Ski Racing Roundup: Fall training, Camerota's jump, FIS North America Marathon Cup

Ski Racing Roundup: Fall training, Camerota’s jump, FIS North America Marathon Cup{mosimage}This winter, skiracing.com will be home to weekly news roundups, leading you to regional and international developments you may have missed. Following our website re-launch on October 21, you can check in each Wednesday for Mark Eller’s roundup of nordic competition news. If you have suggestions for the roundups, please let us know. We look forward to receiving your comments at webeditor@insideinc.com.

Nordic athletes training and competing around the globe

Autumn, in its red and orange glory, has blown into town. The season is conducive to training, and that’s exactly what nordic racers around the world are doing.

The Swedish website Skidsport.com reports that Chinese elite skiers in both cross country skiing and biathlon have been training hard in the ski tunnel in Vuokatti, Finland. The Chinese women’s team in particular is reportedly logging massive numbers of training hours. The Chinese distance runners have employed a similar over-distance strategy in recent years, which paid off at the Olympic Games this summer.

In Sestola, Italy, Pietro Piller Cottrer of Italy and Elena Veedeneva of Russia won the final 12-kilometer skate race in the 2004 rollerski World Cup, held September 17-20. Italian skiers dominated the men’s field taking the top five spots. Rikard Grip of Sweden was sixth. Russian and Ukrainian skiers took the top four spots in a very competitive women’s race. Get the full results at Fasterskier.com .

In jumping action at Fox River Grove, Illinois, nordic combined skier Eric Camerota (Park City, UT) unloaded the longest jump of the day in the first round and held on to win a ski jumping SuperTour contest, staged by the Norge Ski Club, on September 19. Camerota jumped 73 and 71 meters on the 70-meter hill to compile 233.8 points with Jim Denney (Duluth, MN) second at 230.1 after jumps of 70.5 and 72.5 meters.

FIS puts its stamp on a new North American endurance series

North American endurance junkies should be pleased to learn that the International Ski Federation (FIS) has introduced the North America Marathon Cup. This series will build upon the success of the FIS Marathon Cup, of which the American Birkebeiner is part, and which has become in the eyes of the world’s top competitors, the World Cup of long-distance skiing. The competition series will consist of top FIS sanctioned marathon races. Men and women will ski the same distances during the series, and the results of all four races (using SuperTour points) will determine the overall FIS North America Marathon Cup Champion.

The competitions in Minneapolis, Aspen and Royal Gorge are also a part of the SuperTour, and will be scored to the USSA and FIS ranking lists (the Noquemanon will not be scored for FIS and USSA points). Prize money will be awarded at each competition, and the overall male and female winners will each receive a $2,000 prize in addition to the prize money awarded at each stop. Here’s the schedule:

January 29 – Marquette, MI, Noquemanon 50km C

February 6 – Minneapolis, MN, City of Lakes Marathon 35km F

February 12 – Aspen, CO, Owl Creek Chase 30km F

March 20 – Royal Gorge, CA, Gold Rush 50km F

Previous Ski Racing Roundups:

International, September 15, 2004

Domestic, September 28, 2004