Welcome to our Canadian readers. Gerry Furseth, who knows roughly as much about cross-country skiing in Canada as I do about cross-country skiing in Alaska, has joined the Nordic Insights team. I am thrilled to have him on board, and to provide our readers north of the 49th parallel (plus those small handful of site visitors residing in the small enclaves of Toronto, Ottawa, Québec City, etc.) with the coverage that they deserve.
Speaking of which: At the end of this article, please find a list of potential topics for future articles. What do you want to read about next? We’re listening.
By Gerry Furseth
Tour de Ski will stream for free on YouTube
In a thrilling announcement in November of this year, FIS gave Canadians free, live coverage of (the start of) the World Cup season on YouTube. And FIS being FIS, this was delivered for the first two weekends in Period 1 before being discreetly replaced by highlight reels.
Nordiq Canada got confirmation from FIS that Canada will again have live coverage of the entire Tour de Ski. Live commentary has been in British English. Remember how hard it is to do live commentary (talk sense continuously while watching the video feed, reading the splits page, listening to the stadium commentary in one ear while the producer shouts in the other) before criticizing a slightly bumpy start.
American viewers who wish to avail themselves of this should consider a VPN with Canadian servers and enough free data to make it through seven races. Windscribe comes to mind.
Tour de Ski starters
Canada is sending only four athletes to this week’s Tour de Ski, with an unusually large group of eleven nominated for subsequent racing in Period 3.
The four athletes who will be racing World Cup Period 2 (i.e., the Tour de Ski) for Canada are Katherine Stewart-Jones, Antoine Cyr, Olivier Léveillé, and Julien Locke. The current Continental Cup leaders for Canada, based on race results from Anchorage earlier this month, are Julien Locke and Sonjaa Schmidt. Locke accepted his nomination and will be racing in Europe; Schmidt declined her nomination for Period 2 starts, while accepting for Period 3.
You can find the full list of eleven Period 3 nominations here.
Canadian news sources
There are now two podcasts providing you with Canadian nordic ski news. The Devon Kershaw Show, with first Jason Albert and now Nat Herz as co-host and straight man, has been rolling for years, with a luminous guest list including Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, Cyr, Stewart-Jones, and Rosie Brennan.
New for this season, Canadian Jesse Cockney is the voice of the Canadian Skiing Podcast. With the assistance of Nathaniel Mah, the person behind Nordiq Canada’s dramatically improved social media, this is an entertaining way to sneak behind the fence at World Cup and Continental Cup racing from a Canadian perspective. (Continental Cup is spelled “Nordiq Cup” north of the border, and “SuperTour” to the south.)
Cockney was an Olympian who earned his first World Cup top-twelve finish at home in Canmore. Mah represented Canada in Nordic Combined, a sport for people who don’t think cross-country skiing and ski jumping are challenging enough and combine the two for extra degree of difficulty points.
Nordic Insights has added a Canadian writer. Gerry Furseth is a longtime skier, retired race official, and, not to put too fine a point on it, me.
As with any journalist, or person, I have biases.
I spend winters at Sovereign Lake/SilverStar, and just like every nordic skier everywhere, firmly believe my “home” trails are the best in the world.
I was born in Western Canada and will always argue that Canmore is part of the west. The east starts at Calgary, ask anyone. If I couldn’t live in British Columbia, I would choose Québec City.
I am old enough to have raced on wooden skis with pine tar.
I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering, worked in computer modelling, wrote a racing tactics column for a sailing magazine, and spend summers wishing I was skiing.
What is next in Canada?
Or, what do you want to read about? Here are some potential ideas:
- A series on small team waxing for loppets. No wax truck, no grinder, no tech team, no test pilots, just you and one or two friends waxing your own skis in the new world of no fluoro.
- Canadian coaches are said to be ageing out of the profession. Is this common perception true? And if true, what can we do about it?
- Building your ski community. A series on how communities found success.
- Ski Travel. The world is full of amazing places to ski and eat.
Nordic insights is listening. Tell us what excites you, enrages you, inspires you, and what you would like to hear more about. Comment below, or email to gerry (at) nordicinsights.news.
