It’s still only the final weekend of January, but already some things are coming to an end. This week marks the final bloc of SuperTour racing until the Birkie* (*if it happens please snow tyvm). It is the last time the World Cup will be in Europe until March. The 2023/2024 race season is far from over, but we are approaching a brief intermezzo here over the next few weeks.
Unless you look at the start list for Friday’s mixed relay, in which case it appears that break time has come early for several athletes.
(Any snark you may sense here is directed at FIS, by the way, not at the athletes; of course I would like to watch Jessie and Rosie et al. race tomorrow, but of course they should not so long as they are still 1–3 in the overall standings, and so long as relays are still unscored. The fact of the matter is is that Devon Kershaw will likely have some humorously caustic thoughts on FIS’s issues here come Monday; stay tuned.)
Anyway. There is World Cup racing in Goms on all of Friday through Sunday, and SuperTour racing in Craftsbury on first Friday and then again on Sunday, with a citizens race in the middle on Saturday. After that athletes will likely head home for a few days, before, hopefully, heading west to first Canmore and then Minneapolis.
Here is when the races will be this weekend:
Craftsbury SuperTour (local time at venue: Eastern Standard Time)
| date | race | time (EST) |
| Friday, Jan. 26 | skate sprint qual (M then W) | 10 a.m. |
| sprint heats (schedule) | 12 p.m. | |
| M sprint final | 1:20 p.m. | |
| F sprint final | 1:30 p.m. | |
| Sunday, Jan. 28 | M 25km mass start skate | 10 a.m. |
| W 25km mass start skate | 10:15 a.m. |
Results?
Go here for live results while the races are ongoing, and here for results results once the races are done. The first of these should be particularly useful on sprint day; it takes some time to process heats into final results form.
Streaming?
I don’t believe so, sorry. Here are some course maps and weather links fwiw.
Goms World Cup (local time at venue: Central European Time, six hours ahead of EST and 10 hours ahead of Alaska)
| date | race | time (Alaska) | time (CET) | results |
| Friday, Jan. 26 | 4 x 5km mixed relay | 5:30 a.m. | 3:30 p.m. | here |
| Saturday, Jan. 27 | skate sprint qual | 3 a.m. | 1 p.m. | here |
| sprint heats | 5:30 a.m. | 3:30 p.m. | here | |
| Sunday, Jan. 28 | W 20km mass start skate | 11:30 p.m. Sat. | 9:30 a.m. | here |
| M 20km mass start skate | 3:30 a.m. Sun. | 1:30 p.m. | here |
Who is racing for the U.S.?
In Friday’s relay: Ben Ogden, Erin Bianco, Gus Schumacher, and Sammy Smith. (Average age of relay team members: 22.) On Saturday and Sunday: I would suspect largely the same athletes who raced last weekend, save for Julia Kern, who has already returned stateside.
How can you watch the races?
I have thoughts on this. TLDR, pay Ski & Snowboard Live (link) $8 to $9 per month throughout the season if you would like to be assured of being able to watch the races, with good quality, and audio commentary in American English, and so on. For as little as $0/month, depending on VPN cost, get a VPN that will let you geo-locate to Canada, then watch the free livestream on the FIS YouTube channel, with commentary in British English. Find out more about that here. You might want to try Windscribe as a VPN; their free version gets you a fair amount of data.
You can also take your chances with what gets uploaded to YouTube after the fact, which is free but not always as reliable, and subject to pesky take-down notices. Find out far more about all of these options, including some VPN how-tos, in this article:
Enjoy the races.
— Gavin Kentch
