Sarah Hendrickson (USA), 2013 World Champion. Photo: Fiemme 2013.

VAL DI FIEMME, Italy — American ski jumper Sarah Hendrickson, 18, became a World Champion on Friday at the 2013 Nordic World Ski Championships in the HS106 competition. She jumped 106.0 meters and 103.0 meters to best a 43-person field in the only women’s event at the championships, earning 253.7 points in total. Sara Takanashi (JPN) took silver with 251.0 points and Jacqueline Seifriedsberger (AUT) was third with 237.2 points.

Hendrickson led teammate Jessica Jerome to sixth for a strong one-two punch for the Americans. Jerome flew to 100.0 meters and 98.0 meters in her two jumps, earning 224.9 points. Lindsey Van (USA) was 16th and Abby Hughes was 33rd.

This is a career first World Championship gold medal for Hendrickson, who was the overall World Cup champion in 2012. She was 16th in Oslo two years ago and 29th in Liberec for her championship debut.

Results.

— For the first time ever, female ski jumpers will compete in a FIS World Cup event, beginning with Saturday’s event in Lillehammer, Norway. After fighting long and hard to have women’s ski jumping included in the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, the addition of a female field to the World Cup is big step in the direction of gender equality in modern athletics.

FIS reports that over 50 women from 15 countries are expected to compete.

— Germany is getting amped for their first home World Cup of the season, which kicks off in Dusseldorf on Saturday. Tens of thousands of spectators are expected to line the course that overlooks the Rhine River. Stay tuned for FasterSkier staff predictions.

— Even though he’s not racing in Dusseldorf this weekend, Petter Northug (NOR) still found a way to sneak into our RSS feed. Apparently the Nordic celebrity is now the proud owner of a horse named Touched By An Angel. The article is unclear as to whether this is a name of Northug’s choosing. He recently bought shares in the “people’s horse,” which anyone can do if they want to own the racehorse for a year. Touched By An Angel will race primarily in Northug’s hometown of Trondheim.

Northug isn’t the only ski star to get into horse racing. Vibeke Skofterud (NOR) owns the shares to Charge d’Affaires, who races in Momarken.

Men and women will jump together as part of a normal-hill team event, which will be introduced at the 2013 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Val di Fiemme, Italy. The International Ski Federation (FIS) decided to approve the ski-jumping event, which will include two male and two female jumpers per national team, at its recent autumn meeting, the Helsingin Sanomat reported.

The move is significant, especially for about 120 female ski jumpers competing internationally. Women were first allowed to jump at the 2009 World Championships and participate in a team event at the 2011 Worlds. In April, women’s ski-jumping was approved as an Olympic sport for the 2014 Games, and the inaugural women’s World Cup will take place this season.

While the moves seem like victories to the sport and to female competitors, not everyone was happy with the news about the mixed-team format.

“In my opinion, this is slightly questionable,” Matti Pulli,Finland’s former head of ski jumping and nordic combined, told the Finnish newspaper. “It is the type of discipline that as a parent I would not necessarily advise my daughters to get involved in. It is a completely different thing when you pick up a team sport where you are constantly surrounded by friends and where the cost of the equipment is on a different scale.”

Click here for the full story or the FIS Ski Jumping website.

–At a meeting in Acapulco, Mexico, the International Olympic Committee will decide as early as today the fate of women’s ski jumping for the Sochi 2014 Olympics, after the sport missed out on a spot in the 2010 Vancouver Games. According to the AP, IOC officials have said that “women’s ski jumping may be accepted on a conditional basis, pending a review of the quality of competition at the 2011 world championships in Norway.”

–Brickwheels, a ski and bike shop in Traverse City, Michigan, held a ski race on Saturday on ice shavings from a local rink. The race appears to have been the second of the year, after the University of Alaska-Fairbanks claimed bragging rights with their “Party Popper 200″ sprints last week.

–Brian McKeever and his brother and guide, Robin, were named Canadian Paralympic athletes of the year in a ceremony on Saturday. The pair won three gold medals at the Vancouver Paralympics.

–Retired Finnish star Virpi Kuitunen may be pregnant…

–The Vancouver Sun has a reporter in Sochi previewing some of the work being done in advance of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games there. He’s got some interesting information about the environmental associated with the development being done, and a bit on the ski jumps.

–The sport manager at Whistler Olympic Park has expressed interest in hosting a women’s ski jumping World Cup once the circuit’s inaugural season gets underway in 2011-2012.

–FIS has a short piece on Dario Cologna and his training on the Sognefjell Glacier.

–The Scandinavians are STILL racing.

–Slovenian Petra Majdic, who was seriously injured during the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, has announced that she will continue her career for at least one more year. Her goal for the upcoming year will be to win the overall World Cup title.

–The New York Times has an interesting piece on microdosing, an old doping technique that may not be detectable by current monitoring methods–even the blood profiling systems in place in cycling and skiing.

–The U.S. Women’s Ski Jumping Team and its supporting foundation, Women’s Ski Jumping USA, are hosting a second-annual fundraiser July 14 at the exquisite SKI Magazine Dream Home in Deer Valley, Utah. Tickets here.

–In this video from the combined Canada/U.S. national team start-up camp in Bend, Oregon, George Grey plays an excellent straight man for Ivan Babikov.

–Canadian Devon Kershaw has some great photos and a brief write-up of the trip he and Chandra Crawford took to Spain and France.