Category: XCFeeds

A collection of live feeds from cross-country ski blogs around the web.

2011 Fall Camp Vid

Check it out here: VID link or watch below

Revived Films also got a bunch of cool footage and shots, so check their site for some more “pro” shots from the thin air of the Rocky Mountain State.

December 19, 2011
Rogla Sprints
Heat Times

I’ve been otherwise occupied, so I didn’t follow the racing action too closely this weekend. But for you own edification, here are how the heat time shook out among the men’s finalists:

Some of the outlying times were cut off, obviously. Note the general increase in speed in the quarters, and then folks backed off again in the semis, it seems. Semifinal 1 was a fair bit faster than the other:

I had some technical difficulties with the women’s splits, which is a bummer, but that’s life.

North American Women’s Sprinting

But hey, three North Americans in the top ten? Not bad, eh? Are you wondering how often that has happened? Funny you should ask. Including yesterday, I can find 7 instances of North America placing 3 or more skiers in the top ten since 1992. Six are women’s sprint races, 1 is a men’s distance race.

That’s probably enough information for the savvy fan to pick up on some likely candidates. The men’s race was the Vancouver Olympic pursuit, of course. I want to emphasize that that is the only time since 1992 that North American men have put 3 or more skiers in the top ten. That is my new favorite way of describing how well Canada skied at that Olympics.

As for the women’s races, most of them occurred during the Beckie Scott/Sara Renner era, with either Chandra Crawford or Kikkan Randall being the third North American. (Daria Gaiazova and Milaine Theriault each snuck in there once as well.)

Further, given Kikkan’s bad luck with her poles yesterday, we could very easily have had two North Americans on the podium. That has only happened once since 1992, with Beckie Scott and Sara Renner in a World Cup sprint (admittedly it was a World Cup held in Canada, so it may not have been well attended).

Related posts:
December 19, 2011
Back From The Bed

It is wonderful to be home for the holidays. The skiing is great, the weather is beautiful and my friends are around to go skiing. Unfortunately I spent the first half of the week sitting in bed allowing my body to rest and beat the cold I picked up traveling home from the races in Canada. It is tough to sit indoors and watch your friends play and have fun, but resting is the best way to be able to get back out there soon.

Eating plenty of fruit and drinking a lot of fluids.

Thankfully there is no other place that I would rather be sick than at home with my family. Caitlin takes care of me pretty well, but it hard to beat having your wife, Mom, Dad, Brother and Sister around. I think the cold was a way for my body to say that I need to rest up a bit more before continuing to trade hard.

Now I am feeling great and ready to go. I adjusted my training to accommodate for the few sick days and have entered a volume block of training. Caitlin is helping me out with a peaking plan from her year with US Biathalon and with a few tweaks my Coach Jason and I have a good plan leading up to US Nationals the first week of January.

There is not much snow throughout the world right now, but the skiing in the Methow is fantastic.

Since I have been healthy I have been training 4+ hours each day. It feels great to get outside after taking 4 days off from training. Four days doesn’t seem like much, but looking out at the beautiful weather it seemed like forever to me.

December 19, 2011
Back From The Bed

It is wonderful to be home for the holidays. The skiing is great, the weather is beautiful and my friends are around to go skiing. Unfortunately I spent the first half of the week sitting in bed allowing my body to rest and beat the cold I picked up traveling home from the races in Canada. It is tough to sit indoors and watch your friends play and have fun, but resting is the best way to be able to get back out there soon.

Eating plenty of fruit and drinking a lot of fluids.

Thankfully there is no other place that I would rather be sick than at home with my family. Caitlin takes care of me pretty well, but it hard to beat having your wife, Mom, Dad, Brother and Sister around. I think the cold was a way for my body to say that I need to rest up a bit more before continuing to trade hard.

Now I am feeling great and ready to go. I adjusted my training to accommodate for the few sick days and have entered a volume block of training. Caitlin is helping me out with a peaking plan from her year with US Biathalon and with a few tweaks my Coach Jason and I have a good plan leading up to US Nationals the first week of January.

There is not much snow throughout the world right now, but the skiing in the Methow is fantastic.

Since I have been healthy I have been training 4+ hours each day. It feels great to get outside after taking 4 days off from training. Four days doesn’t seem like much, but looking out at the beautiful weather it seemed like forever to me.

Caitlin has been training some serious volume and did an hour of threshold intervals today. One of the tools we use to improve our ski technique is to video each other and I got some footage of her. It is fun to see how fast she can go. The US Women are skiing very strong right now and are right in there as some of the best in the World. We get pretty excited about training when we see the US skiers throwing down on the World Cup circuit.

December 19, 2011
Craftsbury Eastern Cup Recap

Whew! We’re back from Craftsbury, VT after our first weekend of Eastern Cup racing and it was a really solid start to the season for the SMS crew. Big thanks to Crafstbury and their staff for working around the clock (literally) to make this race happen. The 1.4k loop of manmade snow that they produced was in perfect condition and was quite spectator friendly for coaches and parents. : ) On Saturday, we had a classic sprint prelim in the morning (1 lap of the course) and a 3k classic prologue (2 laps) and on Sunday we had a 4.5k freestyle race (3 laps) for the J2s and women and a 9k freestyle (6 laps) for the men.

Lots of highlights from the weekend from current SMS skiers and alums – including podium performances by the J1 boys, who went 1-2-3 (Paddy, Hamish, Gino) in the prologue on Saturday, Hamish & Gino going 2-3 (J1 boys) in the sprint, Paddy & Gino going 1-3 for J1s on Sunday, Koby and Brooke each picked up a J2 win (Brooke in the prologue, Koby in the freestyle race), Katharine was on the podium in the J2 prologue, Russell won the BKL race, Sophie (alum/Dartmouth) won the prologue and the freestyle race, Pat O’Brien (alum/Green Team) was 2nd in the sprint and the prologue, Heather Mooney (alum/Middlebury) and Izzy (alum/Dartmouth) first and second for juniors in the prologue, plus many, many more awesome individual results. Congratulations to everyone for getting the first Eastern Cup weekend under the belt for the year! Well done!

Saturday CL Sprint Results

Saturday CL Prologue Results

Sunday 4.5/9k FS Results

More Photos

Thanks so much to Herve Pelletier for many of the photos below from Sunday’s freestyle races! Apologies to Skyler and Corky who we missed on camera – we’ll get you next time!

Mac.

Tyler was feeling under the weather on Saturday, but bounced back to race on Sunday.

Murph.

Mackenzie.

All tuckered out.

Rachel Hall (Middlebury), Gage Fichter (UVM) and Issy.

Paddy.

Mollie.

Koby – first career Eastern Cup win on Sunday!

Katharine.

Issy P.

Kate.

Helena.

Gino.

Charlie.

Calvin.

Brooke.

Alex.

Hamish.

Pippin.

Chase (alum/Middlebury) ripped it up on Sunday with a fantastic fifth place finish in the freestyle race.

Alum Patrick O’Brien – racing for the Crafstbury Green Team – picked up two 2nd place finishes on Saturday.

Austin Caldwell (alum/Dartmouth) gets cheered on by his sisters.

Sophie and Izzy.

Russell went from 4th to 1st in the final 1/2K of the race to win the BKL race on Sunday afternoon.

J2 girls sprint podium: Julia Kern, CSU (1st) and Brooke (2nd)

Sprint junior podium: Heather (2nd) and Corey, CSU (1st)

Sophie Caldwell (Dartmouth) – prologue winner!

J2 boys sprint podium: Koby (3rd) shakes hands with Eduoard Reed-Metayer (1st) from Canada.

J2 prologue podium: Brooke (1st) and Katharine (2nd)

Prologue junior podium: Annie Hart and alums Heather Mooney (alum/Midd) and Izzy Caldwell (alum/Dartmouth).

Happy alums! Rachel Hall & Austin Cobb at Middlebury and Izzy Caldwell at Dartmouth.

December 18, 2011
First Trimester Wrap-Up

Click to view slideshow.

The first three world cups are almost finished and I’m getting ready to head back to the States for about a week. I’m looking forward to a little rest and recovery and the fact that I’ll get to see friends and family for a week. The second week of racing here in Hochfilzen turned out to be quite a bit different than the first even though we were racing identical race formats on identical courses.

We got a big snowstorm on the day of the Sprint that dumped three inches of new snow on the course during the first half of the men’s race. This made the course slow in the beginning and fast at the end, not unlike the race at the Olympics. I had a good race and finished in 6th place when I crossed the line. Most of the top 30 world cup contenders had already finished so I thought that it would stay a top-ten. After that, the snow stopped, and all of us finishers sat in the athlete’s changing room and watched our results slip down the results board. By the end, I was in 21st.

But, that’s biathlon. This is a sport where not only do you have to execute two separate disciplines, but you also have to have a little bit of luck on your side. I have to say, at bib #42, I was not as worse off as Jay and Tim who drew earlier bibs. Regardless, I was happy with the race and looked forward to the Pursuit.

The Pursuit day dawned much the same as the Sprint, with gusty winds and about a foot of new snow, with fresh heavy snow falling from the sky. It wasn’t able to shoot as well in the first three stages as the previous week, but I managed to get up to 13th place with 2 misses by the time I headed into the last standing stage. Unfortunately, I had another lapse of focus and missed two in the last stage and finished in 25th. The first time was a bummer, last week was frustrating when I missed in the last stage again, now, I’m just motivated to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Of course this is something that is more a mental game then anything else. I know I can shoot well in the last stage of a four stage race. Now it’s just a matter of getting the job done! On a positive note, Jay had a great race with clean shooting and finished 9th.

Overall, I’m excited about the way the season has started and looking forward to the next trimester of racing after Christmas. We will be heading to Oberhof, Germany for World Cup 4 after the New Year. Oberhof is always an exciting event because they routinely have a crowd of around 30,000 spectators per race. After that it Nove Mesto, Czech Republic and Antholz, Italy.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

-LB

December 18, 2011
Heading Home

After the ski racing scene made a stop in British Columbia’s SilverStar Mountain, I headed six hours south down the Okanogan Valley to my old stomping grounds to the Wenatchee Valley. Highway 97 might not have the most recognizable name, but traveling the two lane road takes you through some of the finest agricultural country in the west. It’s always interesting to head through mostly rural, largely geographically isolated towns, like those that trade in names such as Pintecton, Oroville, Brewster or Chela, where signs from a different era and brick storefronts replace the Chevron’s and Golden Arches. The locales have a little more presence, a little more personality and I suspect reflect more the life people live there.

Heading home, though, has not brought an end to the mostly snowless winter. Snow is patchy at best. The first day I hit the trails I couldn’t head to my familiar haunts like the little Ski Hill in Leavenworth or trails that meander along the Wenatchee River. That first day I skied the first day in an alfalfa field, rolled with an Arctic Cat snowmobile in Plain, Washington. For the meager amount of snow, and limited terrain, the skiing wasn’t more than what one could expect. Also, it’s always interesting to skate and glide in some new locale. That the Plain ski venue in the alfalfa fields sits next to the only road I’ve ever seen the backseat of a Crown Vic for – for rollerskiing outside the fogline up Beaver Hill – brought back some remembrances.

Getting back home also gave me the chance to catch up with Mr. Peck and his 5th grade class. With Chrismas Break now upon them, and the schoolwork assignments giving way to Christmas parties, the girls have told me they think I am their lucky rabbit’s foot. It’s been great to get back in the classroom – especially that I finished my own finals for the university learning – to catch up with Mr. Peck and connect with the kids. Yes, the days in Pacific Northwest are the perfect place to be, even if I wouldn’t mind for a few more snowflakes to fall any day yet.

Until the next time. -T*

December 17, 2011
Rogla Sprints

On Sunday, the Rogla course can finally be put to its natural 2k purpose: sprinting. My picks, for whatever they’re worth:

December 17, 2011
Cascade Challenge Camp

Click here to sign up.

December 17, 2011
Craftsbury Livin’ in Photographs

I’m actually in Minnesota right now, not Craftsbury–it’s funny how I always feel like I don’t have any time to write blogs when I’m in Craftsbury–but here in Grand Rapids, MN there’s plenty of time for things like that. I’m a little bummed to be missing out on the excitement of the big opening Eastern Cup back on the home turf, but I’m racing some biathlon IBU cup trials out here and hoping to qualify!

Some of these pictures are a little old now, but they’re all from our last few weeks in Craftsbury after getting back from Finland.

Clare skiing in the sunset on Murphy's field after the awesome Thanksgiving Blizzard that brought us mid-winter-like conditions for a few days!

Our new friend Mo (after her sweet mohawk), the grouse. Mo has been hanging out around the house, and followed us the entire time we stacked wood and did other things in the yard. She even followed me down to the range and hung out while I had shooting practice! As you can see, the snow melted…

Pat an Nils put the roofing on our beautiful completed woodpile! Its a good thing Pat was there, or we might not have made it quite so perfect. Now we just needed to get the woodstove installed!

Pat tried out Pepa's gypsy cough remedy (which all the other Bulgarians swore by too)–put honey all over your chest and cover it with a paper bag. Then soak a sock in whiskey and put that around your neck. Pepa was on his case until he tried it–but I think he was actually supposed to sleep with it all on, instead of hang out and read Cosmo (thats right, caught!) for half an hour.

It finally got cold enough for snowmaking, and they fired up the guns!

Proof that we can go out (near) Craftsbury! Claire's in Hardwick had a "Glitter Ball", and we stayed up past our bedtimes to go! The boys came too, but they weren't as glittery…

The snowmaking crew was able to make huge piles, and then spent several days spreading it around a 1.5 k loop. Here Pepa's overseeing. Pat and Dylan drove truckfulls of snow all day.

Pat works on rigging up the stove insert for our nice-looking but very inefficient fireplace.

And now we have a wood stove!! HUGE thanks to George and Charlotte Hall, who gave us the stove!

December 17, 2011
An Introduction!

Yesterday may have been a bit confusing for some – I really didn’t announce my presence very well. My name is Kieran Jones – if you are a regular FasterSkier reader, you may recognize it from my by-line as the Canadian guy, or most recently from a sojourn to Dusseldorf, Germany, and Davos, Switzerland, for the World Cup action there. If you’re into that sort of thing, check out my race report

December 17, 2011
Round and Round Rogla Goes

Rogla, Slovenia, has only hosted the World Cup once, back in 2009, when the venue ran classic mass-start races over 15k for the women (Kowalczyk, Bjørgen, Haag) and 30k for the men (Northug, Legkov, Vylegzhanin). Those races were interesting for at least three reasons: the new site, heavy attrition in the men’s race (19 DNFs!), and some nasty racing among the women, with Saarinen getting DSQ’d

December 16, 2011
Swiss Sprinters and Bjoergen’s ‘Sore Throat’

One of the most intriguing story lines of the early season (last two weekends) has been the emergence of the Swiss sprint team as a force. Okay, so ‘force’ is an exaggeration – they have only one medal – in Dusseldorf of all places, but still. Eligius Tambornino has qualified second and third in the last two sprints, before fading to mid-pack finishes. Joeri Kindschi has also picked up two top

December 16, 2011
Points Necessary For Randall To Podium In The WC Sprint Standings
Housekeeping note: Posting may be a tad delayed and/or sporadic this weekend and into the beginning of next week since the Statistical Family has increased in size by 50%.

I’ve engaged in a bit of speculation about the likelihood that Kikkan Randall may be able to win the WC Sprint overall title this coming season. My general take was that while it’s certainly possible, it will require a rather dramatic improvement in her classic sprinting.

Obviously, Kikkan’s racing so far has cast some doubt on whatever skepticism I had. (If you have doubt in one’s own skepticism, what would that be called…?) It’s still early, but if she’s going to win the whole thing, this is how she’d need to start her season.

In any case, it certainly seems like she should be more or less a lock for the top three, given all the retirements that have thinned the ranks of the women’s field. How well will she have to do, exactly, to match her performance from last year? Well, given the changes from year to year in WC scheduling and rule changes in how points are awarded, it’s not possible to directly use previous year’s point totals as a guide. However, if we convert them to proportions of the total number of points awarded for the season, things are easier to handle.

This chart shows the range of points necessary to finish at a particular place in the WC sprint overall rankings for the women. It’s based on taking the proportion of WC sprint points awarded to women in previous years, and then converting back to the equivalent proportion of points on tap for the 2011-2012 season.

Based on this, it seems like it ought to take a minimum of 528 WC sprint points for Randall to have a decent shot at landing on the podium, and she has 240 already.

As you can see, when you hit the top spot things get very unpredictable. Occasionally you have someone completely dominate and they win a really large percentage of the WC points. But if someone shoots for 600, that’s probably a good place to aim for if you’re trying to win the whole thing. So that would mean Kikkan’s looking at possibly having to win 4 more (non Tour) sprints to put herself solidly in the running for the overall win. Obviously, she can accumulate those points without having to win every time, but thinking about it in terms of wins is convenient.

Related posts:
December 16, 2011
Haywood Norams Vernon

Team Blackjack just came back from a great 2nd weekend of racing at the Haywood Norams in Sovereign Lake, BC. The weekend included 2 classic races, sprint and distance. David lead the charge with an awesome 6th place result in the Junior Men’s 15km Classic. RESULTS: Sprint Classic Junior Men 1.4km Nicholas “DJ Bigwood” Underwood- […]

December 16, 2011
Change of Plans

December 16, 2011
City Sprinting

The ribbon of snow with Dusseldorf's impressive architecture in the background

This winter I’ve become accustomed skiing on a ribbon on snow threading through the dry woods. First it was Muonio. Then it was Sjusjoen which was closely followed by Kuusamo. We flew to central Europe and skied in Davos and Pontresina on more manmade loops. Since I had only skied on short loops raised a foot or so off the snowless ground, arriving in the city of Dusseldorf, Germany to find a 750 meter loop of snow on top of the city streets seemed rather normal. This was my first experience racing a city sprint and it was awesome!

On Friday afternoon and evening snow is trucked into the center of Dusseldorf from an indoor alpine ski run near the city. With warm rainy weather the snow starts melting about as soon as it is laid down so they wait until the last possible moment. The course isn’t open for preview until the morning of the race and even then it’s only open for a short inspection period so we didn’t even travel to Dusseldorf until Friday afternoon. We checked into our hotel where all the other teams were also staying and then went for a run along the Rhine. A lot of teams had brought rollerskis and were rollerskiing the afternoon before the race but my rollerskis are tucked away in the basement of Elinor’s house and will stay there until the spring. . The course was fast, icy, narrow, and flat and was bordered by the Rhine on one side and the city of Dusseldorf on the other . There is one small bump in the middle named “Mt. Dusseldorf” which has an elevation of approximately three or four meters and the rest of the course is flat. I was expecting it to be pretty slushy but it was actually very hard and icy. Saturday the snow was relatively clean but the wear and tear of Saturday’s racing as well as the pollution of city life had played its role and Sunday’s track was noticeably blacker. Saturday was a individual skate sprint while Sunday was a team sprint.

Skiing around the loop during Saturday morning’s inspection period was incredibly fun. It was packed with skiers and wax technicians hammering the narrow course while fans began to line up around the edges. The smell of Gluwein was strongly wafting through one turn of the course and there were cafes, bars, and lots of music everywhere. I couldn’t wait to race! Unfortunately I was a little too excited and tripped the want early, waited like a deer in the headlights staring at the screen while the starter said something to me in German, and the sprinted out of the gates frantically a few seconds later. I skied as fast as I could but the race was over before I knew it and you can’t give up a few seconds just standing there in a sprint that is well under two minutes. I was pretty frustrated with myself but it was exciting to watch a lot of aggressive skiing on the fast and narrow course. It was a great day for the American women with Kikkan winning her first sprint of the season while Chandra Crawford from Canada placed 4^th! Sunday was a team sprint and I wasn’t sure what to expect as I had only done this event once before when I was a junior in high school. I partnered with Holly Brooks and skied the first leg in our semifinal heat of twelve teams. We messed up our first tag, lost contact with the lead group, and just missed qualifying for the finals. I did a running cooldown from the race through the busy Christmas markets and then returned to the course to watch the finals which Sadie and Kikkan were racing in together. It was another exciting race with an amazing finish as Kikkan moved up from 9^th to 2^nd during the last leg!! It was so inspiring to see two teammates on the World Cup podium!

As soon as the race was over the plows showed up to clear the city streets and we headed back to Davos, Switzerland for some more training before the next weekend’s races but I’m looking forward to coming back! Here are some pictures from the weekend.

The course alongside the Rhine

With the snow melting quickly, course access was limited and only a small part of the warmup was done on skis. Thanks to Concept2 for providing SkiErgs for athletes to warm up on. It's hard to be ready to ski 750 meters as fast as you can after a loof running so the SkiErg was a great solution. Here is Sadie doing some double poling!

With some aggressive skiing and a strong finish Kikkan scored her first World Cup victory of this season!

The team sprint was exciting and chaotic with lots of skiers racing on the narrow loop. The exchange zone (shown above in one of the men's semifinals) was a maze of skiers, skis, and poles!

The Canadians at the front of the women's final. It was a great weekend as well for a northern neighbors and realy inspiring to see North Americans skiing so fast!nd

This one definitely gave me the chills! Way to go Sadie and Kikkan!

Dusseldorf was busy this weekend! We had fun walking around the downtown section of the city after the race and exploring the Christmas markets.The busy advent markets featured Christmas crafts, tasty food, and a big selection of Gluwein.

December 15, 2011
Thanks for the POWER

Our SMS Nordic Team and I have been very lucky to be part of PowerBar Team Elite the past few seasons. We are always topped off with fuel, stuffing nutrition through our glycogen windows and ready with a huge variety of great sports foods.

December 14, 2011
Darling Davos and Beyond….

We’re currently speeding away, the opposite direction of Davos, headed to Rogla, Slovenia for the upcoming weekend’s World Cup races. So far we’ve spent what seems like ½ of Austria in a series of tunnels, the last of which was 15 kilometers long. I’ve always heard about the amazing transportation feats accomplished over here and yes, I must admit, I am impressed. The other day I heard a rumor about a Russian business man who wants to build a tunnel from Russia to Alaska and you know what, I wouldn’t put it past them (in a non Sarah Palin way of course!)

With Sadie!

Casey’s been my tax tech for World Cup period 1 and he’s been doing an awesome job – thanks Casey for all the hard work and fast boards!

But back to Davos. I had an awesome weekend of races, one that by far surpassed my personal expectations. In Saturday’s distance race I began getting splits that I was leading the race – and I thought they were wrong. On Sunday, when I qualified 18^th for the sprint heats, I expected to get “bumped out” by later starters. While I was far from winnig the race on Saturday I experienced a World Cup best and on Sunday, I qualified and participated in my first European World Cup sprint heat!

Coaches from four different countries ready to go at the “broken pole coaches zone”

I won’t belabor all the boring details of each race but there are a few things worth noting. First, I love skiing on real snow, and I love racing at altitude! Altitude can be incredibly deceiving because it actually has a horrible “race feel.” For those that can drive manual transmission cars, I liken it to driving on the highway in third gear when you should undoubtably be in fifth. You feel like you should be going faster, you know you can, but the car is stuck – and won’t shift. Perhaps you could force it but then you run the chance of ending up as that car on the side of the highway mountain pass smoking in the ditch as all the other cars speed by thinking, “Geez! Look at that sorry soul!” After crossing the finish line in second place the stadium announcer interviewed me and asked for my impression of the course. I think I said something like, “I loved it – you have to go as fast as you possibly can without going too fast!” At the completion of the race I finished a World Cup best of 13^th place, only 5 seconds down to 10^th. It’s my nature to always want more (that tenth place!) but I forced myself to be patient, and to be satisfied with the result that I turned in.

Podium poles, ready to go!

After each World Cup race we receive a “competition analysis.” This analysis is complete with each intermediate split and ranks each section of the course and how you skied it compared to the rest of the field. I had some sections that were as good as 6^th or 7^th place overall and my last two, I really tanked it at 35^th place! While I couldn’t hold my pace the entire time, I took a risk and skied the race at a pace that I would ideally like to hold. My coach Erik, and I have talked about this as I have tanked races before, going out too hard and they dying in the end. He’s always been encouraging and said to me, “Someday Holly, you will go out fast and be able to hold onto the pace – and THAT, will be a good race!”

Picture from Men’s race…

Coming off the high of my World Cup best on Saturday, Sunday I was determined to qualify for the heats. The sprint course was unique in that the Davos course is a two-lap race. Its one of the only courses where the men and women compete on the same distance. Going into it, I knew that the course fit my strengths and I was hoping for a good day. And a good day it was! Even after a few fumbles I crossed the line in 18^th! On top of that, Kikkan, my teammate at APU won the sprint qualifier, a feat that she’s never accomplished despite her list of World Cup victories!

Fun to finally meet Skyler Davis!

Once heats were sorted out I found out that I would be racing the quarterfinal with none other than Olympic and World Champion, Norway’s Marit Bjorgen. Also in my heat were my Canadian friends, Chandra Crawford and Perianne Jones. Both Chandra and Peri joined us up in Alaska this past summer for the first annual “NAWTA Camp” or the “North American Women’s Training Alliance Camp.” The camp included one week of skiing on APU’s Eagle Glacier where we got the chance to work together and race around the top of the glacier head-to-head!

Training on APU’s Eagle Glacier earlier this summer – USA & Canada!

Before starting we had a quick North-American “power-pound” and lined up for the gun. I reminded myself, this is just like the glacier! J Skate sprint starts now consist of a short double pole before you are allowed to skate. The tracks are short, allowing for little to no time to spread the field. Consequently, Bjorgen and I started next to each other and upon exiting the track, almost took each other out. Unfortunately I missed some key steps and was forced into a position near the back of the group. Unfortunately I wasn’t quite fast enough to move onto the next heat but the race was SO MUCH FUN. I couldn’t be disappointed. At the end I didn’t even feel tired. Instead, it was some kind of weird euphoria that left me wishing and wanting to try it again! But, the day was over for me and my consolation prize was a prime spot on the course to take photos and watch Kikkan absolutely destroy the rest of the women’s field!

Kikkan in the final, lap one

A happy coach

In all of this I keep returning to the same theme: Confidence and Interface or aka, “Opportunity.” It’s priceless to know that we CAN compete with these girls and each weekend of head-to-head racing I learn something new and get better. Now that’s not to say my results will continue to improve each and every weekend. (A bad day on the World Cup can easily result in a 70^th place finish.) If that were the case, I’d be winning World Cup races come February. I am optimistic by nature and don’t believe in putting limitations on dreams but I don’t think that will be happening – not quite yet at least!

That’s it for now – time to get settled into Rogla.

Have a great week, take care of yourself, and find a reason to be thankful for all life’s blessings! (There are so many!)

Sincerely,

Holly 🙂

December 14, 2011
Norwegian Women and Streaky Wooden Medals
Norwegian Women

An esteemed reported asked me to report back on whether the Norwegian women’s dominant display so far this season is unprecedented. There are numerous different directions one could take that question, mainly having to do with how you choose to measure their dominance.

But we’ve got to pick something, so let’s measure the number of top ten results over the first six races of a season (excluding stage overall results; so just individual races). The short answer is that no, this isn’t technically unprecedented:

Apologies for the somewhat garish colors.

Over the first six races of a season, there are obviously 60 top ten spots to fight over, so you can see that I’ve omitted some of smaller nations. As you can see, the Norwegian women have by far the most top ten results of any nation this season, by a country mile. But the Russian women of the early to mid-90′s were fairly comparable. (Of course, at least some of those ladies were not always on the up-and-up.)

Streaky Wooden Medals

Of note in North American racing is Matt Gelso’s improbable number of 4th place finishes so far this season. This got me wondering what’s out there in terms of streaks of consecutive 4th place finishes.

Counting something like this is a little trickier than it seems. For my purposes, I’m going to exclude overall stage race results, and only look at isolated single day events.

Another problem is that many times only the qualification round results are reported to FIS for sprints, so that’s all I have. So I’m going to omit those races, knowing that it will make this slightly inaccurate, but I can’t really do anything about that.

Somewhat more controversially, I’m going to exclude the handful of sprint qualifiers held in the US recently where the elimination heats were never actually run. That way we can get Gelso’s streak up to 5 in a row. Also, I just think those races are kind of dumb and I’d like to pretend they don’t exist.

So where does that leave us? Well, that leaves Gelso with an all time FIS record (post-1992 anyway). There are four other skiers with streaks of 4 4th place finishes: Jenny Hansson (2010-2011), Nathalie Kessler (2000-2001), Petar Kyosev (2007-2008) and Teodora Malcheva (2007-2008).

There were 30 folks with streaks of 3 in a row, and then several hundred with 2 in a row. I haven’t checked, but I’d be willing to bet that 5/6 consecutive races in 4th hasn’t ever happened either.

Related posts:
December 14, 2011