March 2019 Archives

09Mar 2019 by DS News Team

Holmenkollen Ski Festival, Most Popular Ski Race On This Planet

Holmenkollen Ski Festival is one totally unique event in international xcski calendar. For starters, it's the only 30/50k race on the World Cup calendar and has been so for years. So if you a true fan of long distance skiing - you'd have to come to Oslo - or wait for the World Championships or the Olympics. Holmenkollen competition trail is the longest, over 5k - everywhere else they typically use something around 3 kilometres. It used to be 25k (!) - but times have changed, clearly. It's the only race truly located in the city ( Big Oslo is home to over a million people). For a visitor it means you could be on the trail and waving flag within 1.5 hours of your plane landing at Oslo airport.…

07Mar 2019 by DS News Team

Novel Way Of Winning In Sprint Or I Am Very Sorry For What Happened

Leaders, Newsfeed

Two rising stars of international skiing had a bit of a kerfuffle at the sprint finals of the Universide-2019. [caption id="attachment_10519" align="aligncenter" width="1470"] Alexander Terentiev[/caption] First, sprint prodigy from Team Russia Alexander Terentiev, 19, stepped on opponent's skis nearly causing the latter one to lose the balance. Both literally - and figuratively - speaking [caption id="attachment_10518" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Ivan Yakimushkin[/caption] The said opponent, Ivan Yakimushkin, 22 , found a novel way of responding - and overtaking - in a closely contested race. By grabbing & pulling his pole Yakimushkin, who, like Terentiev, made alreadyh several World Cup appearances for Team Russia , then accelerated and came to the finish first, while unlucky opponent finished second. Judges, somehow, have summarily failed to appreciate Yakimushkin's innovative methods and disqualified him. Later Ivan…

06Mar 2019 by DS News Team

Klaebo Gets Suspended Jail Sentence, Fine For Driving Accident

Leaders, Newsfeed

Norwegian stars ( to be sure - males stars) and their driving issues! https://www.instagram.com/p/BurMVAqBVH1/ 16 days of jail time and a fine of 10,000 NOK - this is a verdict the Sør-Trøndelag District Court handed down to Johannes Høsflot Klæbo for his driving accident last December. Jail is suspended. He will also lose his license for 9 months Klaebo rear-ended another car on a roundabout. A 12 year girl was injured in collision. By comparison, certain Petter N. got 50 days in prison ( also suspended) and NOK 185,000 for his valiant effort to check how far he could push Audi A7 on a Norwegian road. https://www.instagram.com/p/vqxPE-Iz4s/ Then, of course, there was that little factoid of him driving 80 kilometres per hour in a 40 zone, and a blood alcohol…

05Mar 2019 by DS News Team

China Opens Asia-First XCSki Tunnel

Newsfeed, Travel & Mass Sport

While we were busy watching the events in Seefeld, at Vasaloppet etc., Chinese comrades have fairly quietly opened a cross country ski tunnel "....An all-weather cross-country ski resort, believed to be Asia's first of its kind, was put into use in northeast China's Jilin Province..." What's immediately striking, is the amount of investment - 990 million yuan translates into some 130 million euros at the current exchange rate. Or about four times the amount the Oberhof ski tunnel in Germany, widely considered the most expensive of them all, cost to build Somehow, none of that staggering amount of money was spent on promotion & advertisement - hard as we tried, we couldn't find a single photo of the new facility. What's not in doubt, however, is a massive commitment China…

04Mar 2019 by DS News Team

What Skis Did They Really Use In Seefeld

Gear News, Newsfeed

By now everybody sure knows that the skis they run & won ( or not) on are not the same they are standing at the podium with. Hence the name: "podium skis". [caption id="attachment_10474" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Podium skis - nice & clean & shiny[/caption] The latter ones are always the latest models - the former ones could literally be anything. We haven't seen anybody winning on 10 year old skis but sure saw some Top-30 athletes using those in their races to varied effect. Anyways, we thought it would be fun to take a look at what did they REALLY use in Seefeld - in this case primarily in sprint [caption id="attachment_10463" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Fischer once again won the manufacturers's competition - thanks to such mavericks as Johannes Klaebo, pictured…

Month: March 2019