nordic skiing

Norway's double Olympic nordic skiing champion Petter Northug won his fifth race of the World Cup season here on Saturday when he won the pursuit on the last weekend of the season. Northug, who is already assured of both the distance and overall World Cup crystal globes, finished in a time of 1hr 00min 03.7sec ahead of Germany's Tobias Angerer, who was 1.7sec adrift, while Lukas Bauer of the Czech Republic was third, 1.8sec behind the winner. With Sweden's Emil Joensson having won the other Crystal Gl  

Swiss ski jump sensation Simon Ammann on Saturday added the world ski flying title to his double Olympic gold haul and overall World Cup trophy in the ski jump. Ammann, 28, amassed a total of 935.8 points from the four-event competition to finish well ahead of Austria's defending champion Gregor Schlierenzauer (910.3) and Norway's Anders Jacobsen (894 pts). At last month's Olympic Games Ammann repeated his feats from Salt Lake City in 2002 by winning normal and large hill gold, thus becoming the first  

The USSA Junior Olympics for ski jumping and Nordic Combined concluded last weekend in Steamboat Springs, Colo., where more than 60 competitors from across the nation were vying for junior national titles. It was an exciting week for five members of the Itasca Ski Club, who base their training at Mt. Itasca in Coleraine. Kyle Rodgers, Tyler Hutchins, Andre Denney, Somer Schrock and Henry Kavanagh-Beltman competed on the 68-meter ski jump at Howelson Hill in Steamboat Springs.  

Masako Ishida cruised to victory in the women's 10-kilometer classical at the Nordic skiing national championships on Friday. Ishida, who produced the best ever performance by a Japanese skier in an Olympic cross country event in placing fifth in the women's 30-km classical at last month's Vancouver Games, timed 33 minutes, 29.0 seconds in Otoineppu, Hokkaido, finishing 1:23.4 clear of second-placed Chihiro Kasahara. Masaya Kimura won the men's 15-km classical in 42:56.0. © 2010 Kyodo News. All rights  

-One brother said 10 kilometres wasn't a good distance for him. The other said he's no good at cross-country's classic skiing style. So much for pre-race warnings.

There were some issues out on the course   -Robin McKeever

 

Afghanistan veteran Andy Soule won what was not only the first U.S. medal of the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games Saturday, but also the first-ever medal for the U.S. Paralympic Biathlon team. After placing fifth in the morning qualification race, Soule came from behind in the final race of the men's sitting 2.4-km pursuit to win the bronze medal on the opening day of competition. After I passed [Sergey] Shilov, I just hammered it and didn't look back," said Soule.  

Even the Paralympic athletes who compete in biathlon sometimes have a hard time wrapping their heads around the idea of visually impaired people shooting rifles. "Blind biathlon is a bit of an oxymoron, isn't it?" joked visually impaired cross-country skier Brian McKeever. "The first time I heard about it I laughed."

You cycle the action on the rifle and it beeps faster and faster with a higher and higher pitch the closer you are to the center (of the target) ... You are listening for the solid, high-pitched tone.   -Brian McKeever

 

Less than a week after landing on the World Cup podium, Kikkan Randall, of Anchorage, Alaska, again led the U.S. Ski Team, finishing 15th during a sprint in Sweden on Wednesday. Randall's finish comes on the heels of her third appearance on a World Cup podium, finishing second in a hunt for the win in Oslo, Norway that put her high enough in the World Cup standings to compete at the season's final events. Sweden's Anna Olsson brought in the women's win for her home country.  

Even the Paralympic athletes who compete in biathlon sometimes have a hard time wrapping their heads around the idea of visually impaired people shooting rifles. "Blind biathlon is a bit of an oxymoron, isn't it?" joked visually impaired cross-country skier Brian McKeever. "The first time I heard about it I laughed."

You cycle the action on the rifle and it beeps faster and faster with a higher and higher pitch the closer you are to the center (of the target) ... You are listening for the solid, high-pitched tone.   -Brian McKeever