April 12, 2013 – The FIS Continental Cup series all over the world are some of the most important Cross-Country competitions as they allow the younger athletes to prepare themselves for the World Cup level in several ways. As a bonus, the Continental Cup winners earn the right to compete in the World Cup Final. Below is an overview of the COC standings for the 2012/13 season.

OPA Cup
The OPA Cup was again concluded in Toblach (ITA) after a series consisting of seven venues in five countries. This season was a great success for the German skiers who dominated the top 5 places in the overall ranking led by Franz Goering with 797 points. Second placed and runner-up Sebastian Eisenlauer collected 627 points whilst Lucas Boegl claimed third place with 596 points.

Also on the ladies’ side, the German skiers were dominant and occupied the top two positions with Monique Siegel claiming the Cup with 836 points, 113 points ahead of the second best and compatriot Sandra Ringwald. Spaniard Laura Orgue took an excellent third overall with 668 points.

Scandinavian Cup
This season’s Scandinavian Cup included five different venues across Norway, Sweden, Latvia, Estonia and Finland. Over the course of the years, the Norwegians have dominated the top of this series and this season the Norwegian men occupied top four spots as Tomas Northug won the series ahead of Snorri Einarsson and Hans Christer Holund.

The top nine of the Scandinavian Cup on the ladies side were purely Norwegian business led by Kari Vikhagen Gjeitnes who topped the podium with 766 points before Tuva Toftdahl and Britt Ingunn Nydal.

USSA Super Tour
The US SuperTour is currently still underway with two competitions remaining at Lake Tahoe (USA) to conclude the season finals. Rosie Brennan and Michael Sinnot are leading the overall standings prior to the last competitions on 11th April.

Haywood NorAm
In a very tight competition until the last races of the season in Mont St. Anne (CAN), Amanda Ammar and her Canadian compatriot Jesse Cockney took the titles in the North American Cup just 9 and 8 points ahead of their closest contenders. Ammar scored a total of 816 points while Cockney took 915 points which earned them the titles in front of Kate Brennan (807) and Alysson Marshall (763) on the ladies’ side, and Graham Nishikawa (937) and Michael Somppi (928) on the men’s side.

Far East Cup
The Far East Cup 201/13 featured three venues this season at the Alpensia Resort (KOR), Otoineppu and Sapporo (both JPN).

On the ladies’ side, Naoko Omori claimed the overall Cup victory with 380 points. Chisa Obayashi finished second, only 5 points behind the winner while Yuki Kobayashi took third with 360 points.

Among the men, last year’s runner-up Nobu Naruse was the strongest competitor and won the series with 401 points. Keishin Yoshida picked up 380 points and took second place with Akira Lenting repeating his strong performance from last year finishing third in the overall standings of the Far East Cup with 331points.

Balkan Cup
The Balkan Cup has seen its conclusion in Dvorista-Pale (BIH) at the end of March. Bulgaria’s Veselin Tzinzov clearly won the men’s series ahead of two Croatians Edi Dadic and Andrej Buric.

The standings were reversed for the ladies where Croatia topped the ranking as Vedrana Malec collected 460 points ahead of Bulgaria’s Teodora Malcheva who claimed the runner-up position and Antoniya Grigorova-Burgova in third overall with 380 points.

Eastern Europe Cup
The Eastern Europe Cup included the venues of Vershina Tea, Krasnogorsk, Kahrkiv (both UKR), Moscow and Syktyvkar (both RUS). Sergey Novikov claimed the overall victory with 394 points ahead of Vladislav Skobelev in second whilst Sergey Shiriaev took third place.

On the ladies’ side, last year’s winner Elena Soboleva (RUS) repeated her overall victory ahead of Marina Chernousova and Daria Godovanichenko.

Slavic Cup
This season’s Slavic Cup, which concluded in Zakopane (POL), was almost all about Czech and Slovakian Cross-Country skiers.

Six venues hosted competitions as Daniela Kotschova (SVK) topped the ladies’ ranking in front of two Polish skiers, Agnieszka Szymanczak in second and Martyna Galewicz in third place.

Jiri Horcicka of the Czech Republic won the men’s standings having collected 676 points. His compatriot Ondrej Horyna finish 127 points behind and took second place and Poland’s Jan Antolec defended his third place from last year with 500 points.

February 07, 2011 (Barrie, ON) – What would happen if you held a World Cup and nobody came? Well, you would call it Rybinsk, Russia and there would be free world cup points for just about everyone who was there.

This past weekend there were three – yes three World Cup races on the calendar, a distance pursuit, an individual sprint and a team relay. For the distance race there were only 33 men (11 Russian) and 30 women (11 Russian). It didn’t get much better for the sprints with fields of 54 men (15 Russian) and 34 women (16 Russian). The relay for women had 7 teams (4 Russian) and 10 for men (again 4 Russian).

This is brutal. There has got to be something wrong with the schedule to have so few skiers in a World Cup in the first week of February. When there have been World Cups in Canada the last few years they have been better supported. The Ontario Masters Championship in Parry Sound had almost as many skiers! This has to be an embarrassment to the FIS Cross Country Committee.

Now, I’ve been to Rybinsk and it is not that bad there. I know that some countries were having National championships, but that should be no excuse. In fact, I don’t think that this should be allowed to happen either. We have the same problem in North America, but we still send our best skiers to compete at the World Cup.

Meanwhile, it should be no surprise that the Russian skiers dominated the result list for these races – at least for the men. Alexei Pethukov won the sprint, Ilia Chernousov won the distance race and the Russian 1 team won the relay.

It shows how far the Russian women have fallen when they cannot win a race with at home against such small fields. They couldn’t even win the relay with 4 teams out of 7 in the field – the Italian women beat them. Katja Visnar and Vesna Fabjan of Slovenia were 1st and 2nd in the sprints and Justina Kowalczyk of Poland won the distance race and was 3rd in the sprints. She has pretty well cemented the overall World Cup title for this season as the only person who could beat her, Marit Bjoergen was at home, once again, in Norway training for the World Championships in March.

In the 1990’s the Russian women were unbeatable. Of course, we now know why. A good, structured, well organized doping program will do that for you. Now they are ordinary and need to get their act together quickly in order to have a decent showing in Sochi in 2014.

There’s a two-week break in the schedule before the World Cup resumes in Drammen, Norway on February 19-20 with a short distance race and individual sprints. Hopefully we should see full fields for this event and truly have a “World Cup” race.

I can’t close this week without some commentary on the World Junior and World U23 racing from Otepaa, Estonia last week. In my opinion, a finish in the top 10 at either level is a great indication that a skier has the talent and potential to be a consistent point scorer (top 30) at the World Cup level.

A good way to look at it is to look at junior and professional hockey in North America. If a junior hockey player is drafted in the first round by a professional team then they have a good chance of becoming a National Hockey League player. Not all of them do, of course, and there are players who are not drafted in the first round who make it. I think that less than 5% of junior hockey players ever play in the NHL.

Most of these junior players who are drafted end up playing for a year or more in the AHL – kind of the equivalent of the U23 level in skiing. Not all players in the AHL make it to the NHL – again a small percentage and only the best move on. Some of the very best junior players go right to the NHL, but they are the exception.

When I look at the North American results from Otepaa I see the same thing. Alex Harvey is World Champion at U23 and finishes consistently in the top 20 on the World Cup. He was on the podium a number of times as a junior, as well. In hockey he would have been a top draft pick as a junior and would likely have been in the NHL in his first or second year as a pro.

The other skiers that finished in the top 10 – Kevin Sandau, Jesse Cockney, Len Valjas, Jessie Diggins and Noah Hoffman all have a shot at a career as a World Cup skier. Emily Nishikawa, Michael Somppi, Alysson Marshall and Sadie Bjornsen had top 20 finishes – kind of like being drafted in the 2nd round of a hockey draft. They have shown some talent, but there is still a lot of work to do.

Don’t get me wrong, there are no guarantees that any of these skiers will make it on the World Cup (except Alex Harvey – he is already there). It also doesn’t mean that the skiers who were there from North America but outside the top 10 or top 20 (or those who didn’t make the trip) will not make it eventually, but it is going to take them much more time and work.

Malcolm Gladwell in his great book “Outliers” told us that the difference most of the time between those who “make it” and those who don’t is not talent but work and opportunity. He points out that it seems to take 10,000 hours of work for someone to be the best in just about anything.

At an age of 22 or less, all of these skiers have not put in the time yet to know if they are going to make it. They also need to continue to have the opportunity to race and train with the best in the world. I hope that the USST and the Canadian NST continue to give these young skiers as many opportunities as possible to do this.

February 02, 2011 – Double Congratulations to FIS World Champion Alex Harvey! The first congrats is for the win and the 2nd is for saying he was going to Otepaa to win and then making it stick by winning – not always the way it happens when you think of all the variables and there is only one first place. First off he was at an altitude camp in Italy and putting in big hours, hasn’t raced in a while, and altitude is not a place you’re working on speed. I was also impressed on how much he knew about Belov and his inability as a sprinter, and that with the race ending with them together that he would, or could, take Belov in the sprint – which he did. A super effort by the World Champion on all fronts.

Another thing about the WJrs and U-23s is if your placing in the top 15 and you continue to progress in your growth as a skier – training hours, good program, coaching, international racing – you will more than likely be a top-30 skier on the World Cup in the future. People like Jessie Diggins, Noah Hoffman, Len Valjas, Jesse Cockney, Michael Sompii, Sadie Bjornsen, Kevin Sandau, Emily Nishikawa and Alysson Marshall are skiers showing these kinds of abilities and direction.

Across the board the young women (WJs) in both countries have a lot of work to do – their results could be better when you realize how many of them have been skiing for many years in formal programs with professional coaches.

One more thing about the World Jrs, is that if you’re blogging about your trip, make sure you do a good in depth job of talking about your feelings thoughts and what experiences you had. All this has a huge impact on your skiing peers and younger skiers and can accelerate their growth so they know what to expect. I know you have to do it once – go over THERE to get the stardust out of your eyes – but look at all of the guys we have at the senior level that are doing it. Kikkan Randall is the best at blogging – hands down.

Remember, at the FIS Worlds in Oslo, it is only four skiers per nation per event. So, in actuality the Worlds are easier then the WCup, except it’s the Worlds, and you’re in Norway, and every course will be totally lined with thousands of spectators. The crowds will be four times the size of the those in Vancouver if not more. A 100,000 people for some events is not out of the question – believe me. It’s one hell of a big experience.

The Craftsbury Marathon, has to be a must-do in your racing career, just for the sheer joy of every year being on one of the best and most fun XC courses in NA. The grooming is always superb and this is one fair course with all of its ups and downs. A seamless experience from entry to the final awards ceremony. I encourage you to get it on your bucket list.

BNS (Boulder Nordic Sport) in case you didn’t know, had a guide they put in the race packet at Craftsbury that you received when picking up your bib. I didn’t look at it until I got home and as I picked it up I was wondering what they were pitching as it’s 50 pages thick. Well here is how I assess it after taking the time to do a page by page – read this and you will have the information and education to help you move up in your age class. These guys at BNS have done their homework and are giving you the benefit of all this knowledge. Yes, they are selling – but in a good way – as they give you the knowledge to make the right choice for yourself if you do the reading. I was impressed! So, look for it, as they’re stuffing it at about 10-12 different marathons this winter.

One other thing about the World Champ, Alex made a quote, and the way he phrased it he insinuated that he wanted to get a World Championship title before going to Oslo – but it’s not out of the question to be thinking of another one in Oslo. I always felt, if you were afraid to talk about it, your chances of making it happen were just that much more unlikely. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Canada’s Men’s World Championships Team, is sure looking way stronger then last year’s Olympic Team that was so successful in Vancouver last winter. Much more experience, the addition of Valjas in sprinting, Phil Widmer’s return after missing the Olympics because of a shoulder injury, Kershaw has become a much better tactical skier, and they all seem to have gained international confidence from what they have done in the early winter. If George Grey is back to last year’s form, that is a real bonus. It’ll be fun figuring out who gets to ski which events – but there should be good coverage in the full schedule. Let’s get it on!!

Hey, this looks like it is going to be cool! Click HERE and give it a try.

My missing skiers for this winter, Sophie Caldwell and Fred Touchette, both are noticeably missing in a lot of the results – I hope both are well and still racing!

Talk to you soon…

January 29, 2011 (Otepaa, Estonia) – The powerful Olympic silver medalist from Vancouver, Alexander Panzhinskiy (RUS), was dominant today in Otepää and took the gold medal in the men’s 1.4km U23 sprint classic picking up where he left off last season on the tracks at Whistler Olympic Park.

Panzhinskiy was strongest in the qualifications but the Canadian men loomed large, especially so with Hardwood’s Len Valjas, perhaps the tallest international skier of the day, with an impressive second behind the Russian. What’s more Jess Cockney qualified on the bubble in 30th, only a scant .21 seconds of being out of the big show. The lanky Valjas brings to mind images of the 1960s Norwegian star Harald Gronningen, a giant of the sport for Norway who had five OWG medals.

Timo Andre Bakken of Norway finished second and secured the silver medal. Magnus Moholt of Norway was fighting hard in the finishing straight with Dietmar Noeckler of Italy but Moholt edged out the Italian and captured bronze.

Overall it was a great day for the Canucks with Cockney of Canmore and Valjas, who hails from both Estonian and Swedish heritage, finishing sixth and seventh respectively. Looking back a year ago, Valjas was sixth in the U23 Championships in France. The top American today was Fairbanks, Alaska’s Reese Hanneman in 24th, who went out after the quarterfinals after qualifying in 29th. Canada’s Michael Somppi (CAN) did not start.

Following the race SkiTrax spoke with Valjas who commented about his race. “I felt Super good today out there. It was hard to get by the leaders in the heat because there was only one good glazed track to ski in, around the course. The rest of the tracks got completely filled in with windblown snow from the 40km/h wind. In my semi I came into the last 200 meters with the leaders, but I was forced into the very left lane which no one had skied in all day and it was filled with snow. I really didn’t have any other option out there. I had to break trail in the final sprint while the other guy beside me skied in a fast glazed track. I am very disappointed with my result today. I had the fitness to finish top 3 today, but ran into some bad luck.”

Cockney, who was second in his quarter final round losing out to Russian speed king Panzhinskiy, advanced to the final via a fast semi taking one of the lucky losers spots. SkiTrax caught up with the elated Canuck post race.

“Today was a mix of very different feelings for me and thankfully it ended with pure joy,” said Cockney. “I skied very poorly in the qualifications and I consider myself very lucky to have even made the heats. From then on I felt like I was playing with house money and figured the best thing to do was relax and ski my ass off in the heats.

“I am generally a smart heat skier and my goal is always to move higher in position than my qualifying result. This worked out and I was able to move from 30th qualifier to 6th overall on the day. This is a very new feeling for me as the last time I qualified for heats in Europe was two seasons ago in a German OPA race. Needless to say I’m ecstatic with how the day ended and I am already looking forward to next season and doing what I can to put up a better fight in the A final,” added Cockney, who skis out of the Foothills Nordic Ski Club.

Canadian coach Eric de Nys was happy with his young racers. “A great day for us today. Jesse had strength, speed and LUCK on his side today. He had a very strong quarter final just being nipped at the line by the Olympic silver medalist Panzhinskiy. Then in his semi, a Swedish athlete was DQ’d for a technique violation which moved Jess up to 4th. His semi ended up being quicker than semi number 2 in which Len placed third but lost the lucky loser spot to Jesse. Len had an amazing qualifier and first heat that he won easily.

“In his semi the cards didn’t fall Lenny’s way with two places on the track where he was forced to ski, not by choice. The clutch was the finishing stretch where Len was forced into the third track which no one had skied all day. He was strong enough to hold his own but not strong enough to get by and with the wind and falling snow, this track was a clear disadvantage but overall still a good day,” de Nys told SkiTrax.

Qualifications HERE.
Final Results HERE.

January 27, 2011 (Otepaa, Estonia) – Canadian National Team skier Kevin Sandau wanted to be in the top 10 in today’s men’s 15km Free Race at the U-23 World Championships in Otepaa, Estonia, and when the race was over he had turned in a stellar performance finishing 5th with a time of 36:04.8. Mission Accomplished!

”My goal today was a top 10, so I’m ecstatic about the result,” Sandau told SkiTrax post-race. “I started out the race conservatively so I could really push the final lap and finish strong.”

The USA’s Noah Hoffman also skied well today making the top ten finishing in ninth. The Aspen, CO native turned in a time of 36:42.4.

It was a Russian podium sweep as Evgeniy Belov took top honours as expected in today’s race, claiming the victory in 35:26.3, a comfortable 16.1 seconds ahead of his teammate Pavel Vikulin. Completing the hat trick for Russians today was Raul Shakirzianov placing third at 23.4 seconds behind Belov.

For Belov this marked the best day of his career so far after he was second last year in the interval start event at the FIS Junior Worlds. Reflecting on his win he told the FIS Press Service, ”My classical technique is better than my free, so I was prepared for a tough fight today. I had to speed up at the finish. All four laps were good for me. I want to win more medals here in Otepaa.

“I am familiar with this track because we have had training camps here,” he added. “And I also competed here last week at the World Cup.”

Another wonderful story played out with the skiing of the UK’s Andrew Musgrave. The hard-working athlete who has been training in Norway had the fastest time in the first lap but then lost some time to the Russians. At day’s end Musgrave had turned in an admirable performance finishing sixth one spot behind Sandau.

Demonstrating both smart and savvy skiing Calgary’s Sandau was very impressive. The skier-based out of Canmore-who grew up on the trails in Kananaskis Country told SkiTrax described his race.

“My first splits were top six, and by the half way point I was skiing around third. I still felt pretty fresh, so I was able to maintain and push myself further. I caught teammate Michael Somppi on my final 3.75km lap and he stuck with me until the finish, so he really pushed me till the end.”

Reflecting on an exciting, motivating day Sandau added, ”Before coming here I had my sights set on a strong pursuit race, so I’m really hoping for a podium spot on Monday.” The way he’s skiing that could well become a reality.

“The race today was hard. The course was technical and demanding,” the Hoff related to SkiTrax by email. “You had to constantly be working. I didn’t feel great, and I had a tough second lap.

“Then the German Andreas Katz caught me, and I was able to hang on him for the rest of the race. We caught Tad [Elliott] and the three of us skied together. It was really helpful to be able to follow Katz. I’m looking forward to watching some sprint races over the next couple of days. I think there is potential for some great results. Then the pursuit on Monday should be fun as well.”

Other North American finishers included Michael Somppi (CAN) 14th in 37:03.7, Tad Elliott (USA) in 19th with a time of 37:18.3, Jesse Cockney (CAN) in 27th stopping the clock at 37:36.2; in 32nd place was Graeme Killick (CAN) in 37:48.6, the USA’s Alex Treinen placed 35th in 38:04.9, and David Norris (CAN) in 39:03.0 was 46th.

“Awesome day for Sandau,” said an elated Eric de Nys, Canadian coach, “He skied consistent and strong. Michael Somppi and  Emily Nishikawa also had very strong races which was great to see.  Overall, today was a fabulous day and we know we have our strongest races still to come so we’re looking to build on these results.”

Full Results HERE.