FasterSkier

Visit FasterSkier.com →

From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.

Tag: 15k freestyle

  • Hoffman Notches Career-Best 15th in Val di Fiemme

    Hoffman Notches Career-Best 15th in Val di Fiemme

    Noah Hoffman (USA) climbing to the high point of the 15 k freestyle course on Wednesday at World Championships, where he finished a career-best 15th.
    Noah Hoffman (USA) climbing to the high point of the 15 k freestyle course on Wednesday at World Championships, where he finished a career-best 15th.

    FasterSkier’s coverage of the 2013 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Val di Fiemme, Italy, is brought to you by the generous support of Fischer Sports.

    VAL DI FIEMME, Italy — Patience is sometimes a challenge for American Noah Hoffman. When he can pace himself he can produce admirable results on the World Cup, but when he takes a race out too hard he’s been known to hold himself back.

    The World Championships 15 k individual freestyle was not to be one of those days. Before lining up for his second event of the week on Wednesday, Hoffman laid out a specific pacing plan based on what he knew about the challenging 5 k course: be patient, let the race develop and come on strong at the end. He executed the plan exactly and the result was a personal-best; 15th place, 1:50.0 behind race-winner Petter Northug (NOR).

    “That’s a career-best, so that’s good,” Hoffman said after cooling down. “Can’t complain about that.”

    Even though it cut his previous high water mark at World Championships nearly in half, and was a more serious result against than his eighth in the Canmore skiathlon in December, Hoffman still considers it a mere stepping stone to bigger goals. In the words of one of his coaches, Zach Caldwell, 15th was merely a “solid” day for him.

    “I think there’s really identifiable things he does to compromise his performance and sometimes not deliver what he’s capable of, and today I don’t think he didn’t anything wrong; I think he did everything welll,” Caldwell said. “I don’t think it was a super-special effort; I think it’s a solid day… It’s just very representative of Noah at his best or at least near his best.”

    Hoffman’s specific plan included the kind of information he did and did not want to get during his race — he asked his coaches not to give him splits on Wednesday so that he wouldn’t get distracted by them while he skied his own race.

    “I felt like in Davos I was too focused on the splits and felt like I was getting confusing splits,” he explained. “I didn’t really know where I was and consequently just got super negative on myself and disappointed during the race, which is not a fast way to ski… And I didn’t really want to do that again so I just asked my coaches not to give me splits.”

    Hoffman catching a ride with Lukas Bauer (CZE) on his last 5 k lap as Zach Caldwell cheers him on.
    Hoffman catching a ride with Lukas Bauer (CZE) on his last 5 k lap as Zach Caldwell cheers him on.

    The result was that Hoffman didn’t lose composure when he started in 38th at 1.8 k, because he didn’t know it. Instead he gradually picked up speed; by the next checkpoint at 9.4 k he had moved up to 20th, and with the help of a ride from Lukas Bauer (CZE) on his last lap he jumped five more places before the finish line. Bauer coming by him was part of Hoffman’s plan, too; he figured the Czech would start his second lap when Hoffman came through on his final one.

    “He was definitely moving faster than I was so he was a great ride,” Hoffman said. “Just enough faster that I could stay with him, but it was a struggle — a good way to close out the race. Zach yelled at me the last time up the big hill, ‘That’s not your ride, it’s not good enough!’ And I was like, ‘I can barely stay with him! Really, this is not my ride? Because it’s going to have to do!’ So I was struggling to stay with him, but I stayed on him.”

    Caldwell said Hoffman demonstrated “great composure and perfect execution of the plan,” and felt it reflected a continuation of the American team’s approach to World Championships this week.

    “Everyone’s doing their job really well and things are falling into place,” Caldwell said. “I kind of feel like people have come to expect good performances from what they’ve got rather than having to do something special, and that was certainly true of Noah today.”

    Hoffman led teammates Tad Elliott and Erik Bjornsen. Elliott was 34th (+2:55) and Bjornsen was 48th (+3:27). Kris Freeman skipped the race in order to save up for the relay and the 50 k.

    Tad Elliott climbing.
    Tad Elliott climbing.

    Elliott’s splits were similar to Hoffman’s in that they improved as the race went on. He began the first few kilometers in the 40s — even reached 30th by 11.8 k — before finishing in 34th for a career-best at World Championships.

    “I still feel like I’m a bit off from where I’d like to be at worlds, but I feel like it was a great race for me,” Elliott said. “I’m pretty happy with the result today… I got kind of shelled with about 2 k to go and I was kind of hurting on the way in, but my new skis were fast.”

    Outside of the Canmore World Cup, Wednesday was Elliott’s best international result of the season. Like many of his teammates this week, Elliott said he skied with part of the momentum the women’s squad has been building.

    “It’s been great for us, our women are on fire. It’s magic going to the awards ceremony every night and seeing your teammates up there… Hopefully we can ride their coattails a little bit.”

    Bjornsen’s result was not quite what he was looking for from the 15 k. His started out hard in the top 30, but lost more ground than he would have liked as the race went on.

    “I think I pretty much gave it all I could but it’s hard getting passed by people like you’re standing still,” he said. “But I feel like I was making good movements… If I wanted to have a good race I was going to have to start hard and see how long I could hang. That’s kind of what I did. I died a little more than I wanted to, but it was still a good last k.”

    U.S. Ski Team head coach Chris Grover was overall happy with the team’s performance in the 15 k.

    “I think Tad felt great about his race, it’s probably one of his best of the year. For Erik it was more experiential for sure, but he did a great job. And Noah — he just uncorked one. To be 15th in that field today was incredible,” Grover said.

    The next men’s event on the schedule is the 4 x 10 k relay; Grover said the team would be announced on Thursday.

    Results.

     

     

     

     

  • Skis, not Fitness, Doom Freeman in XC Opener

    Kris Freeman leading James Southam in the 30k classic at U.S. Nationals

    Kris Freeman performs best when he’s angry, which bodes well for the rest of his Olympic Games.

    “I’m just really, really pissed,” he said Tuesday about his debacle in the 15k freestyle.

    Freeman blew by reporters in the finish chute yesterday, leaving fans and media without an explanation for what he called  “a horrible result.” But as he wrote on his blog, that was because he didn’t have one himself.

    24 hours later, though, things had come into focus, and the good news for American ski fans is that there’s nothing wrong with Freeman’s body. Instead, it was the skis.

    After limping into the finish for 58th place yesterday, Freeman was baffled. Halfway through the race, he said he thought he was in good position for a top-ten, and was shocked to see himself so far down at the intermediate time check.

    Instead of shutting things down like the Norwegians, though, Freeman said that he overcompensated—blowing himself up by the 10 k mark.

    “I’m not going to give up because it wasn’t going to be a podium at the Olympics,” he said. “I gave it my all.”

    The snafu with the finish chute, where he went the wrong way following Johan Olsson (SWE), was just a “slap in the face”—nothing that seriously altered the outcome of the race.

    “I was just following a white butt,” he said.

    After the finish, as Freeman sat with his coach, Zach Caldwell trying to figure out “what the hell happened,” the pair was approached by Nathan Schultz, a member of the American service team who works with Caldwell at Boulder Nordic Sport.

    Schultz offered to take Freeman’s skis and test them against a few other pairs, and when he did, he discovered that they were by far the worst of the four. Caldwell also consulted with the Fischer service team to find out what kind of ski flex race winner Dario Cologna had used. It turned out to be the opposite of Freeman’s selection.

    The problem, Freeman said, was that he hadn’t been able to pick his own skis. With the course only open for 20 minutes before the start of the race, Freeman was focused on taking care of his blood sugar, and didn’t have time to do the testing himself. Instead, he ended up skiing on a pair chosen by the team’s wax techs—who aren’t his same weight.

    He said that the wax staff ended up picking a pair that was slick underfoot, but that when under Freeman’s full weight, experienced suction on the bases, as well as tips washing out.

    Since those 20 minutes before the race start are crucial for blood sugar management, Freeman said that he wasn’t sure what he could have done differently. He made it clear that the ski choice was not an error by the team’s wax staff.

    “I’m not blaming anything except for the circumstances,” he said. “It’s kind of a unique situation, having a course that was supposed to be open an hour before my race shut down, except for 15 minutes prior.”

    For the rest of the week, though, Freeman said he will have to find a way to test his own skis.

    “If the courses are closed, I’m just going to have to do my blood sugar management on the track, which is something I like to avoid,” he said. “But if that’s what it comes down to, because the snow is so bizarre here, I need to feel the skis before I go out on them.”

    From here, Freeman said that the remainder of the Games will be resting and ski testing. There are no problems with his fitness, he said—he’s just angry.

    That might not hurt him in the 30k pursuit, though.

    “I’ve gone through many ski races in my life,” he said, “and I’ve got to say that probably eight of my ten best races, I was absolutely livid during them.”