Review:  Best Poles Money Could Buy, Part 2

Review: Best Poles Money Could Buy, Part 2

Gear News, Newsfeed
This is continuation of Review: Best Poles part I We follow an alphabetic order and continue to present you the very best poles, used by the very best of skiers. Some poles manufacturers ( we are talking about you, Rex, Start, RCS, SixTen and USSPC ) do produce quality 100% UHM carbon fiber poles - but do not sponsor any World Cup athletes. Whether they are not good enough for the very best or their respective owners have other ideas as to how to advertize, we simply would not know. The matter is, we can't show them for the lack of self-taken photos at the top events, sorry. But even without aforementioned, the field of the World Cup club pole makers is rather crowded with at least 11 companies vying…
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Finnish Riddle

Finnish Riddle

Money & Finance, Newsfeed
World-class athletes running in the races broadcast on the national television with massive ratings and ever increasing interest from sponsors.... Sounds like an ideal Nordic skiing competition? Well, not so fast. Painstakingly, year after year, the Finnish Ski Association, working togeher with the country's national public broadcaster YLE, built a seemingly very local event, the Finnish Cup , into a television blockbuster , watched on TV by over half a million Finns. That's more than 10% of all adult population - massive ratings for cross country skiing! However, with the first stage of the Cup less than three weeks away, it's still totally unclear whether the popular event will be shown this year, Ilta-Sanomat reports A bone of contention is television rights. The Finnish Ski Association sold those rights to…
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Review: Best Ski Poles Right Now, Part 1

Review: Best Ski Poles Right Now, Part 1

Gear News, Newsfeed
A few words before we start: All poles in our review are top-of-the-crop from their respective producers, all are made of 100 % Ultra High Modulus Carbon Fiber - and all are World Cup quality ( the fact that reflected in many a model's name) We don't differentiate among Classic and Skating poles - we simply see no reason as models only differ in size, not in construction. Some skiers in our photos have changed poles' sponsors since but all the sticks pictured are still produced & sold. Except for one model that we have doubts about - of which more later. As with the skis, there are two distinct categories: poles used by many a top skier - and those used by only a few or even one WC-class…
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Norwegian Ski Federation Membership Is Declining Steadily

Norwegian Ski Federation Membership Is Declining Steadily

Money & Finance, Newsfeed, Travel & Mass Sport
17% down. That's by how much the membership in the Norwegian Ski Federation declined from 2012 to 2018, according to NTB news agency via Nettavisen In 2012, there were 178,091 members, while in 2018 the number dropped by over 30,000 to 147,789. The silver lining is in the fact that the ski association is still the second largest in the country behind the Norwegian Football Association (that keeps on adding members) The Norwegian skiing is known for its well developed, robust ski club network- all of which are paying fees to Ski Forbundet, relative to the amount of its members. Clearly, a reduction in membership would lead to that revenue stream drying up quite a bit. With TV audience figures for the langrenn still high, there is no need to…
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1100 Hours Man Iivo Niskanen

1100 Hours Man Iivo Niskanen

Leaders, Newsfeed
1100 hours in preparation for the season 2019/2020! That's how many hours of training Iivo Niskanen bagged, according to Iltalehti newspaper . No wonder the Finnish Red Bull looked so tired the last time our camera lense caught him -that was at the Blink Skifest in August. Even some teammates , according to Iltalehti, call that amount " masochistic ". Martin Sundby had reportedly done even more, around 1200 hours training a couple of seasons ago - be he has gone down to under 1000 hours recently, by his own admission.
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