Leaders

27Feb 2020 by DS News Team

Skier Becomes Firefighter

All pro-skiing careers end one day and athletes are faced with a choice of a new career in life. Jackline Lockner chose to become a firefighter. [caption id="attachment_14918" align="alignnone" width="1920"] A 25 year old Swede is a silver medalist of the FIS Rollerski world championship in sprint [/caption] [caption id="attachment_14919" align="alignnone" width="1920"] She is a also one the leading figures of the emerging sport of Ski Supersprint...[/caption] [caption id="attachment_14917" align="alignnone" width="1075"] ...and a full-time student of the Sandö college of SwedishCivil Contingencies Agency. That's her in orange suit practicing to extinguish fires [/caption] Photo courtesy of Jackline Lockner's Instagram

26Feb 2020 by DS News Team

Åre Uphill Sprint – Glimpse Into Future Of Skiing?

Leaders, Newsfeed

Bad weather, fears of COVID-19, documented lack of enthusiasm by younger generation. Perfect storm for the venerable sport of cross country skiing? Indeed it is - that's why it's time to start looking at things under entirely different, more, you know, aggressively steep, angle. [caption id="attachment_14899" align="alignnone" width="1920"] To survive and thrive cross county skiing absolutely needs to come to places like Åre[/caption] What is Åre and what makes if special? It's a premier Scandinavian alpine skiing resort that has distinctly Swiss feeling: fancy cars parked outside swanky hotels, restaurants catering Nouvelle Cuisine, affluent downhill skiing crowd. The crowd that has little or no clue about cross country skiing ( Norwegians exempted). This is cross country skiing's biggest problem: 30 years ago urban kids were growing up much closer to…

23Feb 2020 by DS News Team

Good Day For Norway, For International Skiing – Not So Much

Leaders, Newsfeed

...On that photo Therese Johaug and Heidi Weng are looking at a race results monitor. But they might as well be looking at the competition. Norwegian juggernaut is not just strong - it's overpowering and pretty much zapping the air from the sport. Occasionally during the season it seems that the Norwegian dominance is broken - by Swedes in female skiing, Russians in male - but then Bang! And we are back to Top 10 being 75% Norwegian. That's dangerous. The International skiing lives off the money it gets from selling television rights. Now, put yourself in shoes of a national TV executive who is trying to decide: spend on skiing or on some Spartan race or whatever? There is 99% chance that yhe said executive would choose the sport…

22Feb 2020 by DS News Team

You’ve Asked: Who Is That Bolshunov’s Sponsor?

Leaders, Newsfeed

Lately Alex Bolshunov have started to wear a sponsor logo that is not altogether familiar to the world of skiing. Let us try to fill that gap in your knowledge ULK Group is one of Russia's biggest wood processing companies. Their website announces that " The holding unites enterprises harvesting, shipping and processing of lumber as well as wood residuals processing" ULK is known for its support of youth sport in the region where the company is based - Archangel (a.k.a. Archangelsk) in Northern Russia. Last year the founder & CEO of ULK, Vladimir Butorin made an offer to Alex Alex Bolshunov and Natalia Nepryeva to switch residency to Archangel that they both accepted. " Residency" in that sense does not mean physical presence - in Russia competition in skiing…

21Feb 2020 by DS News Team

Ski Tour 2020 – Round Up

Leaders, Newsfeed

This is an effort to summarize impressions from the inaugural Ski Tour 2020. At least we hope it's inaugural and not a one-off event in the "gap year " when there are no Olympics or the world championships. We deliberately post this before the Tour's end as there is enough info to convey and the most novel races have happened already. Good: [caption id="attachment_14841" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Tour is happening in the geographic area that could be described as "heartland of cross country skiing", at least one of them. That's what sets it apart from a better known cousin, Tour de Ski. It translates into spectators' stands packed and general atmosphere of the big event[/caption] [caption id="attachment_14832" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Ecology/ sustainability trend is not a fad - it's a fashion…

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