Tag: J1 Scando

We had a fun last day here in Ostersund. It started off with getting up at 8:15 to say good bye to the Alaskans. Things were hectic and it was not pretty around Camp Sodergren. Needless to say they made it out fine and everyone went back to bed. We decided to go for a short ski and had a good time laughing at Dylan trying some tricks on the “jumps”. Our next stop was the famous swedish vintersportcentrum. Its basically this sick place where they test all the best athletes from all over Sweden. This place was off the charts! They had a treadmill for both skating and classic equiped with like ten 3d cameras for technique. They even had a place to warm up the rollerskis so each pair is the same temperature when you use them. Just the treadmill alone cost $100,000! We got a tour from the worlds most famous ski researcher HC Holmberg and he was very welcoming. We said bye to HC and decided to go for a little last trip shopping. Kate and Matt found this sweet retro ski store and we scored some cool new gloves and hats. After a delicious Amercan meal of tacos, were back in our rooms trying to pack for the early flight out tomorrow. Its a difficult task because we all have about double the gear we came with. We are living by our motto “When in Rome” and heading down to the sauna now. Its been a great trip and we are all sad to leave this wonderful country!! See you back in the States!!—- Jack

Today was the last stage of our three-day race series in Örnsköldsvik; the relay. Needless to say, we were all psyched to get our game faces on and show those Europeans our best. It was a great day. The USA women all had great races with Marion, Cambria and Annie coming in 6^th and Hannah, Sharmila and Stella soon after in 7^th. But the story of the day was our USA-1 men’s team. The race kicked off with Logan scrambling, he got off to a rough start but hung in there and slowly got to the front… As he came into the stadium he was in first place, right in front of a massive Norwegian. He tagged off to Paddy who again mixed it up with the very best J1s in the world and hung right in there with the Finnish and Norwegian number one teams, tagging off to Forrest. Forrest kept USA in third until he broke a pole in the last kilometer, but hung in there and brought in the USA men in fourth place. It was probably the most exciting race I’ve ever seen and a really amazing way for us all to end the series! -Cam

The athletes all really took it to the next level today. Some of the best skiing I have seen in recent or distant memory. Us coaches were still waxing for most of the girls race, but I was really impressed with how these girls kept contact with the front Norwegian and Swedish teams throughout the race, and while from the outside the results look somewhat typical for these races, they are far from typical. Both our teams beat the Swedish II team, and both Est I and II. Estonia is not messing around here, they are strong skiers, and our girls just beat them straight up. Impressive.
The boys race was even more spectacular- Logan and Dylan scrambled for the Americans, and right off the start on the first hill out of the stadium a Swede fell in the track directly in front of Logan, placing him in dead last at the top of the first hill. By the time I saw him about half a K later, he was in about 6th, in a pack with most of the field except the Norge and Suomi A teams who had a 6 second lead. The next time I saw him, 2k after that, he was in second in a pack with the Norwegians and Fins, about 10 seconds up on the next group of racers. Paddy came around next, looking smooth and strong (as always!) and keeping right on the heels of the Norwegian, except when he kept passing him! Forrest did a stellar job anchoring the team, keeping close contact with the NOR and FIN teams, and eventually joined by the SWE I team. Unfortunately, with 300m to go, Forrest’s pole broke and the fading Finnish skier was able to get back by. A fourth place at these very competitive championships is usually an incredible result, but today it was no mistake that the USA team was in the lead for most of the race, and while still happy with their skiing, it was a bittersweet result for the boys. The USA II team was missing a third leg due to Jack’s accident, but the organizers found us an ambitious club skier to jump in and race with us. He was really excited to race for the stars and bars, and had lots of fun due to the great skiing by Dylan and Peter, skiing tight in a pack of Fins and Swedes. Now we are back in Ostersund, and its way past my bedtime, so I’m going to get a little rest before taking the Alaskans to the airport tomorrow morning. One last note before I sign off- Ostersund is a really cool place if you’re a nordic skier. Tonight Pete and I were filling up a rental car before returning it at a random gas station in town, and these two really fit people walked by me twice on my way in to pay. When I got back out Pete was all excited and said “did you just see Emil Johnsson and Anna Haug??” (they were buying firewood). Then an hour later we went out to dinner at a thai restaurant and shortly after sitting down, world renowned nordic skiing physiology researcher H.C. Holmberg randomly parks his car right outside the window where we were sitting. So we invited him in and he ate with us and chatted about skiing technique and training philosophy for two hours! Pretty cool stuff here.
-Matt

Yo yo from Ornsköldsvik! Second day of racing here and lets be honest USA rocks. Black uniforms were flying out there on the course today eating up the track! The day started off with the women’s 5km freestyle followed by the men’s 10km freestyle race. It was a deceivingly challenging course with little rest, well suited for the skiers from the land of the free. Conditions were pristine with a side dish of ice and some speedy corduroy to top it off. American spirits were through the roof at the venue and the American flag evoked a strong feeling of patriotism and pride. Our boards were off the charts fast. We left large pools of water behind us on the course where our skis burned through the snow. Thank you to the coaches for their superb work on skis and cheering. Norwegian women were awed by the burly and handsome American men [editors note: this may be an exaggeration] and the Swedish boys stared endlessly at the beautiful American women. Without a doubt the most stunning team in existence. After the races we all came back to the Scandic hotel for an all team banquet and meeting. The food was phenomenal and everyone enjoyed themselves. We had a USA team meeting later and are all ready for the relays tomorrow. The races start early and will be killer. Its mullet time baby! Jack and Paddy. Out.

Its worth noting that Paddy absolutely rocked the socks off of today’s race- 8th place and only 34.2 seconds off the podium! These are the fastest people in the world in this age range, so that is a pretty serious result. We have been really happy with how everyone has been racing overall, and how positive these kids have made this experience in general! Parents and coaches back home are owed a huge thanks from us over here, now its off to bed before a new round of wax testing begins bright and early tomorrow morning. -Matt

HEY ALL

-Kate

Today was a pretty chill day all in all. After breakfast the team hung out and got some homework done which was pretty successful. Almost all of the team went for a run before lunch. Then at about 3 we were out the door and headed to the venue. We went for a ski later today in hopes of getting adjusted to the late skiing for the night sprint tomorrow. The team is definitely pumped and excited for the race on Friday! It’s gonna be a good one for sure. Our ski was pretty crazy with all of the snow that was coming down on us. The snow was very powdery at first but once the tracks were skied through a couple times, the skiing became pretty well packed down. The race course was sick and consisted of a big hill at the beginning an then rolling hills and downhills from there on. Including some sharp turns, which will make the course all that much better. I think it is safe to say that we are all really pysched for our first race.

Tonight was the first night that other teams started to roll into the hotel. Right after dinner Dylan got right to work fulfilling his trip goal of getting 100 new facebook friends. Nothing held him back. He went on to introduce himself to the Finnish team sitting in the hall, close to our rooms. His vocabulary also increased when he added a couple new Finnish words. All of the teams are staying in the same hotel so the next couple days should be fun!

Until tomorrow, we are in race prep mode and thinking about the next few days. There will be some fast skiing for sure! -Marion

Sorry there aren’t any pictures today- lots of organizing to do before the races, but we will be back tomorrow with lots of race pictures (and podium pictures!) from the Classic Sprint!! The event website, in case you haven’t found it yet, is http://www2.idrottonline.se/HagglundsIoFK-Skidor/Vara-arrangemang/NordicJuniorSkiCompetition/NordicJuniorSkiCompetition2011/

We will be reporting back tomorrow!

Ornskoldsvik: Day 1. After a buffet-style breakfast at the hotel, we headed to the ski trails. The
walk was maybe 10 minutes to the venue (a bit longer than the 10 steps at Camp Sodergren) but
temperatures were nice and the day promised to be sunny.

The team walks the streets of Ornskoldsvik from the hotel to the race-venue.

The view from the parking lot includes a soccer field, the ski stadium, and a bridge that leads to the trails beyond.

Team USA girls: Cam, Stella, Annie, Sharmila, Marion, Hannah

At the race venue, athletes toured the skate course and dialed in their klister zones in preparation for the sprint race on Friday. The trail in the trees is narrow and windy, with some exciting downhill turns that will be a spectator favorite in the heats. The qualifiers don’t begin until 4 in the afternoon… Night racing here we come!!

In the afternoon, we did the tourist thing and shopped some more. We found our favorite store (Intersport), a giant mall unlike anything in Ostersund, and a massive thrift-store.

Todays Installment: Sharmila and Hannah…

Wad up! We’re in Sweden! Today we said goodbye to Ostersund and left on our trek for Ornskoldsvik. The packing turned out to be quite an ordeal and may have taken longer than the actual car ride. We had to fit eighty-some pairs of skis into the decked out minivan with two DVD players. Too bad there wasn’t room for us; we were stuck in the Minibus. After chugging the rest of the yogurt and fighting over the odds and ends of the bread left in the cabins, we were on our way.

The drive was eventful – we experimented with Buff trends,taught Marion, Hannah, and Cambria how to Tic Tac Toe, fought over the tunes, and toured a Swedish gas station. We were weary of the sandwiches that had been chillaxin there on the shelf all day, but lo and behold, those sandwiches were good stuff! Turns out even Sweden’s sandwiches are classier than ours. Chicken and pesto, and the guy heated them up for us so they were all melty. Yum, yum. Later in the ride we got to meet the Swedish po-pos. Apparently we were driving too slowly on the icy two-lane highway, and after riding our bumper, the Po Po made the move to pass not one, not two, but all three of our vehicles. He didn’t care about the terrain, he didn’t care about the speed, he didn’t even care about oncoming traffic. He was going to pass us, and pass us he did.

We knew we had arrived as we drove into Ornskoldsvik. This city is hoppin. Everything is lit up, even the ski jump that curves underneath a highway for landing. We were pumped about the hotel until we opened the doors to our three-person rooms. There was one European twin bed (2/3s a normal twin) and a couch. “Are you for real?” we thought. But yet again, Sweden surprised us. They pack a lot of room into these little rooms! There are two beds in the couch and secret drawers in the bench. Our towels are even nice and warm because they are hanging on fancy hot-water pipes. Although Sweden has everything, Dylan says they are lacking one thing, but if you want to figure out what that is, you’ll have to visit the pool.

We check out the race trails tomorrow!

The PB out laying some cord at about 7 yesterday morning. They have a really cool map online here (which I of course found yesterday after the ski when we were about to leave) which uses a GPS to track where the groomer currently is and shows how recently it has been there — pretty darn cool.

Mattizzle

Stella gives Ö-sund two thumbs up.

Artsy photo featuring Forrest’s foot

Mamrol rolling

Dylan

Cam crushing

Marion

Sharmila shredding

Annie lapping through

Ms. Woods again

Peter lunges for the finish

Lunch on top of the city. Tasty buffet for about ~$12 per person or something super cheap for a place that could be charging twice or three times that.

Ostersund, with the Biathlon stadium to the lower right, the wax cabins below, then Ostersund and Frösön (where the airport is) on the island across the big lake (fittingly named Storsjon, or “big lake” – the Swedes are a practical people).

Missed a few on the pics – some were too quick.

Time to grab some frukost, get packing and hit the road to Ö-vik.

Another day in paradise. It was again slightly above freezing for the better part of the day with a slight breeze. The trails were recently groomed and quite fast. It was overcast for most of the with a little sun peeking out now and again.

Today was easily the hardest ski of the trip. Our coaches devised a course for our time trial meant to “shake off the cobwebs”. It was a 2.7 kilometer lap with girls skiing two laps and boys skiing three. Each lap consisted of one major climb that wound up through the woods until it finally leveled off for a flat section and then dropped back into the stadium. Everyone seemed to have benefited from the push, but no one seemed to enjoy it

Afterward, we ventured back up into the water tower for lunch. We laid low for most of the day to recover and complete homework while the coaches went to pick up waxing supplies and groceries. When they returned we all went back into the city for an hour or so to have one last evening in Ostersund.

Tomorrow we have a 3 hour drive to Örnsköldsvik where we will be racing! -Forrest

There’s your athlete report of the day! Kate, Pete, and I just got back from our nightly “coach ski” on the long lit-up out and back around town. Great skiing, and tons of old guys powering past us looking straight out of the 70s. Hopefully all the athletes are packing tonight, we are picking up our third car tomorrow and hitting the road for Ornskoldsvik! Cam and Paddy are hopefully meeting up in the morning with Paddy’s Grandfather’s old friend Ola (e?) which should be a cool adventure for them. Cam really ripped it up in our little time trial this morning, thats her pounding a hill up top here. Its about time for us to start packing too- you’ll hear from us tomorrow on the Baltic. -Matt

them’s some good lookin’ coaches
Marion getting focused

Pmams Grippin’ and Rippin’

Today started out on a high note with pancakes made by Matt, Pete, and Kate. We topped them with nutella, strawberry jelly, pineapple, grapes, raspberries, kiwi, and bananas, along with a drizzle of yogurt (from a carton) on top. In a word they were… delectable. Dylan said he felt like he had eaten a chocolate bunny after his first pancake; they made for a bit of a heavy stomach I guess.

The report from BigLogs:
So today, day three in this truly amazing place, started off with a non-traditional skiing activity.
Us boys in room 12 “Rodins” decided to show off to the whole team by making breakfast for some of the gang. Breakfast so far has consisted of the team trying to come up with crazy combinations of food that Matt supplies us with. This has led to some interesting creations, grilled cheese in the morning with some sketchy Swedish cheese, and chunky milk-like stuff with blueberry soup on top. But this morning was different. This morning, a revolution was started. Us men in room 12, created the best French toast ever in the history of man! Now the ingredients were compiled from all over the place. The Cinnamon was retrieved from the dinner stand, and the syrup was discovered in the store here with the help of locals. The toast was a hit, although it made all of the boys late for the team meeting.

Although this trip is all about skiing fast, it also gives us the opportunity to sample very awesome food. For example, we athletes eat at the top of this massive and trendy water tower that is just a hop, skip, and a jump away. The restaurant on top is one of the nicest restaurants many of us have ever been in. We often show up for lunch in our relaxing clothes, and dine along side of the local Swedes, who are usually there for business or something. But whatever, the food is great.

The skiing here is simply amazing. There are endless amounts of trails here. Literally, we keep finding new trails every day. Although this morning, the warm snow from yesterday froze, so the trails were very firm. Tomorrow there is a 43km race going on, so it will be very fun to watch the racers rip around.

We finally got our last stranded traveler tonight. Now we are really up and running. The weather got even warmer today which led to some seriously fast skiing. Some of the boys crossed paths with Robin Bryntesson doing some intervals after his recent world cup weekend. He recognized Jack Hegman from when he was in Sweden a couple summers ago on Pete Phillips’ Sweden training trip. He chatted with the boys for a bit, they seemed a little star-struck after! Tomorrow the Alaskans who have been here a couple days are going to do some intervals, hopefully not needing to dodge the tiny Swedes who have a race tomorrow! We ate lunch again in the restaurant on top of the water tower next to our apartments (see pictures) and tomorrow we are planning on venturing into town for some shopping and dinner. We will have kids update the blog starting tomorrow so you can get their take on the action!
matt

The lights above are our apartments

The tower at night

‘

Almost everyone got here on time despite the east coast storms coming through. Pete and Hannah were stuck in Newark for an extra 24 hours, and Stella was in the same situation in D.C. but they should be on their way and will arrive tomorrow afternoon to some really amazing skiing! I went out with Logan, Forrest, Peter, Annie, and Marion this morning and we were all really impressed with the trail system, snow conditions, and fast skiers literally right outside our doors (the picture above is the view from all our apartments here.) The guys found a cool trail that goes straight down a huge hill with a really big roller on it.. I probably shouldn’t post any pictures, but I’m going to anyway. Everyone is getting some good sleep right now, and (almost) the whole group will be out together tomorrow morning. Easy skiing on the schedule, lots of hydration, and a chance to walk around downtown Ostersund. The energy level is high here despite the exhaustion of traveling. More tomorrow, its past my bedtime too.
matt

Congrats to the new class:

Annie Liotta, AWS
Marion Woods, AWS
Cambria McDermott, SMS
Stella Holt, Glacier Nordic
Sharmila Ahmed, Go Training
Hannah Boyer, FXC-NCSF
*Heather Mooney, SMS

Forrest Mahlen, APU
Logan Hanneman, FAST
Patrick Caldwell, SMS
Dylan McGarthwaite, MSC
Peter Namrol, AWS
Jack Hegman, Mansfield

*Going to World Junior Championships

The athletes and coaches are all on their way home now. Some were up as early as 4am in order to make their early flights. It was a great trip on many levels; and as ready to sleep in our own beds as some of us may be, I don’t think anybody really wants to leave.

I just want to mention a couple of things I noticed during the races the past several days.

The “start gun” for all the races was a man hitting an empty 50-gallon drum with a stick. Though the organizers and facilities can accommodate very high-level racing, the feel of the weekend was more like an old-school race rather than a championship series. Coaches didn’t need credentials to talk to their athletes before/after the competitions. I could walk up next to the start wand for the sprint, or 3 feet from the relay start. There was nothing more than a few pine boughs marking the start of the relay. Other than the sprint, the courses were always open to skiers. Nobody got yelled at for walking/skiing on or near the trails during the races. There was almost no hard fencing in the start finish area (maybe 100m worth, on either side). Coaches meetings were short and sweet. I could set up my wax bench anywhere I wanted to, other than on the trail.

In short, the organizers and volunteers never seemed “front and center” — rather they were just there doing their thing, in the background, with 100% success. It seemed like everybody (TD’s, organizers, volunteers, coaches) was there with the mentality that the competitors were the center of the universe.

That said, the group at the Puijon Ski Club ran very professional races.

• commentary in 3 languages (Suomi, English, and Norwegian).
• 3-4 cameras (video + still) at the finish line.
• warming facilities within 20 meters of the start/finish.
• ski marking that took 3-seconds to pass through.
• results printed and posted FAST. During the sprint heats, they had results from every heat (including times for each athlete) posted outside near the start before the following heat was done.
• During the boys 10km race (2 x 5km laps), a little Finnish girl knocked on the door of our wax trailer and handed us a print out of the standings at the 5km mark! Never, in my life, have I gotten interim results from a multi-lap race, printed, and delivered!
• large, heated wax trailers, within 200m of the start finish.
• “Ski Patrol”, which were athletes designated to ski in the tracks around the start/finish area (they made sure to evenly ski in all 4 finish lanes throughout the sprint heats).

Basically, they had it figured out!

It’s time to board the plane now. Naekemiin!

It was a bit warmer today — I think the temp may have made it up to -10 * C. But instead of bitter cold, we had some wind and snow. The past few days have been the first appreciable snowfall here in 6-8 weeks.

Relays went of this morning, 3×3 and 3×5, with a classic first leg followed by 2 skate. It was still pretty dark out when the girls hit the course, but that didn’t scare anybody. The girls race was pretty tight, with places 3-7 coming in within about 20 seconds of one another. Off the front were NOR/FIN, then SWE in 3rd, and USA 1 came in 6th or 7th, about 18 seconds from 3rd (Liotta, Loan, Gill).

Boys racing was again on a really tough 5km loop. The TD was cool with the fact that one of our relays only had 2 athletes, and allowed them to start and get splits for the first 2 legs (one of our boys is sick, but doing okay). The boys field stayed fairly tight for a few km before the NOR/SWE guys pushed the pace. It was a really hard final km, and a tough final stretch into slow, windblown snow and a headwind. USA boys ended the day in 8th (Cobb, Sinclair, Hanneman).

I think the performances out of these athletes the past 2 days (individual classic, and relay) was more in line with their abilities and they should be fairly happy with those results. After all the travel and racing they’ve done over the past 3-4 weeks, they still had some good performances. It ain’t easy seeing names in the teens/20’s/30’s, when they are used to seeing podiums and top-10s.

Now we’re packing and driving about 5 hours to Helsinki. We all fly tomorrow AM, some of us very early.

Thanks for checking in. Look at the links to the right for the official race site — they should have final results, and they will likely have split times calculated for each leg. Hopefully we’ll get some more posts up here over the coming days with pictures and maybe some more reflections.

Until then, over and out from FIN. //Tim