Sweden’s Stina Nilsson, Ebba Andersson, Charlotte Kalla and Anna Haag faced the cameras after winning the silver medal in the relay at the 2017 Nordic World Championships.
I really appreciate the recent article the Faster Skier web site did on some of my work covering the nordic ski racing scene. Above, one of the photos from the article, taken in Lahti, Finland, in 2017. You can reach the Faster Skier article by clicking here.
And I was happy that some of the photos of the Chaloux Brothers firewood business that I published in the blog back in July are in the Autumn issue of Northern Woodlands, below. The Chalouxs are great people and hard workers in a tough business. I photographed them and their firewood operation over the course of several months. Northern Woodlands is an excellent magazine focusing on the forest ecology and economy of the Northeast. Click here for my original gallery of the Chalouxs at work. Click here for a link to the Northern Woodlands article. And subscribe or buy the magazine.
A few more Lahti favorites, all from the men’s 50-k, the last event in the competition. Below, Canada’s Alex Harvey, en route to winning the race, and after.
Favorites from Friday’s men’s 4-by-10-kilometer relay and today’s women’s 30-k at the World Nordic Ski Championships in Lahti, Finland. Long story short, as the two fans above indicate, the Norwegians won them both. They are the people in red and blue. 
Favorites from today in Lahti: East Montpelier, VT’s, Liz Stephen, above, charging up the big hills as part of the US women’s 4-by 5-k relay team. Liz hammered the hills to help bring the team to within about 30Â seconds of a bronze medal. Other favorites, below: Norway’s Marit Bjorgen waving the flag (again) after Norway won the relay; the Swedish relay team, on camera for the ski press after finishing second; the Canadian team, looking wholesomely Canadian after finishing tenth in a field of sixteen; and Sadie Bjornsen leading the US skiers out of the finish area. 
Iivo! Iivo! Iivo! screamed thousands of Finns as Iivo Niskanen (that’s Eee-voh) sprinted the last hundred meters of the 15-K interval-start world championship race yesterday here in Lahti, Finland. Denied gold in the team sprint on Sunday when he collided with Norway’s Emil Iversen, Niskanen would not be denied again. And he instantly became the most shouted-about man in Finland. The U.S.’s Erik Bjornsen, below, skied to 18th, his best individual finish in World Cup racing. Below that, Niskanen and his wife after the race, and the crowds, plus Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby, who finished second. 
I don’t know what it’s like to fly, but ski jumpers do. One of the nordic combined jumpers flies after taking off from the 130-meter ski jump at the world championships in Lahti yesterday.
One from yesterday: Norway’s Marit Bjorgen, en route to her 16th World Championship medal, first place in the 10-K interval start at Lahti. 
More high drama at the Lahti World Ski Championships in Finland yesterday: Americans Jessie Diggins and Sadie Bjornsen, wearing the US women’s team’s trademark striped socks, took third in the Team Sprint, above: Diggins collapsed after outsprinting Sweden’s Stina Nilsson (photo below). Norway’s  Emil Iversen lost first place for himself and his teammate Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo after breaking a pole in a collision with 200 meters to go. His crash with Finn Ivo Niskanen as Niskanen was passing him in front of tens of thousands of roaring home-crowd fans brought a collective sigh of despair from the crowd and opened the way for Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov, below, to win. Niskanen got up and took the bronze. Iversen skied in with his broken pole, below. 
 
 
Men’s and women’s skiathlon yesterday: Racers ski the first section of the race on classic skis and the second on skate skis: 15 kilometers for the women, 30 kilometers for the men on a grueling, hilly course. Also local color, above, and Norway’s Marit Bjorgen, below, with her son after winning the women’s race. The lone skier with the big TV screen in the background is Norwegian Martin Johnsrud Sundby finishing second after breaking a pole trying to get by winner Sergey Ustigov on the final hill. Also below, in red, Canada’s Alex Harvey, finishing fifth. 
  
Jessie Diggins (left, Afton, MN) and Kikkan Randall (right, Anchorage, AK) with Maiken Caspersen Falla after Falla won the women’s freestyle sprint at the Lahti World Championships and Diggins and Randall finished second and third. Sophie Caldwell (Stratton, VT) was a third American woman to make it into the sprint finals, finishing sixth. 
 
  
Today the women’s 5-k and men’s 10-k qualifiers were held, races designed so skiers without World Cup points can compete. Racers from such unlikely ski countries as Iran, Lebanon, Ireland, Brazil, Venezuela and Armenia skied, along with others from countries like Australia, Iceland and Denmark. The top 10 in each race will get to race against World Cup skiers later in the competition. By the way, the guy with the big gray beard at the bottom is Juha Mieto, a many-medaled Olympic skier from the 1970s, said to be among the most popular celebrities in Finland. 
 
Today was the day before official competition begins at the 2017 World Nordic Ski Championships in Lahti, Finland. Â It’s cold, sunny and the snow is granular and icy. Teams from around the skiing world were checking wax, practice-jumping the 100-meter “normal” hill, Â and generally preparing for the biggest event of the year. 
