Kaisa Saarinen in seventh and Kerttu Niskanen in 10th. Cebasek finished eighth and American Sophie Caldwell tied her individual World Cup best (like Diggins) in ninth, 11.8 seconds back from Bjørgen.

    “It was a great way to start for sure,” Diggins said. “It was really sweet to see Sophie do so well and see the other girls start the Tour strong. Our skis were rocketing; it was amazingly fast.”

    Results

  • Scott Shakes Off Distance Race to Win West Yellowstone Prologue

    Scott Shakes Off Distance Race to Win West Yellowstone Prologue

    Ryan Scott (SSCV/Team HomeGrown) bringing it home for his first career win at the West Yellowstone SuperTour prologue on Nov. 24.

    WEST YELLOWSTONE, Mont. — Friday’s distance results in the first SuperTour of the season weren’t easy for everyone to swallow, especially not Ryan Scott of Ski & Snowboard Club Vail/Team HomeGrown.

    His coach Eric Pepper racked it up as a bad day. “He went out a little hard, blew up pretty hard [and] didn’t have great legs,” Pepper said on Saturday.

    Still, seeing he ranked 78th in the 9-kilometer skate individual start hurt.

    “That was embarrassing,” Scott said after finishing more than 2 ½ minutes behind first. Fortunately, he could seek some redemption in Saturday’s 1.6-kilometer freestyle prologue.

    Scott skating to a victory at the West Yellowstone prologue on Nov. 24.

     

    With just one shot in the point-to-point race, he could go all-out and try for a drastically better result. More than jump 70-plus places, he wanted to win.

    Scott successfully took the top honor for the first time in his skiing career, clocking 3 minutes, 0.96 seconds on the South Plateau course. He beat Erik Bjornsen of the U.S. Ski Team (USST) and Alaska Pacific University by 2.33 seconds.

    David Norris of Montana State University (MSU) and Mikey Sinnott (Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation) were just 0.01 seconds apart in third and fourth, respectively. Skyler Davis of the USST and Stratton Mountain School T2 Team, who was 105th on Friday, improved 100 places to finish fifth.

    In the men’s prologue, second through fifth place were separated by just 0.68 seconds.

    While Scott welcomed the victory, after never having won a SuperTour, International Ski Federation (FIS) or college race, it was more of a primer than anything.

    Low snow at the Rendezvous Ski Trails in town forced organizers to change the sprint format earlier in the week from sprint rounds to a prologue. The snowmobile trails on the plateau couldn’t sustain full sprints: they were neither wide enough nor conducive for getting athletes from the finish back to the start multiple times.

    The prologue didn’t count toward SuperTour standings and qualifying standards for the upcoming Canadian World Cups, but it was FIS-sanctioned and good practice for the Bozeman SuperTour freestyle and classic sprints as World Cup qualifiers next week.

    Either way, the 23-year-old MSU graduate was excited to drastically improve on his distance performance with his first win.

    “It was a solid effort,” Scott said. “I felt real quick, and yeah, it went well. I had a lot of confidence going into this course, being that it was so quick and flat, and the finish was pretty good, only a slight uphill, so I thought it could be a good day.”

    It turned out to be a great day for Scott, who finished 11th in the SuperTour sprint rankings last year. The course was one he and some 175 other competitors – male and female – were familiar with. It ended where they started Friday’s race, which meant one gradual climb to the finish and mostly flat before it.

    Unlike full sprints, where racers tend to conserve energy through the rounds, a prologue required a maximal effort. Pepper said he hadn’t expected Scott to win, but he didn’t rule him out, either.

    “He’s better in rounds than qualifying,” Pepper said. “This shows he’s been working on qualifying, so for him to have a good day like that is great.”

    Erik Bjornsen (APU/USST) puts it into high gear in the finishing stretch to place second at the West Yellowstone prologue on Nov. 24.
    At the same time, he was particularly impressed Scott could outdo a stacked field in which the top 20 finished within 10.21 seconds of one another.

    “A win is a bonus really,” Pepper said. “It’s impressive, those first 20 or 30 guys, they’re all really good. To get on top of that group when only a couple of top guys aren’t there feels great.”

    Even though Friday’s race didn’t cater to his strengths, Saturday’s result was a major boost moving forward.

    “It’s fairly rewarding to be able to come out and race fast today,” Scott said. “I know I can still kick it in gear and move pretty quick so that’s kind of what I’m shooting for. I’m glad I was able to perform well enough today and we’ll see, end of next week for the rounds and whatnot, the races up in Bozeman.

    “I’ve been really training for sprint this year,” he added. “I’m hungry.”

    Bjornsen as the runner-up tied his best SuperTour result – even though Saturday’s race wasn’t technically a SuperTour – since placing second in last year’s 15 k classic in Bozeman.

    He said last year wasn’t his best as far as sprints go (although he did place third in a NorAm classic sprint at Sovereign Lake, B.C.), so he made that a priority this year. Considering Saturday didn’t have World Cup implications, he used the prologue to try a few things.

    Mikey Sinnott (SVSEF) en route to a fourth-place finish.

    “I warmed up pretty hard and the goal was to go out hard and hammer the V2 alternate on the flats,” Bjornsen said.

    After the race, he spoke with some people who said they did some tuck skating. He didn’t do any of that, he said, just tall V2-ing to make every stroke count.  When he reached a road sign a few hundred meters from the finish, he focused on turning it on. With 100 meters to go, Bjornsen searched for the finishing kick he usually has, but it wasn’t there.

    “I knew that I left it all out there,” he said. “I actually ended up throwing up a little bit [after], but I definitely laid it all out there which I’m happy about.”

    While Bjornsen might have been pegged as a favorite, Norris was a sprint surprise finishing 2.72 seconds behind Scott.

    David Norris (MSU) racing to a third-place finish.

    It’s not that Norris hasn’t logged impressive results; he was second in the 20 k classic at NCAA Championships in March for MSU’s first-ever podium. The 21-year-old was second in the 30 k mass start at U.S. nationals last year and third in the Bozeman SuperTour 15 k classic behind Bjornsen.

    But a sprint podium?

    “I always want to win, so I was just going for that,” Norris said. “I just went hard right from the start. I was trying to hang on that last hundred meters.”

    He held on just enough to edge Sinnott, who was second to Sun Valley teammate Reid Pletcher in the West Yellowstone freestyle prologue last year. Preliminary results listed Davis in second, Norris in third and Bjornsen in fourth, but once timing data updated and results became official, the final standings came through.

    Just 0.29 seconds off the podium, Davis felt like he had a great race. The uncharacteristic leaping and shouts from his Stratton coaches indicated he was on the right track. With 100 meters to go, Kaeding was yelling for him harder than he’d ever heard, Davis said. Earlier in the race, program director Sverre Caldwell gave him a “woo hoo!” and jumped as he passed by.

    Skyler Davis (SMS/USST) in the finishing stretch of the West Yellowstone freestyle prologue. After thinking he was second initially, he ultimately placed fifth.

    “I was like, ‘I’ve never seen that so I better keep going real fast,’ ” Davis said after the race.

    While warming up, he laid out a pretty distinct game plan. Only one downhill made the course tough so he needed to build momentum fast and stay smooth. Like Bjornsen, that “little squiggly sign” was his cue to go hard.

    “I put it down from there and I saw the hundred meter and it was like, ‘Wooo, [then], uh oh, it’s hurting bad, like, really bad,’ ” he recalled. That’s where Kaeding’s presence helped him.

    “More than results everybody had kind of check marks they wanted to do, little process goals,” Kaeding said of his team, which included women’s prologue winner Sophie Caldwell. “Checked those all off. Everyone was happy with how those went. The results take care of themselves.”

    — Audrey Mangan contributed reporting

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    Complete results (scroll down for men)