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Tag: Bente Skari

  • Unable to Run First Marathon, Bente Skari Lends a Hand in NYC

    Unable to Run First Marathon, Bente Skari Lends a Hand in NYC

    Like some 47,000 others who intended to run the 2012 ING New York City Marathon, Bente Skari had a vision. It went something like finishing the 26.2-mile race, her first marathon, in 3 hours and 20 minutes on Sunday.

    Norway’s Bente Skari (l) and Mathias Fredriksson of Sweden with their crystal globes after winning the 2003 overall World Cup. (Flickr photo/mathiasfredriksson)

    That went out the window Friday when Mayor Michael Bloomberg called off the city’s signature event for the first time since its inception in 1970, citing widespread power outages and destruction following Superstorm Sandy.

    Norway’s 2002 Olympic gold medalist and five-time World Champion cross-country skier would not get to run as an ambassador for the Active Against Cancer foundation. She had traveled to New York with about 50 other Scandinavians, 32 of which planned to run on behalf of the foundation.

    Skari, 40, had three kids at home ages 3, 5 and 7. After retiring from full-time training nearly 10 years ago, she hadn’t planned to take the race too seriously. Still, she logged several long runs and researched the course in preparation. Skari knew all about the five boroughs the marathon weaved through, so when she heard about the devastation that struck many of them, she got to work.

    On Sunday, around the time they would’ve started the race, about 1,300 runners boarded the Staten Island Ferry with backpacks and supplies. Once they reached land, they unloaded and dispersed to help residents around the storm-ravaged Cedar Grove Avenue.

    Maryann and Sebastian Battaglia told The New York Times the runners saved them three or four days’ work by removing wallboard and insulation from their flooded first floor and scrubbing their home’s stairwells. The couple later learned that one of the volunteers was Skari, a three-time Olympian.

    “That’s why she had such good stamina,” Maryann said. “God bless her.”

    Skari told the Times she volunteered with 50 others from her group because “New York is so special.”

    One of the many flooded streets on Staten Island nearly a week after Superstorm Sandy devastated the New York City/New Jersey coast on Oct. 29. (Nat Herz photo)

    “I will return to run the marathon here,” she said. “But first, we are here to help.”

    In a translated interview with the Norway’s Hegnar Online, Skari said she had modest goals going into the race and just wanted to finish. Active Against Cancer CEO Helle Aanesen, who aimed to run his sixth NYC marathon, challenged her to beat his time of 3:30. After completing several three- to four-hour runs with her, Aanesen figured she wouldn’t have a problem doing so.

    If nothing else, Skari said she could rely on muscle memory and hard interval training from the past. “In addition, something happens when the starting number is in the chest,” she said.

    Something happened when she was in New York, and many residents were so grateful, they were moved to tears.

    Among the fatalities, three bodies were discovered after the water receded on Staten Island, including a man and his 20-year-old son holding one another, the Times reported.

    “My God, the marathoners,” said one of their relatives. “What they’ve done here is overwhelming. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

  • Bjoergen Takes La Clusaz Mass Start; Americans 18th and 19th – Updated

    Marit Bjørgen racing in Norway last year. Photo, Geir Olsen.

    As the World Cup circuit heads towards its Christmas break, Marit Bjoergen is still in a class by herself.

    After breaking away from the pack less than five kilometers into the La Clusaz 15 k freestyle on Saturday, along with her teammate Kristin Stoermer Steira and Poland’s Justyna Kowalczyk, Bjoergen easily matched challenges by her opponents on the last of six laps, then turned on the jets on the homestretch to pull away for the win.

    Kowalczyk was second and Steira third. Americans Liz Stephen and Morgan Arritola both had their best performances of the year, finishing 18th and 19th, respectively.

    “It was incredibly fun. It was an awesome race, but tough,” she told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.

    Indeed, Bjoergen did appear vulnerable for the first time this season, biding her time until just a few hundred meters before the homestretch to make her move.

    She skied nearly the whole race with Kowalczyk and Steira, the trio having left everyone else behind before they had even skied a third of the 15 k distance.

    All three took turns at the front, and the gap to the chasers, led by Italians Arianna Follis and Marianna Longa, kept going up—it was more than a minute at the finish.

    None of the leaders dared to try anything before the last few climbs. Steira was the first to launch, putting in a few hundred meters of high-tempo, aggressive climbing, but it wasn’t nearly enough to drop Bjoergen or Kowalczyk.

    Kowalczyk was the next to go, but Bjoergen held on, then used what appeared to be a faster pair of skis to pass on one of the final descents. She shifted into a new gear as the course pitched uphill into the finish, crossing the line with a comfortable, one-second cushion.

    While the International Ski Federation credited Bjoergin with 42 victories, those don’t include overall stage race wins, or results at World Championships and the Olympics, which would push her up to 49.

    Regardless, the win was Bjoergen’s fifth in six races this season. (Her only loss came in the handicap start event in the Kuusamo mini-tour, which, for all intents and purposes, doesn’t count.) After racing the relay on Sunday with her Norwegian teammates, she’ll get a well-deserved break of nearly a full month off, since she plans on skipping the 2011 edition of the Tour de Ski.

    Stephen and Arritola skied most of the race together, with Stephen ultimately coming out on top in a head-to-head drag race to the line.

    It was Arritola’s best career result, and it was the top finish for Stephen since the 2009 World Championships in the Czech Republic. They came just in time, too—after both struggled in the early races this season, the La Clusaz race was likely their chance to prove themselves on the World Cup until February.

    Neither Arritola nor Stephen were available for comment, but in a press release, U.S. Ski Team coach Matt Whitcomb said that Stephen fell at the start, leaving her as the second-to-last woman in the race.

    “But when they met up, they skied together, pushing each other, as they have done a million times,” he said. “I am so proud of these gals; most of all, they were patient out there, and they worked together.”

    After fighting illness early this week, Kikkan Randall elected to skip the events in La Clusaz and remain in Switzerland, where she plans to spend Christmas in advance of the 2011 Tour de Ski.

    Link to full results.

  • Cross-Pollinating Future Ski Champions

    Cross-Pollinating Future Ski Champions

    Hilde Losgård Landheim, one of the 20 athletes in Team Morgendagens Helter.

    NORWAY – The Norwegian elite development project “Morgendagens Helter” (Ed. Tomorrow’s Heroes) brings 20 handpicked junior talents from all six of the ski disciplines organized under the Norwegian Ski Association (NSF) into one team.

    The athletes are assigned individual mentors on the national team level, receive an annual stipend of NOK 50,000 (roughly $8,500) that is split 50/50 between the athlete and his or her home club, and are invited to several team project training camps.  The money directed to the athletes’ local clubs is earmarked for talent development, recruitment, expanding local resources and coaches’ education.

    The goal is to encourage sharing of know-how and experience – both from the pros to the next generation, as well as between the different disciplines.

    “In order to succeed, it’s crucial to have the ability to learn not only from those who have made it to the top in you sport, but also to learn from those who have succeeded in other fields,” explains Kjetil Undhjem of Statoil, the NSF’s main sponsor for the project. He also feels that the athletes contribute value to his organization, and that the project is a win-win situation for all involved parties.

    Unique

    The project, a 5-year initiative backed by Statoil, is unique in that it combines talented skiers, mentors and coaches from all the FIS ski disciplines into one program. Athletes were handpicked by the association based on personal profiles, general attitude, posted results, motivation, stated ambitions and geographic considerations. Each of the NSF discipline directors picked their athletes, a task that was not easy.

    “There were a lot of good candidates, and there are talents who might feel that they should have been included on the team. However, they will have a new chance already next year,” says Bård A. Amundsen, the NSF’s secretary general. He points out that the team members have a unique opportunity to contribute to recruitment and development in their own clubs or ski academies, by sharing the project resources locally.

    During the camps, which are organized in various parts of the country, the athletes are introduced not only to different workouts and training methods in the ski disciplines but also to the training philosophies and methods of the other sports. During the August camp in Trondheim, for example, the athletes did a track workout led by cross-country skier and project mentor Therese Johaug, suffered through a grueling plyometrics session on the jumping hill stairs with telemark racer and mentor Eirik Rykhus, as well as several general workouts.

    The skiers also made a field trip to one of Norway’s biggest and most successful professional soccer clubs, Rosenborg, where they participated in a workout with the soccer coaches and were treated to a Champions League game afterward. And finally, the skiers were challenged to create computer-guided ski robots made from Legos at the Norwegian University of Science and Engineering (NTNU) – a task they handled with excellence once they discovered there were prizes for the teams that finished first.

    Solid ambassadors

    In addition to the individual mentors, the project also has two major ambassadors: Bente Skari (cross-country), and Kjetil Andre Aamodt (alpine), both former Olympians and world champions. Mentors include Johaug and Eldar Rønning (cross-country), Nina Løseth and Lars Elton Myhre (alpine), Rykhus (telemark) and Anders Jacobsen (jumping).

    The athletes have already completed two dryland camps, and the third will take place close to the start of the ski season.

    The team consists of three telemark skiers, four ski jumpers, three cross-country skiers, three alpine freestyle skiers, three alpine skiers and three nordic combined skiers.

    Well received

    “It’s so nice to have a mentor who has already made it to the World Cup and knows what it takes to get to the top. My mentor, Therese Johaug, is a skier I knew a little bit from before, and that makes it easier to pick up the phone and call her,” says Hilde Losgård Landheim, one of three cross-country skiers in the project. “We’ve talked a few times now, and she gives me a lot of good advice on training. That’s really useful.”

    Hilde Losgård Landheim

    Landheim particularly enjoys training with athletes from other ski disciplines during the team camps. So often, she says, cross-country skiers get stuck in a pattern.

    “I think it’s really healthy for us to see how other athletes train, and get some ideas for basic fitness and strength. I think in those areas, it’s really beneficial to try exercises you’ve never done before and don’t handle so well. I like being challenged and new things definitely do that,” Landheim says, explaining that she finds the project concept motivating.

    “It’s nice that the ski association and Statoil are spending this kind of money on us young skiers. It makes me want to train hard. I really enjoy meeting athletes from other sports, and it’s really motivating,” she says, adding that she had no idea NSF would pick her for the project.

    “I was really surprised when I got the call last winter. I am honored and excited to be a part of this project,” she says, admitting that she didn’t know a lot about it before she accepted.

    Landheim also finds that the project schedule works well with her existing training program from her local club (Tynset IF) and the regional division (Hedmark Skikrets).

    “The project team camps are generally fairly short and held in central locations, which makes it both convenient and easy to fit into my other training program. I’m excited about the next camp already,” Landheim says. “And I really liked the pro soccer game in Trondheim.”