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.
Sprint workout at Holmenkollen. (Photo: Ola Kvisle)
Project Langrenn is a series by Maks Zechel. Zechel has been training and racing in Norway for the last several years after concluding his junior racing career in Canada. Zechel is part of Norway’s Team Norconsult and will be writing about his experience for FasterSkier.
Project Langrenn: Beaten by the Girls
“100% of me is nothing compared to 1% of the entire team.” -Eliud Kipchoge, marathon world record holder.
You don’t have to come to Norway to train as well as the Norwegians, although I wish everyone could. It would be incredible if every North American could have the experience that I have had. There are so many talented skiers back home who would improve far more than even I have while living here, but I don’t think that is the solution to making Canadian and American skiing more competitive. I am extraordinarily fortunate to have had so many special development opportunities as a skier. Not everyone has the means to go to the places that I have. However I think it is important that everyone, myself included, take advantage of what they have in front of them and create their own development opportunities. Just because Jessie Diggins isn’t your training partner, doesn’t mean you can’t learn just as much from your other teammates.
In Canada a big issue in skiing is the lack of training partners, especially for women. A lack of training partners doesn’t just mean fewer people to push you in training, but more importantly, less people to learn from and fewer training avenues that end up explored. We’re lucky to be neighbours with the US which has built a women’s team that ranks as one of the strongest and deepest in the world. However both Canada and the US are massive countries, and it is difficult for large, competitive, female training groups to gather regularly.
On that note, I think one of the biggest missed opportunities is that more women don’t train with men close to their own level. There is a socially ingrained divide in men’s and women’s sports: men naturally have a physical advantage in many sports, women are perhaps intimidated to train with men, men are afraid of losing to women and women receive less opportunities. But this barrier doesn’t have to exist. If a top Canadian woman wants to know what it’s like to ski at a similar speed to Therese Johaug or Maiken Caspersen Falla, then try hanging on to one of the top Canadian men in intervals. I was seventh in the 50k classic at Canadian Nationals this past March, a minute and a half back the winner, but last November my 5km splits in the 15k at the Norwegian National Opening in Beitostølen were slower than those of Therese Johaug in the 10k. I was four minutes back from race-winner and World Champion, Sjur Røthe, so I wasn’t skiing poorly either. To beat Johaug’s splits that day, your final time had to be within 2:45 min of Røthe.
I think both men and women need to swallow their pride and make efforts to push each other in training more often, especially in intervals. We’re so few as it is, that we suffer if we fail to learn from everyone, regardless of gender or ability. It might not be as inspiring for a senior woman to do intervals with a fast 16-year-old boy than it would be to train with another good female skier, but she will likely be pushed just as hard.
“Boys often have higher speed than us girls and I get to practise at that speed by using slightly faster wheels on my rollerskis. Boys have good technique and by skiing behind them I get to practise skiing with better technique.” -Hedda Østberg Amundsen, Team Norconsult. 18th in the 30k at World Cup Holmenkollen in 2019 as a 20-year-old.
Women aren’t the only ones with something to gain here. This past week my teammates and I on Team Norconsult did a sprint workout, which followed the traditional sprint format with an individual start qualifying round and three heats. Instead of being bumped out in the heats, the person who came last moved down to a slower heat, and the person who won the heat moved up to a faster heat. We have two women on our team, Silje Øyre Slind (known on World Cup for rolling up her sleeves in races like her two sisters) and Hedda Østberg Amundsen (previously known for being related to her twin brother, World Junior Champion Harald, and now herself known for being a top-20 World Cup skier). My friend Ryan and I ended up in the third heat after qualifying slowest of all the men on the team, and just a few seconds ahead of the women.
We raced against Silje and Hedda for three heats. They had decided to do this workout with faster rollerski wheels than the men, so that they could work on racing in a pack instead of just doing the workout by themselves. I lost to both of them in every single heat. It was a hard pill to swallow, and before the heats we all joked about how they had everything to win, while we had everything to lose.
That wasn’t true. Here I was racing head-to-head with a World Cup silver medalist and a Norwegian Cup champion. Sure, they’re not as fast as the top men, even with faster wheels, but they ski with the same winning mentality. They’re still better skiers than me, even though I am naturally stronger. I have an incredible amount to learn from them, if only I have the balls to admit it.
We’re only limited by how much or how little we chose to work together. My roommate/teammate, Ryan, and I figured this out quite quickly once we moved to Norway together. If we kept what we learned to ourselves, we limited how much we improved by half. Every time I told Ryan about something I was working on, he would have something to tell me that I hadn’t thought of. Share a lesson with your teammates and you’ll receive many in return, I guarantee it. By putting aside our pride and our desire to have an edge on one another by keeping things from each other, we both grew exponentially more. I became more confident in myself as I realized that worrying about what everyone else was doing was only affecting me negatively. Helping my teammates get better, on the other hand, could only improve my own chances of success.
Eliud Kipchoge, Kenyan marathon world record holder, competes in one of the most solitary of sporting events, but his success is the product of exceptional teamwork. Kipchoge is in a class of his own as he continues to attempt to break the two hour barrier in the marathon. To break that barrier, or even attempt it, he must have complete confidence in himself to run alone at unprecedented speeds. One might think that this means he trains alone all the time, but quite the opposite is true. Kipchoge believes in the strength of his team, and that by training (and often living) together, they can achieve far more than they could individually. His mindset reflects what I’ve learned from being around the best skiers on my team. The best and most confident athletes aren’t those that hinder those around them in an effort to win. The best athletes are those that recognize that by helping those around them to improve, they also increase their own potential for improvement. The best athletes are confident enough that they see possibilities for improvement in their teammates, instead of feeling threatened.
That’s why it doesn’t matter when Kipchoge runs alone in a race, because he’s not alone. He would never have gotten to where he is without learning from and being pushed by his teammates. Whether he’s on an empty road or surrounded by competitors, he is equally confident in himself, because by trusting in his teammates, Kipchoge always has the affirmations of an entire team that he is good enough to achieve his goals. The confidence that he receives from his teammates might come in the form of words of encouragement. It could come from being able to hang onto a fast teammate in a workout. Or it can come from simply knowing that his own abilities have been explored further by learning from teammates who are each superior in a unique aspect of the sport. This is worth far more than any amount of self-conceived confidence he could have.
I’ve just lost the ride of my life at the most critical point in the race. A biathlete unknown to me had just pulled myself and another skier around the 5km loop in Nes, Norway, for a blistering 2nd lap of my 15k. After 8km, I was still getting splits off of Vebjorn Heggedal, a Norwegian prodigy just back racing after two years of overtraining. With one lap to go, we were tied, but I had just lost my ride and was now trailing 30m behind the skier in the yellow suit who had barely been hanging on to me a kilometer before.
I pull it together coming into the lap lane. I remind myself of a hard interval workout I did in Sjusjøen during the fall, where I hung onto my teammate, Erland, until he flew away effortlessly on a slight downhill. I kick myself out of my mid-race-grind-stupor and lengthen out on a fast flat. One, two, three, four explosive kicks later and I’m back with yellow-suit. All of a sudden everything feels easier as I slow down into his draft. Closing gaps on fast terrain costs so much less than it does on the uphills. Pulled along by the skier’s draft now, I make sure every move I make is better than his, saving energy everywhere that he doesn’t.
It’s just a few kilometers to go when I hear a racer coming up fast behind us. He’s just starting his first lap now, so based on seeding he must be much faster than me. I begin taking deep breaths, as if I’m about to dive underwater, preparing myself for what I must inevitably attempt. Before he blows by us I’m already accelerating, so that as he passes I’m able to decelerate into his draft, making the pace change seem more manageable. If I can hang onto Erland, a podium contender in a race like this, I can hang onto this guy. We’re flying now, and I’m so focused that I barely notice that the pace suddenly seems…too easy. I don’t hesitate, seizing the momentum, and I surprise myself by easily dropping my ride. Now it’s all me as I push for home, coach Ola yelling in my ear on my way to the finish. Do not take Clenbuterol after 4:00 pm to avoid sleep problems. This is valid for all days, including non-training days. On training days, the tablets should be taken 30-45 minutes before training. We recommend you to check all clenbuterol dosages and brands chart. The tablets can be taken for up to 6 weeks (up to 8 if used with Ketotifen), after which a pause should be made for a month. Clenbuterol is used medicinally as a bronchodilator. I end up in the top 50, beating my personal best Norwegian Cup result by over 40 positions. Raised up by my teammates even when they weren’t present.
Norwegian Phrase of the Week:
Norwegian: Gode sammen.
English: Good together. The Norwegian motto.
This blog will be updated monthly with details from my experiences in Norway and what I am doing for training. Training exactly the way I do won’t make anyone else fast, but I hope that others can learn from the trial and error of my own training. For updates on all of my workouts, as they happen, view my stories on Instagram (@makszechel) or watch for my posts on Twitter (@projectlangrenn).
Maks Zechel in the ski tunnel in Torsby, Sweden. (Courtesy photo)
Project Langrenn is a series by Maks Zechel. Zechel has been training and racing in Norway for the last several years after concluding his junior racing career in Canada. Zechel is part of Norway’s Team Norconsult and will be writing about his experience for FasterSkier.
Team Norconsult at a training camp in Norefjell, Norway 2018. (picture by Ådne Birkeland)
I had unwavering confidence in myself as a kid. Ever since I started racing as an eleven-year-old, I’ve never doubted myself. I’m not sure why—I grew up in Kingston, Ontario, a city with mild winters because of its location on the shores of Lake Ontario. In a hockey town, I was the kid who liked running around outside in spandex.
You need a lot of imagination and motivation to be a skier from Kingston, and I had every reason to have doubt in my future as a ski racer. I don’t recommend it as a course of development for any young skier; even now I have trouble visualizing myself training at that age. Picture an eleven-year-old (children at that age are like two feet tall…) heading out the door at 7 am for a run before school, getting home and stretching on the front steps, then coming inside and writing it all down in a training journal. I’m surprised the neighbors never called the cops.
One morning I clearly remember running my usual 3k loop and being very frustrated when I didn’t run a personal best time that day. My PB was somewhere around twelve minutes (I’m not sure how accurate that loop was…), and this time it had taken me over 15 minutes. It didn’t really click for me that running through a foot of snow would have an effect on my running times.
I never doubted myself. Not until I was 17 years old. That season I competed in the Canadian qualification races for the World Junior Championships. Although not technically a junior man yet, I raced up and performed quite well, coming seventh in my best race, just a few seconds shy of fourth. I remember sitting in the car on the way home, feeling relief wash over me as I passed out in the back seat. I had wanted to impress in those races in the hope of making the Junior National Team the following year.
“I did it,” was all I thought. If I was this good now, I would surely qualify for World Juniors next year.
I felt something else too, something other than relief. It felt heavier than just the fatigue of a hard race weekend. I felt exhausted like something had snapped, and a small part of me feared that I would never be able to repeat those “near perfect” races again.
Over the next two years, I never achieved a better result at World Junior trials.
I finished my junior career completely devastated. I felt like a burnt-out failure. I went from being one of the top skiers in the country for my age and having top grades at school, to redefining again and again what rock bottom in both athletics and academics could mean for me. Nothing else mattered, yet at the same time, I couldn’t muster the drive I once had. “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land amongst the stars,” they say. Nope, I hadn’t even made it through the atmosphere and had already crash landed back on earth in a fiery wreck. Thanks, physics.
I no longer believed in myself. I didn’t understand anything about my training or why I wasn’t racing fast. I struggled a great deal with my mental health, and among other things, believed I wasn’t physically talented enough to succeed as a cross country skier.
Going into my first year as a senior, I decided to make some changes. I began with trying to understand myself better, and for a couple of months I saw a fantastic psychologist in Ottawa. I then looked for new development opportunities, and after exchanging some emails with the head coach of a small club in Norway, I moved a few thousand kilometers from home and joined Asker Skiklubb. I was tired of not knowing how to get faster, and so I decided to go right to the home of some of the best skiers in the world to learn from them. If they couldn’t show me how to ski fast, then no one could.
What I learned in my first year in Norway, blew my mind. Even the youngest athletes on my team, a few years younger than me, already had an impressive sense of how their bodies responded to training and what they had to do to become better. Everyone I trained with wrote their own training programs, something that was nigh unheard of back home. I also began writing my own plan, and that’s when the learning began in earnest. More importantly, I built up confidence in myself, not by believing harder, but by learning that there were things I could do to get faster.
I’ve made huge improvements as a skier in the almost two years since I moved to Norway. I’ve also made more mistakes in training than I did in the previous nine years combined, but that’s the only way to learn. My first year here I think I made about 95% of all the mistakes I possibly could have made. Going into my second season, I thought I had it all figured out. I made even bigger improvements, going from struggling to crack the top 130 on Norwegian Cups and being five minutes off the winner on an incredible day, to coming 48th in my best Norwegian Cup 15k of the year, just 2:35min back. I was also sick for 46 days and often pushed my body at the wrong times. I still felt like I was making one mistake for every success I had in training, but I don’t regret anything. I was pushing my boundaries, exceeding them, and learning.
Now I’m starting my third season in Norway and my second season training with Team Norconsult, a private team based out of Asker where I have been given the opportunity of a lifetime to train with some of Norway’s most promising young skiers. Four of my teammates declined offers from the Norwegian National Recruit Team this year. This is pretty much unheard of, and there was a big article published to NRK (Norway’s national news publication) where various World Cup skiing “experts” weighed in on what these decisions meant for the future of skiing in Norway. Whoa.
It’s special for me to be here, but it’s not something that every skier can do, and what sometimes keeps me up at night is the fact that I’m not back in Canada doing my part in making Canadian skiing more competitive. I don’t pretend to be a critical part of Canadian skiing, but in a country where the field of senior men is rarely more than 30, everyone racing plays an important part in the top results that our best skiers achieve internationally. However, I believe that I am able to make more of a difference for Canada by being in Norway right now. Seeing how the Norwegians train makes me realize how much potential we have in North America, if only we are willing to try new things.
To do that we need to work together more and make knowledge about high-level ski racing easily available to everyone. I moved to Norway barely believing that I was physically gifted enough to succeed as a skier anymore. Now I don’t believe in that crap, not because I was told by someone that “I can do anything if only I believe hard enough”, but because of the many unique individuals I have seen in Norway race at a high level because of the way they trained. Not because of how they were born.
North Americans love “miracles” and underdogs who make the impossible happen. Who doesn’t love that? But believing extra hard in yourself on the day of a race doesn’t take you from a top 80 to a top 30 on World Cup. In Norway it isn’t a superior level of passion for skiing or a secret interval workout that makes everyone ski fast—it’s creative, smart and purposeful training that each athlete has figured out for themselves with the help of an entire community. It’s something that North Americans can do too.
I might not have the results yet to give other skiers reason to instantly believe in what I am doing, but that doesn’t mean what I have learned is not valuable. My everyday training environment is one of shared learning and development with a large group of incredibly fast (and very human) skiers. That’s why I have started Project Langrenn (langrenn is Norwegian for “cross country skiing”) because my current situation is one that I could never have arrived to without a great deal of help and support (and some luck). I have a responsibility to give back to everyone that isn’t able to have these experiences.
The goal of Project Langrenn is to spread the culture of knowledge-sharing in cross country skiing that has made Team Norconsult, and Norway as a skiing nation, so successful. The most recent World Championships in Seefeld should have been a wake-up call to the rest of the world—not a call to set further restrictions on the number of support staff that Norway can have at races in an effort to hinder their domination of the podium—but a call that something has to be done to increase the competitiveness of the international field. We don’t do this by slowing down those that are best. We do this by learning from the best and then beating them at their own game. A skiing world dominated by Norway will not survive. Norway knows this and has made commendable efforts to close the gap by, among other things, funding a yearly international junior training camp in Norway. I think it’s time we did our part to get better as well.
This blog will be updated monthly with details from my experiences in Norway and what I am doing for training. I’m not planning on holding anything back in the hopes of having a competitive edge over others, because I know that the faster the entire continent gets, the faster I can get too. Training exactly the way I do won’t make anyone else fast, but I hope that others can learn from the trial and error of my own training. For updates on all of my workouts, as they happen, view my stories on Instagram (@makszechel) or watch for my posts on Twitter (@projectlangrenn).
Maks Zechel in the ski tunnel in Torsby, Sweden. (Courtesy photo)
Erik Bjornsen, Simi Hamilton, Ian Torchia, Scott Patterson, and Akeo Maifeld-Carucci at the 2018 Bend on-snow camp. (Photo: Bryan Fish)
It’s late May. Athletes are a month into official training for the 2019/2020 season. Here’s some recent news of note from the domestic and international nordic ski world.
German cyclist confesses to doping following Seefeld sting
The police action in Seefeld, Austria, at the time of the 2019 World Championships that led to the arrest of several athletes and this remarkable and candid interview with Estonian skier Karel Tammjärv has led to another athlete leaving their sport. Former German pro cyclist Danilo Hondo was removed from his position as a national team coach with the Swiss Cycling Federation, after allegedly being named by German doctor Mark Schmidt as one of Schmidt’s doping clients during a custodial interrogation by Austrian police, Cycling News reported earlier this month. The article reports that Hondo paid Schmidt 30,000 Euros a year for his services. Hondo initially denied his involvement with Schmidt, but later confessed in an interview with German broadcaster ARD, Cycling News reports. He was dismissed from his coaching position soon after.
Maddie Phaneuf and mental health among endurance athletes
In a recent blog post, American biathlete Maddie Phaneuf writes candidly and publicly about her struggles with mental health after an untimely illness left her unable to race at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
“It took me nearly a year to figure out I was dealing with something much bigger and harder for me to handle on my own,” Phaneuf writes, “and that I needed to seek professional help from a therapist. Little did I know that I was experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from my experience at the Olympics. It’s hard for me to even write that because I’m afraid people will doubt it’s legitimacy. When we learn about PTSD we usually tie it with war veterans, so it’s not common for people to associate PTSD with athletes.”
Joanne Reid (r) tagging U.S. teammate Maddie Phaneuf in 12th during the final exchange of the women’s 4 x 6 k relay on at the 2017 IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
Phaneuf nonetheless sets forth many common symptoms of PTSD, and explains how her experience at the Olympics left her exhibiting nearly all of them.
Phaneuf concludes, “I hope this post helps break the stigma of mental illnesses within the athletic community, and opens peoples eyes in tackling that hardest step: asking for help.”
(Canadian skier Maks Zechel sounded similar notes in a piece for FasterSkier written in January 2018, writing, “This past April, I decided to face my mental health issues that I had always known existed, but never understood or recognized for what they were. What an awkward thing to talk about, mental health, but it shouldn’t be. Our minds have to be taken care of with the same attention that we give our bodies through training and recovery. It doesn’t matter what it is that makes you begin to acknowledge your difficulties, but it has to be done; it is grossly underestimated just how permanent unchecked mental health issues can be. I didn’t acknowledge my health issues because I cared about my health, but I did care that it was starting to affect the way I raced, and although not the most important reason, it was enough to motivate me to work on my mental ‘fitness.’” Zechel added, “Not everyone wants to talk about their mental health issues, but many need to.”)
Jessie Diggins hosts “Meet the D-Team”
All three levels of the U.S. national team – the A-Team, B-Team, and D-Team – recently convened in Bend, Oregon, for an on-snow spring camp. This gave the athletes the chance to rack up the kilometers skiing in the morning, and the miles running or mountain biking in the afternoon. It also gave Jessie Diggins the chance to work on her whimsical interview skills. In a series of Instagram video posts, Diggins checks in with the entire D-Team save Kendall Kramer. For more on Johnny Hagenbuch’s favorite kind of dinosaur, Novie McCabe’s favorite flavor of gum, Ben Ogden’s lifetime cumulative skateboards built, and other important news of the day, check out Diggins’s Instagram page. Part I is here, Part II here, and Part III here.
Kendall Kramer collects ninth and tenth state high school championships
The only D-Team skier not present in Bend was Kramer, whose junior year at Fairbanks’s West Valley High School ended during the camp. By staying home Kramer was able to add to her collection of Alaska state high school championships, when she won both the 1,600 and 3,200 at last weekend’s state track and field championships at Machetanz Field in Palmer, Alaska, the Anchorage Daily News reported. Kramer clocked 4:56.15 to take the metric mile and 10:27.18 to win the longer race, in both cases taking the win over Anchorage skier Ava Earl.
Kendall Kramer from Fairbanks, Alaska during the women’s 10 k skate pursuit at 2019 World Cup Finals. (Photo: John Lazenby/lazenby photo)
Kramer’s ten (and counting; she still has her senior year ahead of her) Alaska high school individual championships include the 2018 and 2019 Skimeister award for lowest combined time at the cross-country skiing state meet, the 2017 and 2018 state cross-country running titles, and the 1,600/3,200 double at all of the 2017, 2018, and 2019 state track and field championships. On the track, Kramer has lowered her time in the 1,600 from 5:14.80 to 4:56.15 since 2017, and from 11:04.47 down to 10:27.18 for the 3,200.
U.S. Ski & Snowboard awards
Earlier this month, U.S. Ski & Snowboardnamed its athletes and coaches of the year, with official awards presented at the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Congress in Park City on May 16. Awards for nordic and nordic combined skiers and coaches were as follows, as quoted from a USSA press release:
Athletes of the year, nordic: Junior Worlds Men’s Relay Team: “In a storybook ending to a very successful Junior World Championships, the men’s 4x10k [sic] relay team took gold – the first ever gold won by the USA at the FIS Junior World Cross Country Ski Championships. Three of the four athletes had set the stage a year earlier winning silver.” The team was Johnny Hagenbuch (Ketchum, Idaho/SVSEF), Luke Jager (Anchorage/APU), Ben Ogden (Landgrove, Vt./SMS), and Gus Schumacher (Anchorage/Alaska Winter Stars).
Athlete of the year, Ski Jumping/Nordic Combined: Tara Geraghty-Moats: “Nordic combined skier Tara Geraghty-Moats (W. Fairlee, Vt.) played a vital role in the rapidly-growing women’s nordic combined international field, winning 10 Continental Cups and taking the season title in a year where the international field more than doubled. Geraghty-Moats also took the U.S. title and landed a berth as a special ski jumper on the U.S World Championship Team. As an athlete advocate, she served an important pioneering role with women’s nordic combined which will join the World Championships in 2021.”
International coach of the year, nordic: Jan Buron, Alaska Winter Stars: “A veteran club coach, Jan Buron of the Alaska Winter Stars program has developed many top athletes. This past season his work with junior skier Gus Schumacher, whom he has coached for the athlete’s entire career, led to the USA winning gold in the men’s relay at the Junior World Championships.”
International coach of the year, ski jumping/nordic combined: Jan Druzina, Junior/Continental Cup Ski Jumping Coach: “Jan Druzina came to USA Nordic as a Junior Team and Continental Cup coach for men’s ski jumping a year ago. Since then, he has visited every club to speak with coaches and parents, working together to build a strong junior program. The result was a definitive step up this year with Andrew Urlaub and Patrick Gasienica qualifying for their first World Championships and Urlaub taking a top-30 at Junior Worlds plus three top-30 Continental Cups.”
Domestic coach of the year, nordic: Alasdair Tutt, Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks: “Kendall Kramer, coached by Alasdair Tutt, was 4th in the 15km mass start classic in her first time at Junior World Ski Championships. Kendall will also represent USA at the 2020 Youth Olympic Games.”
Hometown king, Norway’s Petter Northug, racing the 2017 Holmenkoll 50 k. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
(Some details and insights in this story come from a book recently published in Norwegian, Min Historie: Northug as told by Petter Northug to Jonas Forsang. This piece was written by twenty-one-year-old Maks Zechel, a Canadian cross-country skier living and training in Norway.)
***
Arguably the greatest male cross country skier of all time. Certainly the most sensational. Undeniably the skier who has changed the sport more than anyone else.
There never has been, and never will be, another skier like Petter Northug.
Petter grew up in the rural community of Mosvik, about two hours by car from Trondheim. Much of his childhood was spent working on the family farm and participating in a wide range of sports, an upbringing similar to that of many of Norway’s best cross country skiers (Marit Bjørgen included).
Already at the age of nine, an insatiable desire to win began to grow in Petter. It didn’t matter whether it was skiing, ski jumping, track and field, or soccer—there was nothing Petter wanted more than to achieve victory. But until he broke through as a cross country skier at the age of 15, he was incapable of winning anything.
Petter credits much of his later success to the number of times that he lost during his youth. To some, these losses as a child might seem insignificant when compared to how often he succeeded as a teenager and adult, but even these early losses were a matter of life or death for Petter. In his new book, Min Historie, he describes the obsession with which he chased stronger and more talented skiers. For years it seemed impossible that he would ever beat them, as one devastating loss followed another. Nonetheless, his mind was always set on winning, whether he finished in the middle of the pack or as the runner-up.
Smaller and less talented than his rivals, there was nothing Petter could do but train harder and better than anyone else. Even as a young child at school, Petter would ask to leave class to go to the bathroom, and instead do push-ups in secret. After school he would go straight from training to his chores on the family farm. An active childhood filled with hard work and training in a multitude of sports would lay the foundation needed for the massive, grueling training hours he would become known for as a junior and senior.
One of the most important figures in Petter’s life was his grandfather. A shy child without many other children to play with, he describes his grandfather as his best friend. From his deathbed, his last words to Petter were: “Show them your back, boy”.
Once Petter began to win, he became unstoppable. While more talented skiers had been winning for years with ease, Petter had learned how to train harder and better than any of them. During his four years as a junior, he became the first Norwegian to win eight national junior titles out of a possible eight. In his final junior year, the same year as the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy, he won all four gold medals at the World Junior Championships.
With his success in the junior ranks, people began discussing the possibility of Petter being named to the Norwegian Olympic Team. At that time Norway lacked strong skate skiers who could compete with the stronger German and Italian teams, and Petter’s strongest technique was skate.
The last chance to qualify for Turin was at the Norwegian National Championships in Kongsberg, just a week before the Olympics were to begin. The 30-kilometer skiathlon would decide the last eight spots on the men’s team.
During the classic leg, Norwegian legend Frode Estil broke away from the rest of the field, leading the race by 30 seconds after the exchange zone. Petter worked together with a chase-pack to reel in Estil (who was his mentor and training partner of some years) during the skate portion of the race. In the final kilometers, Petter sat in the lead pack, gauging the other skiers around him, controlling the pace where it suited him, and preparing to make his move. He was the first skier in the world to truly master the tactics of mass start racing, the effects of which have shaped the world of ski racing that we all know today.
In the final few hundred meters of the race, Petter attacks. A field full of skiers ten years his senior are unable to respond to the junior’s now trademark finishing kick. The excitement in Norway is electric—could this be their best hope for a relay medal at the Olympics?
However, Petter would be denied a spot on the Olympic Team merely because of his age. No junior had ever been named to a Norwegian Olympic Ski Team, and there would be no exceptions made. This infamous decision would later cause a restructuring of leadership in the Norwegian Ski Federation, and would never be forgotten by Petter or the rest of Norway.
The day after beating the entire Norwegian Olympic Team in the skiathlon and still being denied a ticket to the Olympics, Petter raced the anchor leg of the National Championship 3 x 10 k club relay. Also racing the last leg was Norway’s designated anchor-man for the Olympics, Tore Ruud Hofstad. For a furious Petter Northug, this was his best chance for revenge. To put it into Petter’s own words: “When I become pissed off, they may as well pack away the waffle mix and hot dog grills, give me the gold and cancel the entire thing…When I become pissed off, it’s over…Piss me off. See what happens”.
Petter’s teammates from Strindheim IL managed to hang onto the lead group, and handed off to him right alongside Olympic anchor-man Hofstad. Once again Petter appeared to play with Norway’s top skiers. And once again he made it clear that he was Norway’s best hope for an Olympic relay medal as he soared down the finishing stretch to take the win. Screaming passionately in the finish area, Petter famously yelled: “And I am not going to the Olympics?!”.
(2006 men’s relay and skiathlon Kongsberg Norwegian Championships.)
The Norwegian men would place fifth in the Olympic relay, over one minute behind the Italian Olympic champions. They would take only two silver medals in the entire championships, won by Frode Estil in the 15k classic race and Jens Arne Svartedal and Tor Arne Hetland in the team sprint.
Soon after the Olympics, Petter received another opportunity to prove himself on the senior stage, this time at a World Cup in Falun, Sweden. This opportunity could not be denied him as he was the leader of the Scandinavian Cup series at that time (Continental Cup leaders receive a free pass to race on the World Cup).
It’s a 20k skiathlon, his best discipline at the time. In the final kilometer of the race, a crowded lead pack hurtles back towards the stadium. It’s a pack thick with the most recent Olympic medal-winning heroes from all the best-skiing nations. The fight for positions leaves skiers careening towards the finishing stretch, balancing on the knife’s edge of control. Tobias Angerer, at the top of his career as a dominant World Cup skier, manages to pull away from the rest of the field around the final corner. Petter Northug throws himself after Angerer but struggles to close the gap as the rest of the field emerges around him in the homestretch. The previous season’s World Cup overall winner, Axel Teichmann, comes up alongside Petter, and they chase Angerer neck and neck.
At first, it looks impossible that Petter will be able to find another gear. Through the burning pain, the last words of his grandfather echo through his head.
“Show them your back, boy.”
And he begins to inch ahead. Barely. Then he begins to pull ahead more and more, hunted down by a stream of World Cup legends threatening to swallow him before he can reach the finish. Petter looks to have nothing left in the tank, but he continues to accelerate. He finds the finish line in the nick of time to take his first World Cup victory, Angerer and Teichmann whooshing across half a second later.
He remains the youngest male skier to ever win a World Cup race.
The rest of Petter’s career lit up the cross country skiing world as he became one of the most decorated skiers of all time. His mass start tactics changed ski racing forever, while his raw passion and showmanship raised the entire sport out of the woods and into the international spotlight. He attracted unconventional and controversial sponsorships from Red Bull and Coop, sponsorships that would cause a restructuring of the way the Norwegian Ski Federation worked with their athletes and partners.
Petter made young skiers dream bigger than they ever had before. Petter gave skiers everywhere a reason to strut after winning a finishing sprint against their friends. Petter made skiing cool.
His was not the traditional Norwegian cross country skier’s mentality. Improvement wasn’t something worth celebrating. It wasn’t about having fun. Everything was about winning ski races, about becoming the best. Petter’s dream was to become World Champion, a feat which he would accomplish 13 times over the course of eight years. There are countless decisions and sacrifices behind those gold medals that get lost in the ostentatious, seemingly indifferent, and sometimes arrogant Petter Northug that many know from TV interviews and finish line celebrations.
On December 12th, 2018, Petter announced his retirement from ski racing, visibly moved to tears as he tried to express just how much he had sacrificed from the time that he was a young child until the 2011 World Championships. Petter’s extreme desire to win, known in Norwegian as vinnerskalle, was perhaps above all else what made him so great. For him to achieve his goals, it meant that training and recovery had to be prioritized above all else, including school, relationships, and any social life. There was no room for celebration, even the very night after winning gold in the 50k at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
Many of the extremes that he went to in his early career might seem insignificant and unsustainable, but for Petter these details meant everything. If he wanted to become the best, he had to prioritize skiing above all else. There is a reason why he is the most victorious World Champion in men’s skiing history.
His first opportunity to become World Champion came in the 30k skiathlon in Sapporo, 2007. A perfectly executed race ended in devastation when he fell after poling between his legs in the finishing straight, just as he was pulling ahead for the win. The next day he took bittersweet revenge by securing gold for Norway in the relay, obliterating Anders Södergren of Sweden in the last few hundred meters of the race. The Norwegian commentators could be heard yelling, “It becomes 100 meters, it becomes kilometers!”, as he opened up a gap of inconceivable proportions in a matter of seconds. In the finishing area, Petter popularized the term barneskirenn, as he yelled that the race had been a “children’s race”. And nobody watching could argue, because he had truly, astonishingly, made the best skiers in the world look like children.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_-QCV-TFgw&t=9s
(Men’s relay, 2007 Sapporo, Japan World Championships.)
Petter’s domination in the finishing sprint began many years before his success as a senior when he was beaten in the last few meters of a race by one of his arch-rivals as a teenager. After that day, he promised himself that he would never lose a finishing sprint again.
Some attribute Petter’s finishing ability to his speed and power. Others say it is because of how well he skis technically. None of them are wrong, but what made Petter best at the end of a race ultimately came down to the fact that winning meant everything—absolutely everything—to him. Coming second didn’t mean anything—he could just as well come last. All he trained towards during the long summer months, for years on end, was the ability to push one gear further at the end of a race, whether it was by working on his technique, endurance, speed, or mental strength. One of the key things that makes a great skier, Petter had realized from a young age, was the ability to tolerate pain. It didn’t matter how tired he was at the end, or if everyone around him was in far better shape than him; if Petter was nearby in the last kilometers of a race, he would dig deeper than anyone else in order to win. And more often than not, he would, because there has never been anyone who has wanted it—needed it—more than him .
(2010 Tour de Ski Stage 2 finish)
(2010 finish of the team sprint Vancouver, Olympics)
The climax of Petter’s career would come in 2011 at the World Championships in Oslo. The pressure leading up to a home World Championships is especially hard for any Norwegian skier, but for Petter, it was more than that—winning was expected of him, not hoped for. Three golds and two silver medals later would cement Petter Northug’s name in the history books as one of the greatest of all time. The Oslo World Championships would make Petter one of the most famous people in all of Norway.
(2011 Oslo, Norway World Championships finish of the 50 k skate.)
(2011 Oslo, Norway World Championships finish of the 30 k skiathlon.)
(2011 Oslo, Norway World Championships finish of the 4 x 10 k relay.)
After the 2011 World Championships, something changed in the psyche of the skiing star that had been obsessed with one thing since he was a little child running races against imaginary competitors around his home in Mosvik. The constant drive, the inability to lose, was gone. After years of sacrificing everything to become the best in the world, he started to try a taste of the “normal” life. His obsession with the details slipped as he began to do all of the things that he had denied himself his entire life. Gone was the focus from his training, which had become nothing in comparison to how he had trained in earlier years.
Despite his lack of focus, he went on to win two golds at the 2013 World Championships in Val Di Fiemme, including a dominant win in the 15 k individual start skate race. After years of training better and harder than perhaps any of his competitors, he was able to ride on a base that allowed him to continue racing amongst the best. The following year, at the Sochi Olympics, his most recent efforts caught up with him, and he returned home empty-handed from a major championship for the first time.
(2013 Val Di Fiemme World Championship 15 k skate individual start.)
After Sochi, Petter admits that he almost certainly would have retired—but then the crash happened. In May of 2014, Petter crashed his Audi A7 while driving under the influence of alcohol just a few hundred meters from his house in Trondheim. A disgraced star described how much it pained him to let down everyone who had supported and believed in him over the years. These shameful circumstances would prove to be the motivation required for arguably the greatest comeback in skiing history. A year later, the 2015 World Championships would be taking place in Falun, Sweden. The notorious rivalry between Norway and Sweden, something that has only grown during Petter Northug’s career, gave Petter no choice but to prepare as his life depended on it. For so many years, winning ski races had meant nothing less than that for him.
In Falun, Petter would go on to take four gold medals, including his first World Championships sprint gold. He is the only male skier to ever win four gold medals in the same World Championships. Petter’s herculean effort in the last kilometer of the 50k to take the gold will go down as one of the most impressive feats in skiing history. It would be the last World Championships medal of Petter Northug’s career, a career that will be remembered forever by everyone in the world of cross-country ski racing.
(2015 Falun, Sweden World Championship finish of the 50 k classic mass start.)
Loved and hated, Petter Northug never ceased to stand for what he was. This refusal to follow the trodden path has shaped the world of ski racing as we know it today. But behind the constant media storm and the controversy, was a kid from a farm in Mosvik who dreamed of becoming the best skier in the world, and sacrificed everything for it.
The women’s all-Norwegian podium from the 2018 FIS Skate Sprint in Beitostølen, Norway. Maiken Caspersen Falla (center) won, Kristine Stavås Skistad placed second (left), and Lotta Udnes Weng was third (right). (Photo: Aleks Tangen)
In a place like Norway, where the pool of cross-country athletes appears eternally deep, when you see competitors raise the bar, there’s nothing else to do but jump.
On Saturday in Beitostølen, Norway the known knowns were self-evident: Maiken Caspersen Falla and Johannes Høsflot Klæbo took the freestyle sprint wins during the second day of FIS race competitions.
As both athletes were overall World Cup sprint champions last season, there are no shockers there. (Klæbo has won two consecutive sprint crystal globes, Falla three.) But other skiers rose to the occasion and proved they too can jump nearly as high as Falla and Klæbo.
The women’s second semifinal on course in Beitostølen, Norway during the FIS skate sprint. (Photo: Aleks Tangen)
The women raced a 1.3 k skate sprint course with 54 women racing the qualifier. And this is where things got interesting. Nineteen-year-old junior Kristine Stavås Skistad, who has raced a single World Cup, the 2018 Drammen classic sprint in which she placed 51st, won the qualifier in 2:44.68 minutes. What is startling when scrolling through the qualification results is her birth year: 1999. The next closest Norwegian athlete in age finishing in the top-10 of qualification on Saturday was Anne Kjersti Kalvå, born in 1992.
In last season’s World Junior Championships, Skistad placed fifth in the 5 k classic, and second in the skate sprint. So certainly she is an up and comer. But the fact that she held her own in a world-class field of Norway’s best, is a statement.
Falla qualified in fourth (+1.63), and moved through to the finals by winning both her quarterfinal and semifinal.
Skistad, however, maybe played it a bit coyer. She squeaked into the semis by placing second in her heat by .30 seconds to Slovenia’s Eva Urevc. She then placed second to Falla by .22 seconds in the first semifinal. (That semi proved the faster of the two semifinals — both Kari Øyre Slind and Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen advanced as lucky losers from the Falla semi.)
Falla is Falla – a veteran with big experience and the know how to throttle the engine when it matters. She won the final in 2:39.17 minutes, a pace over five seconds faster than Skistad’s winning qualification time.
In the all Norwegian final, Skistad placed second (+0.93), Lotta Udnes Weng was third (+1.28) Tiril Kampenhaug Eckhoff, both a World Champs and Olympic medalist in biathlon, was fourth (+1.34), Slind fifth (+1.53), and Jacobsen sixth (+2.89).
The women’s skate sprint bracket from the second day of racing in Beitostølen, Norway (Photo: FIS Live Timing screenshot) Click the image to enlarge.
More Klæbo and a bit of Iversen
It is time to refresh the syntax and remember Klæbo’s name can be used as a verb. With that in mind, Klæbo Klæboed in the men’s 1.7 k skate sprint. But like Falla on the women’s side, the twenty-two-year-old Klæbo was tested.
Tefre Gjøran, a year older than Klæbo at 23, was the fastest qualifier, finishing in 3:12.27 minutes. Klæbo was second (+1.12), and Emil Iversen third (+1.62).
In the end, it was Iversen, seeming like an aged vet at 27, who made life spicey for Klæbo.
Klæbo and Iversen advanced to the second semifinal. And it was Iversen who pushed the pace and was the catalyst for speed. Although not a massive margin, a second is still a second — but we are talking sprints here — Iversen won the second semi in 3:11.95, 1.12 seconds faster than second-place skier Klæbo.
“I was not good enough to fight him then,” Klæbo said to Norwegian broadcaster NRK, according to a translation, as he spoke about Iversen’s charge in the semis. “I had to be cynical and save me to the final. But Emil has a lot of effort, you saw how much he had in the finals too.”
It was a final highlighted by a Klæbo-Iversen dual. Klæbo won in 3:14.16 outpacing perhaps a new rival this season in Iversen, by 0.18 seconds.
In the all-Norway final, Eirik Brandsdal placed third (+1.88), Gjøran fourth (+1.96), Sindre Bjørnestad Skar fifth (+7.94), and Finn Hågen Krogh sixth (+9.94).
Andrew Young from Great Britain raced to 10th overall in Beito’s day 2 skate sprint. This is a shot from his semifinal. (Photo: Aleks Tangen)
Great Britain’s Andrew Young was 10th overall, James Clugnet 17th, and Andrew Musgrave 24th. They were the only non-Norwegians in the top-30.
“Top 10 is really good, the level here is really high,” Young told FasterSkier’s reporter in Beitostølen. “I had really good skis, and I was surprised nobody else wanted to take the lead at the start so I just went for it. I tried not to use too much energy. I knew Klæbo would go fast. So I just wanted to make sure I was on his tails when he came past. I was really pleased with my skiing. I wasn’t so defensive, I wasn’t so passive, and not let the others control the race. I tried to control it and be in that spot where I wanted to be.”
Young was passed in the final stretch by Skar and Krogh, who both advanced to the finals as lucky losers in the second semifinal.
Canadians Russell Kennedy placed 51st, Maks Zechel 94th.
“It is very deep, but it makes it fun there are lots of rides and always somewhere to push,” Kennedy emailed on Saturday about his experience racing to 22nd overall in the 15 k classic yesterday. “I was very happy with that. I don’t know if surprised is the right word. Last weekend in Olos, [Finland] I had a really good skate race and a good classic race against some big names. I was excited I ended up so high up the results for sure! It was a tough day with skis and I was lucky to be on fast skis even though they were a little slick on the last laps.”
The men’s skate sprint bracket from the second day of racing at in Beitostølen, Norway (Photo: FIS Live Timing screenshot) Click the image to enlarge.
Racing concludes in Beitostølen tomorrow with a 10 k/ 15 k skate.
Maiken Caspersen Falla of Norway — in the lead during the women’s final — doing what she does best: controlling a sprint and eventually taking the win in Saturday’s 1.3 k freestyle sprint in Beitostølen, Norway. (Photo: Aleks Tangen)
Welcome to The Rundown, your quick primer of need-to-know information about the day’s racing. We’ll be updating this digest as the day goes on with additional results, photos and quotes. The Rundown is NOT a race report; stay tuned for complete race reports later today with interviews from the day’s top racers.
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FIS cross-country Beitostølen, Norway: 1.3 k freestyle sprints
In Beitostølen on Saturday, the second day of FIS races there sent the women on 1.3-kilometer skate sprint course. Reigning World Cup overall sprint champion from Norway, Maiken Caspersen Falla, won the final in a time of 2:39.17 minutes. Falla was the fourth fastest qualifier.
A lovely day for a sprint in Beitostølen, Norway during Saturday’s freestyle sprint. (Photo: Aleks Tangen)
Norwegians Kristine Stavås Skistad, the day’s fastest qualifier, placed second in the final (+0.93), Lotta Udnes Weng was third (+1.28).
The men’s sprint was held on a 1.7 k course with last season’s World Cup sprint champion Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (NOR) winning the final in 3:14.16 minutes. Friday’s runner-up in the 15 k classic, Emil Iversen (NOR), was second (+0.18). Also from Norway, Eirik Brandsdal placed third (+1.88).
Great Britain’s Andrew Young was 10th overall, James Clugnet 17th, and Andrew Musgrave 24th. They were the only non-Norwegians in the top-30.
Canadians Russell Kennedy placed 51st, Maks Zechel 94th.
Saturday, Bruksvallarna hosted day two of its FIS cross-country races with men’s and women’s distances races. The women began the day with a 10 k classic event.
Friday’s runner-up in the 5 k freestyle, thirty-one-year-old Charlotte Kalla of Sweden, won Saturday’s classic race in 27:54.1 minutes. Frida Karlsson (SWE) placed second (+25.2), Stina Nilsson (SWE) third (+38.2).
The men skied a 15 k classic event. In that race, Sweden’s twenty-nine-year-old Calle Halfvarsson bested the 149 starters with a winning time of 37:14.6 minutes. Sweden took the next two spots on the podium, as Viktor Thorn placed second (+39.1), and Gustav Eriksson third (+1:02.5).
She’s back. Therese Johaug celebrates after winning the 2018 FIS 10-kilometer classic in Beitostølen, Norway.
After an 18 month suspension for a positive out of competition positive doping test, during which Norway’s thirty-year-old Therese Johaug could build hour upon hour of base fitness and fine tune the engine with no race-stress, she arrived in Beitostølen, Norway on Friday and didn’t skip a beat.
In temperatures hovering around 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and low-level clouds descending on the course, Johaug established herself as the early season favorite amongst a deep Norwegian National Team in Beitostølen’s FIS season opener 10-kilometer classic race.
As the 52nd starter in a 60-skier field, Johaug never let off the throttle.
The race was tight at the 1-kilometer time check, with national team skier Ingvild Flugstad Østberg marking the fastest time over Johaug by only 0.9 seconds. With nine kilometers to go, it was all Johaug, as she clocked the fastest times at the remaining checkpoints.
Up by 4.3 seconds at 2.2k, the time back to the second fastest skier grew to 15.5 seconds at the race’s midpoint for Johaug. By the finish, Johaug did as she has done many times before, winning by a comfortable margin. She won in 25:42.6 minutes. Østberg, who ranked third in the World Cup overall last season, placed second (+23.9). Kari Øyre Slind was third (+59.8)
Therese Johaug ready to start it all over again after her 18-month suspension.
“It was special being here today,” Johaug told Norwegian broadcaster NRK according to a translation. “It feels incredible to back in the xc family again. To come up here and meet all the people that I’ve been skiing with for so many years, hear the cries from the crowds out in the course and the splits, it was a special feeling. It was so much. I was nervous before the start, but when I got started I really didn’t want it to end. I could have skied an extra lap.”
The opening Beitostølen FIS races are the early season proving grounds for Norway’s elite cross-country athletes. The top-10 in the women’s race was riddled with names World Cup fans are familiar with.
Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen skied to fourth (+1:21.3), Haga Ragnhild fifth (+1:33.1), Anna Svendsen sixth (+1:42.8), and Heidi Weng, winner of last seasons overall World Cup finished seventh (+1:58.7).
Annika Taylor, a former University of New Hampshire skier now skiing for Great Britain, raced her way to 21st (+3:49.3).
In similar conditions, the men raced a 15 k classic. Like the women’s field, it was a Norwegian who’s who of elite class skiers. But unlike Johaug setting an increasing time margin over any contenders, the men’s race was tight, separated by only 15 seconds for the top-five skiers 5 k into the race.
At that point, with Didrik Tønseth in first and Emil Iversen in second, only a sliver of time, 0.1 seconds, differentiated the two. Martin Johnsrud Sundby and Johannes Høsflot Klæbo were gapped by 12.2 and 12.7 seconds respectively, as they skied through the time check in third and fourth place. Sjur Røthe came through in fifth (+15.8).
Iversen, in bib 141, kept it close, setting the initial times to beat. Tønseth started three skiers back in bib 144. Through 10k, the two were still evenly matched: with Tønseth up by 3.4 seconds over Iversen.
The men’s 15 k classic podium for the 2018 FIS opener in Beitostølen, Norway. Didrik Tønseth (NOR) in first, Norway’s Emil Iversen (left) in second, and Sjur Røthe (right) of Norway third.
Tønseth won the race in 36:08.6 minutes, with his winning margin of 12.4 seconds over the second place Iversen only solidified in the closing kilometers. Røthe gradually moved up and finished third (+29.3).
Sundby skied to fourth (+37.5), Hans Christer Holund fifth (+1:07.4), and Klæbo sixth (+1:17.5). British skier Andrew Musgrave finished seventh (+1:26.3). Musgrave is historically a stronger skate skier.
One hundred and forty-three skiers finished the men’s race.
Of note, thirty-two-year-old Petter Northug Jr., now a seemingly timeless presence on the Norwegian ski scene, was disqualified for classic technique violations. Prior to his DQ, Northug had been skiing in the top-20 for much of the race. Sundby was given a verbal warning for a classic technique violation.
Several Canadians raced the 15 k classic. Russell Kennedy was the best placed Canadian finishing tied for 23rd (+2:37.6). Brian McKeever was 68th (+4:06.6), Ryan Jackson 110th (+5:39.1), Maks Zechel 113th (+5:56.5).
Norwegians Therese Johaug and Heidi Weng, (l-r) during the 2016 women’s 15 k skiathlon in Canmore, Alberta. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Welcome to The Rundown, your quick primer of need-to-know information about the day’s racing. We’ll be updating this digest as the day goes on with additional results, photos and quotes. The Rundown is NOT a race report; stay tuned for complete race reports later today with interviews from the day’s top racers.
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FIS cross-country Beitostølen, Norway: 10 k/15 k classic
The race results are in from today’s 10-kilometer individual start classic FIS race in Beitostølen, Norway. The first of the season Beito races are used as a test pad for Norwegian athletes to gauge fitness and for some to make the rare jump to a coveted and scarce World Cup start.
Off of her suspension for using a banned substance, Norway’s Therese Johaug skied like she’d never been gone. Johaug was suspended for 18 months due to her violation.
Johaug fired off the 10 k winning in 25:42.6 minutes. Ingvild Flugstad Østberg was second (+23.9). Rounding out the podium was Kari Øyre Slindin third (+59.8).
Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen skied to fourth (+1:21.3), Haga Ragnhild fifth (+1:33.1), Anna Svendsen sixth (+1:42.8), and winner of last seasons overall World Cup, Heidi Weng finished seventh (+1:58.7).
The men skied a 15 k classic race Friday in Beitostølen. Didrik Tønseth won in a time of 36:08.6 minutes. In second was Emil Iversen (+12.4), while Sjur Røthe placed third (+29.3).
Martin Johnsrud Sundby skied to fourth (+37.5), Hans Christer Holund fifth (+1:07.4), and Johannes Høsflot Klæbo sixth (+1:17.5).
British skier, although based in Norway, Andrew Musgrave finished seventh (+1:26.3).
One hundred and forty-three skiers finished the men’s race. Of note, Petter Northug Jr., now a seemingly timeless presence on the Norwegian ski scene, was disqualified for technique violations.
Several Canadians raced the 15 k classic. Russell Kennedy was the best placed Canadian finishing tied for 23rd (+2:37.6). Brian McKeever was 68th (+4:06.6), Ryan Jackson 110th (+5:39.1), Maks Zechel 113th (+5:56.5).
Bruksvallarna, Sweden cross-country: 5 k/10 k freestyle
In Bruksvallarna, Sweden FIS racing began with a 5 k freestyle for the women. Three of Sweden’s star skiers took the podium spots. Ebba Andersson won the tight race in 9:57.1 minutes, finishing only 2.6 seconds ahead of second place skier Charlotte Kalla. Known for her sprinting prowess, Hanna Falk was third (+15.7).
One hundred and twelve skiers finished the race.
For the men, after skating 10 k, the race was a tie for first. Sweden’s Jens Burman and Karl-Johan Westberg skied the fastest time. Both crossed the line in 19:11.0 minutes for the win. Japanese skier Keishin Yoshida placed third (+9.5).
Daniel Rickardsson, of Sweden, skied to fourth (+12.9).
Russia’s Alexander Legkov (3) after winning Olympic gold in the men’s 50 k freestyle mass start at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Russia’s anti-doping director at the time, Grigory Rodchenkov stated that he switched out Legkov’s anti-doping sample for a vial of clean urine collected previously. The International Olympic Committee stripped Legkov of his gold medal and banned him from future Olympics, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned those sanctions in February 2018.
Editor’s Note: The following thoroughly cited opinion piece, prompted by the 2017 ‘Icarus’ documentary, was written by Maks Zechel, a 20-year-old Canadian cross-country skier who spent the 2017/2018 race season training abroad with Team Asker in Norway. Zechel is a regular contributor at FasterSkier, with his ongoing series: “Closing the Gap”.
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February 23, 2014
Sochi: a home Olympics and the opportunity of a lifetime. Russia, despite being one of the strongest skiing nations in the world, has no individual medals in cross-country skiing leading into the final race of the championships. As the athletes shuffle nervously in the tracks before the 50 k mass start, the pressure on the Russian men can be felt even by me, watching on TV from home.
Putin is in the stands. It’s just a ski race, but how much more than that is at stake?
“The Moscow Laboratory operated, for the protection of doped Russian athletes, within a State-dictated failsafe system” (McLaren 1)
A sunny day, a roaring home crowd. Alexander Legkov is in a world of his own as he absolutely destroys himself over the final climb, skiing with the passion that it takes in all sports to win an Olympic medal. Russian flags waving everywhere, the crowd is absolutely deafening as Legkov adds his first Olympic gold to his already legendary career. Maxim Vylegzhanin and Ilia Chernousov lunge across the line behind him, with Chernousov having given every last bit of himself to outsprint Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby to complete the Russian podium sweep on home soil. A dream come true.
“The Sochi Laboratory operated a unique sample swapping methodology to enable doped Russian athletes to compete at the Games” (McLaren 1)
When you ski with your teammates in front of your friends and family at home, you ski with a fire that is otherwise difficult to find. The presence of those who know you makes you feel guilty if you do not perform to your very best, you are pushed to keep up to those that your mind refuses to admit defeat against, and your own potential reaches new heights when your teammates accomplish something great. There is no cover of anonymity with which to hide the secrets behind your performance, because these people know what it took, and did not take, to get you to where you are.
“A pre-selected group of Russian athletes competing at Sochi were protected by the Sochi sample swapping methodology” (McLaren 67)
Despite the whispers of corruption surrounding Russia’s Olympic team, I cheered for those three skiers, who did the nigh-impossible and pushed their bodies as hard as anyone else to make their country proud. I do not know what exactly went into achieving that medal, but I do know that the incredible display of effort and the tears of happiness falling from Legkov’s face as he was raised onto his teammate’s shoulders, were very real.
“After he became laboratory director, and in furtherance of his responsibility to improve Russian sport performance by covering up doping, Dr. Rodchenkov developed a steroid cocktail optimized to avoid detection” (McLaren 49)
I first dreamt of going to the Olympics when I was 11 years old. This dream sparked an inner drive of mine that has lasted almost a decade, and I like to think that it will never extinguish. Sometimes, I wonder what lights that same flame in children around the world. In most countries, I like to think that many experience moments like mine: a motivation flourished from watching the passion of the Olympics, being inspired by older siblings, or being born with the need to be the first kid through the school doors when the bell rings for recess.
“The steroids were dissolved in alcohol … The solution was then swished in the mouth in order to be absorbed by the bucal membrane and then spit out … the detection window for the steroids in the cocktail would not exceed 3-5 days” (McLaren 49-50)
In parts of the world where fewer children are fortunate enough to make the decision to pursue a sport just because they are inspired, I wonder what brings them to those future championships. Is their talent used out of joy or out of the need to provide for those without the same athletic abilities? Was their talent exploited at a young age as a way for a country to show its dominance? Were they given a choice: to follow their dreams and do what they love by the prescribed method, or to not follow their heart at all?
I think about the lengths that I would go to support my family if they depended on me, and suddenly the way that I pursue sport seems insignificant, a trivial lifestyle “earned” through right of birth. Being born to these opportunities makes it all the more important to not waste them. My great-grandfather used to say, “if you’re going to do something, then you may as well do it right”, and those are words that I attempt to live by. To me, that means clean sport.
But clean sport is now more at risk than it has been in decades. Once an already colossal task of catching individual dirty athletes, we are now facing an extensive doping regime, backed by an entire government.
“[B]y the time of the Olympic Games in London, many of Russia’s top athletes were using the cocktail” (McLaren 51)
When faced with the enormity of the Russian state-sponsored doping system, it is no longer adequate to simply prosecute individual athletes. A large part of the problem when it comes to justly dealing with the system that made it possible for Russian athletes to cheat, is that WADA and the IOC are pitted against the entirety of the Russian government. It is not the USA and Canada versus Russia, or any other country versus Russia; it is two sporting entities, independent of any particular country, against the full power of the Russian government.
“The Ministry of Sport directed, controlled and oversaw the manipulation of athlete’s analytical results or sample swapping, with the active participation and assistance of the FSB [Russian Federal Security Service], CSP [Center of Sports Preparation of National Teams of Russia], and both Moscow and Sochi Laboratories” (McLaren 1)
“… Deputy Minister of Sport, Yuri Nagornykh, was appointed in 2010 by Executive Order of then Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin” (McLaren 10)
The state-run doping program organized for the Sochi Olympics was not just about sport, it was politically motivated, overseen by President Putin himself. This sets Russia apart from previous doping scandals, such as that of the Finnish cross-country ski team in 2001, where doping operations were concentrated to a select number of skiers and their coaches. When the truth was uncovered about their national heroes, Finland, in complete shock, took steps to recover from the international disgrace that its ski team had brought upon them (Andrews). Iivo Niskanen and Krista Pärmäkoski have proven that it is possible for a great skiing nation to recover from such a disaster and win clean, paving the way for the next generation of Finnish skiers.
“ … this Article would prohibit altering identification numbers on a Doping Control form during Testing, breaking the B bottle at the time of B Sample analysis, or altering a Sample by the addition of a foreign substance” (“World Anti-Doping Code” 21)
The situation we see today is different. After the exposure of irrefutable evidence confirming state-sponsored doping and the covering up of doping evidence in Russia, it came as a disappointment to many when the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) annulled the sanctions imposed by the IOC on 28 Russian athletes.
The evidence of coverups and doping are clear, but the CAS ruling was that “the evidence collected was found to be insufficient to establish that an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) was committed by the athletes concerned” (“Media Release”). The evidence may be adequate to find Russia guilty of state-sponsored doping, but it is not enough to build a case against each individual athlete. This is likely because of the destruction and tampering of drug tests and results by Russian “anti”-doping personnel and Article 10.5.1.2 of the World Anti-Doping Code, which states that, if the “detected Prohibited Substance came from a Contaminated Product, then the period of Ineligibility shall be, at a minimum, a reprimand and no period of Ineligibility, and at a maximum, two years Ineligibility” (“World Anti-Doping Code” 64).
But if the evidence is inadequate, then why are some Russian athletes still facing penalties? Alexander Legkov and Sergey Ustiugov were both unable to compete at the PyeongChang Olympics, but Ustiugov can still race on the World Cup, while Legkov cannot. Evidence against athletes like Legkov proves that they were in some way a part of the state-sponsored doping program, but it is difficult to legitimately sentence them when evidence proving exactly what they have done has been tampered with or destroyed. Athletes like Ustiugov have not been proven to be a part of Russian doping operations, but have violated Article 2.1 of the World Anti-Doping Code through their association with people who are a part of it. This article states that “Athletes and other Persons must not work with coaches, trainers, physicians or other Athlete Support Personnel who are Ineligible on account of an antidoping rule violation … Prohibited association need not involve any form of compensation. (“World Anti-Doping Code” 24).
Sport in Russia will never be fair until Russia takes responsibility for their crimes against clean sport. Whereas Finland bore the weight of what their athletes had done in 2001, and ensured that it would never happen again, the Russian government has more at stake than a few drugged athletes. When doping is politically motivated and backed by the state, I do not think it is possible to solve the issue through sanctions by sporting bodies such as WADA and the IOC alone. Until the Russian government is pushed by other nations to take an interest in ensuring that sports in Russia are clean, the problem can never be completely resolved.
Until substantial action is taken, we will continue to be caught up in a stalemate of “partial blanket bans” and other half-measures. When imposed on a level of command that is too low in the Russian doping system, these actions cannot bring about the outright eradication of doping that we seek. Are sports a high enough priority for entire countries to impose sanctions on the Russian government until they answer for their crimes against clean sport? Or will doping be protected by other political motivations that keep Russia inseparable from the rest of the world? The scope of the Russian government’s involvement in doping is far beyond the reach of traditional sporting sanctions.
“Clean sport is dead” — Jim Walden, lawyer of Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov (Panja and Pérez-Peña).
The sporting world no longer holds its breath in anticipation of change. An uncertain future exists for clean sport, but even more disconcerting is the stagnation in which we now settle. With the anti-doping world left spinning its tires in frustration, where does that leave athletes for whom a future of fair play is too late?
Icarus, 2017 documentary film, debuted Aug. 4, 2017 on Netflix (Photo: Wikipedia)
In his dramatic documentary, Icarus, director Bryan Fogel convinced many sports fans that clean athletics, despite the improvement of anti-doping efforts over the years, is a hopeless pursuit. Fogel’s documentary was key to bringing the extent of systematic doping in Russia into the public eye.
In Icarus, Fogel takes anti-doping research to a personal level: after years of training as a high-level (amateur) cyclist, he spends a full year preparing for the “Haute Route” amateur cycling event, while following a doping program. This was prescribed to him by Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov (the former director of Russia’s Anti-Doping Center, turned whistleblower, who is now under the witness protection program in the U.S.).
Fogel routinely took a cocktail of PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs), under the careful guidance of Dr. Rodchenkov, and saw massive improvements in his power output ratings on the bike in less than a year. Having placed 14th in the seven-day Haute Route event the previous year, while racing clean, it seemed clear that Fogel would be a strong contender for the win.
He ended up finishing the unbelievably hard event in a far worse position than when he raced clean. From an athlete’s perspective, this does not surprise me. I understand that there are countless elements involved in producing an incredible athletic performance at a set time and place. Fogel’s reaction was different; visibly depressed, he talked of how sobering it was to realize that, no matter what he did, he could never be as great as his cycling heroes. This is a delusional conclusion, one that is biased by his dreams (influenced by growing up with Lance Armstrong as a hero) of becoming a better cyclist.
In these turbulent times for clean sport, it is important for athletes to remember that there are many aspects to training and competing, aside from other athletes cheating, that they can control. Living in Norway has taught me that there is a lot more to skiing fast than just being fit, and that applies to all sports.
Drugs don’t magically make you a fast skier, just like a high VO2 max score doesn’t make you a competitive World Cup skier. There are many elements to cross-country skiing that have a far bigger effect on a skier’s ability to ski fast than drugs do. If skiing were purely about fitness, aerobic machines like Hans Christer Holund would beat skiers with a lower VO2 max, like Petter Northug and Finn Hågen Krogh, without contest. Divergent technique revolutions, like those brought to us by pioneering skiers such as Petter Northug and Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, show us just how many ways there are to win a ski race.
In his reaction to not becoming a better cyclist even while doping, Bryan Fogel shows what he is: a film director with a remarkable story to tell. As most people would, he takes his failures in sport and attributes them to his personal characteristics; he feels he is simply not good enough at a genetic level. While not everyone will reach their athletic dreams, true failure occurs only when you stop trying after the first attempt. When athletes make changes to their training, it is rare to see dramatic results in the following competition season. Some things will never yield improvements, while other things take a few years of consistent work before they take effect. In the highly competitive world of cross-country skiing in Norway, many skiers go unnoticed down the results list for years, they are seen as average, before suddenly rocketing to incredible new heights seemingly out of nowhere. That is the nature of how training, competition, and life stress the body and mind over a prolonged period of time. To take a one-year snippet of an athlete’s life and make broad conclusions about sport is naive.
An otherwise brave and instructive self-experiment that helped uncover the scope of how doping continues to mar the sporting world uncontestedly, Fogel’s conclusion of his doping experiment sends the wrong message to the audience viewing Icarus. The message he sends is that only extremely gifted humans can become great athletes. This personal look into how his experiences have affected him make his documentary engaging and dramatic, something that the genre normally lacks for your average movie audience. The devastation that Fogel portrays in this realization hits viewers hard and the movie adopts an “apocalyptic” tone from that point on. The worldwide end of clean sport is confirmed with Rodchenkov’s exposé of Russian state-sponsored doping and the footage of him escaping Russia with his life in danger. Icarus uncovers frightening realities that affect the sports we love, but the film also incites new dangers to the culture surrounding sport.
Although accurate in their severity, the events at the end of Icarus doom its audience to pessimism against the current world of sports. This acts as fuel for ungrounded accusations against successful athletes by uninformed viewers. When a complicated issue arises, people quickly try to make sense of it by looking for a distinction between good and evil. By making an issue seem black and white, anyone can have a strong opinion about it, because the choosing of sides is based on your morals. You are either against doping, or you support it. Unfortunately, the issue is not so simple, but this type of inflamed, unschooled “debate” is perfect advertising for a film such as Icarus.
When making conclusions about an issue, it is our duty to question how someone else’s portrayal of events is affecting our opinion and to keep ourselves informed. FasterSkier Editor-at-Large Chelsea Little is an example of the brave reporting and investigating that it takes to keep organizations such as WADA and the IOC held accountable. We owe it to journalists like Chelsea, who sacrifice countless hours of their personal lives to enlighten us about the issues that affect us the most, to simply read their vital research. We must take the facts from the sources available to us, and add our own informed debate to the world of sport, because angry, baseless commentary are what keep humanity from moving forward.
Most Olympic athletes…would favour lifetime bans for doped athletes. IOC President, Thomas Bach, himself an Olympic champion, has publicly indicated a personal preference for life bans, but has correctly noted that the legal order, particularly in relation to human rights issues, will not permit such automatic sanctions, for first offences. Nor does the Code. The IOC itself has lost an appeal before CAS in respect of an IOC rule providing for the automatic exclusion of any doped athletes from Olympic competition in the Olympic Games next following the imposition of even a first doping sanction. (Pound, et al. 63)
It is our responsibility as athletes to represent all of those that have helped us and to lead by example. We can start with the atmosphere that we create amongst our fellow athletes. The culture of discrimination and groundless accusations against clean, Eastern-European athletes, or any successful athlete in endurance sports, has to stop. The “blame game” has some of the same ill-effects on our sport that we are trying to prevent by fighting against doping. Remember how ashamed Canadians felt when Ben Johnson, our “Olympic champion hero”, was caught for doping? Now imagine the irreversible damage that would have been done if he had been falsely accused. By telling young athletes that anyone doing something impressive — something that we could not imagine ourselves doing — is doping, teaches young athletes that no matter how hard they work, they will never become greater than their biggest dreams.
“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics, whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men [people] who can dream of things that never were, and ask why not.” — John F. Kennedy (“J.F.K. in Ireland”)
Teach young people to dream outside the realms of what they see as possible, and they will get there via the path you set them.
Athletes have the power to make more of a difference than just complaining about the flaws of their sport. Sports are visually flashy and exciting to an audience, and athletes are celebrated around the world for their raw fight against the limits of the human body. The hero-status of athletes gives them a sphere of influence greater than that of other members of society who work equally hard, or harder, in the goal of helping people.
The playing field of sport will never be equal for every child born on earth, when some athletes fight past obstacles far greater than the trials of sport, just to get to the start line. If we are lucky enough to be living the life of an athlete, it is not enough just to win medals.
Endurance sports may not get the same extent of attention as soccer, football, or basketball, but the popularity of these sports has elevated some athletes to leadership roles from which athletes from smaller sports can learn. Take LeBron James, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, who has recently come under fire for his comments regarding President Trump. Some feel that his place in society is to play basketball and entertain, not to comment on political events, but he has decided that his popularity gives him a greater responsibility than just playing sports:
“I mean too much to society [to ‘shut up and dribble’] … I mean too much to the youth, I mean too much to so many kids that feel like they don’t have a way out and they need someone to help lead them out of the situation they’re in.” — LeBron James (Conway)
As a Canadian, the opportunity that I have to pursue cross country skiing is a selfish privilege. I have the chance to use sport to meet new people, to inspire, and to use my experiences and influences to create a better world around me. Otherwise, I am just a lucky individual, riding on the support of those that I do little to help, enjoying what I have been given and doing little to share my wealth. I work hard at what I do, but to think that I am an inspiration to others simply through my existence would be incredibly pretentious. Athletes can gloat in their athletic prowess, or they can use their abilities to promote the joy of sport, health of body and mind, and the hard work involved in reaching a goal.
Good leadership is to rise and accept challenges even with the possibility of failure. Leaders show their true qualities, and that shows others that they can only achieve success by being their honest selves. Leaders show that there are no shortcuts.
My heart breaks every time that one of my idols is suspected of cheating. It doesn’t hurt because it’s unfair; it hurts because I saw myself in their footsteps, and every time they succeeded, I saw that I could, too. Our dreams scare us because they seem impossible from where we currently stand. When I look at my heroes, I see my future; they are living my dreams, proving them possible. My dreams are crushed when one of my favourite athletes is caught for doping, because that tells me that I am not good enough to be great. Some say that we watch the Olympics to witness the impossible happen, but I watch the Olympics to see the people who started off where I am accomplish the things that seem impossible to me now.
Despite the damning evidence against Russian sport as a whole, I refuse to believe that every Russian athlete is doping for the same reasons that I refuse to believe that the majority of top cross-country skiers are doping. It must be remembered that skiers are people, and the vast majority of people who have grown up surrounded by the positive and welcoming culture that exists in cross-country skiing around the world, do not become cheaters. Even in Norway, where skiing culture is on a much bigger scale than that of North America, it remains a community of people who love being outside year-round, exploring the world around them and the limits of their bodies.
We must keep sport a positive and safe space for people to grow into compassionate citizens of the world. Clean sport isn’t important just so that medals are handed out to the rightful winners; sport must remain possible for real people everywhere, because when doping is left unchecked, sport loses all significance as a tool to inspire, bring people together, and make the world a better place.
March 2, 2011
Alex Harvey (r) and Devon Kershaw (l) celebrating their World Championships gold in 2011 in Oslo.
My heart pounds in my chest. Adrenaline courses through my body as my ungainly 13-year old legs run chaotically down the front steps. The slam of the door behind me pierces the stillness of the heavy evening air, but to my ears the whole world is alive in celebration. The rush of blood in my ears is deafening as I relive the race in my head. Alex passing Hattestad — shushing the crowd across the line –raising his arms in disbelief — Devon and Alex playing air guitar on their skis — walking before the massive crowd to the top step of the podium — WORLD CHAMPIONS! … The excitement settles into a glow that becomes an immovable rock of confidence in my chest. I start to notice where I am, running aimlessly to the top of a grassy hill above the trees. I smile as I look down to where I came from: “Yes”, I think, “I can do it, too.”
***
Works Cited
Andrews, Edmund L. “Olympics; Finland Reels Over Skiers’ Drug Scandal.” New York Times, 13
“John F. Kennedy in Ireland.”, John F. Kennedy: Presidential Library and Museum, www.Jfklibrary.org/Exhibits/Past-Exhibits/JFK-in-Ireland.aspx. Accessed 1 Mar. 2018.
Afternoon workouts at Natrudstilen Stadium in Sjusjøen, Norway. (Photo: Maks Zechel)
Editor’s Note: The following is part of a series proposed by Maks Zechel, a 20-year-old Canadian cross-country skier embarking on his first season training abroad. In August, he made the big move to Norway, where he’ll be training and racing with Team Asker for the entire winter. Through these updates, Maks hopes to share his personal “observations, stories and lessons learned” to help close the gap between North American and Scandinavian nordic skiing. Previous posts: 1,2,3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.
This particular post, entitled “Head Games”, is broken up into three parts.
Part I: What Skiing Means to Us
If you’re dedicated enough to be reading an online magazine about cross-country skiing, then you probably really love skiing.
Don’t be too hard on yourself; I love skiing, too.
The shooting range in Sjusjøen, Norway, as seen on Nov. 2. (Photo: Aleks Tangen)
This post starts with a crisp day on skis just outside of Lillehammer on Nov. 2, 2017; a skier’s dream…
I have never been to Wall Street, but I imagine it feels a lot like Natrudstilen Stadium in Sjusjøen*, Norway, at 9 a.m., two weeks before the season opener in Beitostølen. It’s barely below freezing, but the snow guns are blazing. They hum, interrupted by the BEEP BEEP BEEP of heavy machinery transporting snow, and a steady stream of skiers moving in every direction imaginable. You hear them, too: the squeak, WOOSH, squeak, WOOSH of tips biting into snow and carbon swinging through the air. It’s a bluebird day and the snow is rocket-fast. The sun barely skims above the highest peaks in the distance, but nobody looks up. Something much more important is on everyone’s mind today, and that is going fast on skis.
My friends, Erland and Hedda, and I are doing intensity this morning. Dozens of others have the same plan, and Lillehammer Skiklubb (the biggest club in Norway) is running a time trial. It’s hard to tell what the biathletes are doing, as they always seem to be wearing bibs and going fast, but I jump out of their way regardless since they all carry rifles.
The main loop is slightly under 2.5 kilometers long. No section of the track is ever empty and coaches give encouragement and feedback from all sides. There is a four-way intersection at one point on the course, which skiers approach at speed from both directions. Most people are too focused to acknowledge one another, except to tell someone to get out of their way or when they almost collide; it is chaos on a mission. Just the way that I imagine Wall Street, everyone is going about their business, and everyone thinks their business is most important. At times like these, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that the reason we are all whizzing about this track today, is not just because of our individual goals, but because of our shared passion for this beautiful sport.
The next evening I am back at Natrudstilen, enjoying the extra 3 k of trail that was prepared the night before. The sky is a big northern sky; the horizon is dotted with the silhouettes of stunted trees as the last strip of pink sunlight warms the remaining dark blues and purples fading into black above. The moon is full, huge, and slightly orange. The crisp air is more potent than coffee and makes skating around the glazed track effortless. When the sun is gone, the lights turn on. Dozens of skiers still churn out laps well past the 5 p.m. sunset, but it is much more peaceful than the morning bustle.
As I ski by myself, a skier passes me in the classic tracks. He is wearing the Norwegian national team training clothes and skiing quite well, so I am quite sure he is not just a “Norges Skiforbund super-fan.” As he skis by, he pushes his strides over the short, punchy hill. He is not moving impressively fast, but by the way he moves I can tell that this is far below his competition speed. I should know who this is, but it is dark. As we crest the hill, I put my crazy-skiing-fan-sleuthing skills to work: I notice the telltale headphones, Leki poles, Fischer boots, and, the last piece of the puzzle, the initials JHK on his drinking belt. “OH S***, it’s Klæbo!”
Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo in his debut race of the 2017/2018 season at the FIS season opener in Beitostølen, Norway, in November. (Photo: Maks Zechel)
Over the top of the hill he relaxes his strides and glides slowly, drooping his head and letting his arms hang. He looks back and then walks over to the side of the trail to take a break. Johannes Høsflot Klæbo is the youngest person to ever win the World Cup Sprint Crystal Globe. He is also a human being who seems tired and feels the pressure of the oncoming ski season like everyone else. I may not be a World Cup medalist, but as with all skiers, I have the same good and bad days.
The training season for a cross-country skier is long, never-ending really, with many skiers preparing for goals that are years away. How can we know that we will be ready to perform for a few minutes, or maybe an hour or more, in an event that is years away? Confidence takes many forms and comes and goes from moment to moment. The feeling that one gets in one hour of training can ruin the confidence that was built over weeks of perfectly executed workouts and races. It is an incredible skill to be able to have confidence in yourself throughout the ups and downs of training and day-to-day life and to have trust in a plan that must constantly be changed to respond to normal human imperfections.
Why do we continue down such a path, where the tiniest bumps and setbacks in the road have such great control over our well-being? Some of the drive comes from the small daily joys: the sense of purpose, the goal setting, and the achievement of those goals. For myself, much of the joy comes from the places skiing takes me and the people that I meet, but the biggest drive comes from the special moments, those moments of complete contentment in life where everything else momentarily fades away. Sometimes they happen with others, but with the solitary nature of cross-country ski training, these moments often occur when you are on your own. It’s hard to see them coming, and for me they happen just a few times every year.
Maybe it’s a ride to the race site with a car full of your friends, and that one song you all love comes on as you pass through the mountains. Maybe it’s 9 p.m., -15 ̊ degrees Celsius, and you’re sitting at a bus stop after a cold ski under the stars, about to make the journey home but the bus isn’t coming for another 15 minutes, when you remember to pull out your hot thermos of peppermint tea. Or maybe it’s an icy fast day on a Norwegian early season snow loop, and you just realized that one of the best skiers in the world feels just like you do.
*Sjusjøen: pronounced “shoe-shun” (“shoe”, as in the footwear). For a more accurate pronunciation guide, please seek out a Norwegian.
Norwegian Word of the Week:
Norwegian: koselig
Danish: hygge
Translation: a feeling of coziness and/or contentment. E.g. drinking a mug of hot chocolate under a blanket next to the fire during a snowstorm; laughing with your friends; a fast day on skis when you feel like you could ski forever.
***
Part II: What Skiing Does to Us
Anyone lucky enough to have grown up cross-country skiing should know what a privilege it is to have access to such opportunities. Few people have the means to take up ski racing, whether it is for financial, geographical, or other reasons. Nonetheless, skiing manages to bring together people from many different backgrounds, uniting us with the shared love of being outside. Skiing, more than most sports, is something that sticks with you for life. I know many people that only started ski racing in university, including my parents, and for them skiing has remained one of the most important parts of their lives ever since. In North America, skiing is a sport that lacks the same intimidating atmosphere that sports like hockey and football sometimes have. It is easy to join a ski program no matter your level of experience. Skiing brings together a special community of people, but at the elite level it also begins to alienate us.
Skiers are tough. We love how tough our sport is and we begin to encourage characteristics of toughness (at least to make sure children survive the elements of winter) in ski lessons at an early age. Skiers with the best “pain faces” are put on a pedestal by athletes and coaches because of how visible their effort is. Probably the most offensive thing you could tell a skier is that their rollerskis or skis are really fast; it is hard for skiers to admit that their performance has been aided by anything other than their own strength and technical abilities. In short, it is hard for skiers to admit they need help.
The toughness of our sport makes us hesitate to acknowledge feelings that might make us seem weak, especially when we fail to reach our goals. Instead of asking for help, skiers compare themselves with those faster than them, and in that way blame their failures on the unchangeable characteristics that make them unique:
“I need to look like a World Cup skier to be fast.”
“I need to train more.”
“I need to train harder.”
“I need to lose 10 pounds.”
“Am I just a slow skier who needs to work harder, or do I have a mental health issue?”
The early days: little Maks Zechel (l) and his sister Anni skiing in Switzerland. (Photo: David Zechel)
Many skiers get hooked on training at a young age. I started training at least four times a week when I was 11 years old; I did it because it was fun and I thought that it was the coolest thing to arrive at school and be able to tell my friends that “I ran 3 KILOMETERS this morning!” I haven’t changed much… But back then I could feel content, motivated and energized for the entire day just from that.
Unfortunately, increased fitness and getting older make it harder to achieve the same satisfaction from running a few kilometers. I didn’t realize it at the time, but at 11 I was already becoming addicted to training. It took me until I was almost 20 years old to realize that I could no longer satisfy my mental health, to achieve contentment in life, through training alone. Some days it is enough, but other days I can train for 5 hours and finish the day feeling overweight and unfit. Sometimes it is hard to tell whether I feel unwell because I have eaten too much, or because I have barely eaten all day.
It sounds ridiculous to call something that is “good for you” a mentally destructive addiction, but that in itself is part of the problem. Many athletes fail to gain control over their mental health issues because they don’t realize that they are sick. When somebody breaks their femur, they are told to stop training, recover and rest until they are healthy enough to train productively. It is harder to tell that someone is unwell when they are simply doing the things that are encouraged by our sport: excessive training, pushing through fatigue, gritting your teeth and working hard no matter how you feel. When one athlete races slower than another, the first thought of the slower athlete is that they have to train more and become fitter. Much of this culture comes from skiing itself, but we get a lot of it from team sports, where the motto is always, “if you’re not training hard, you may as well not be training at all.” But in endurance sports, where everybody is affected by training differently, sometimes training too much, or at the wrong time, or in the wrong way, can have the same effect on your fitness as you would have from training too little. Are you training to gain fitness or are you training to satisfy your confidence?
When you train once or twice a day, it is easy to pretend that these issues do not exist, but when this schedule disappears, everything comes back to haunt you. I experience the most difficulty with my mental health at two, essentially opposite, times: when I race, and during the “off-month” of April.
Racing is the amalgamation of months of rigorous training, obsessive motivation, and gasping with relief after hard efforts. Skiers take a leap of faith off of the start line, relying on all the confidence and focus they can muster to ski fast around a loop of snow in the woods. The race is exciting; it is also the origin of all your nerves, dreams and fears. In this place of vulnerability, even the smallest thoughts of doubt come to surface. It doesn’t matter if you gritted your teeth and pretended it didn’t exist for the entire year, your mental health is of utmost importance during a race, and it is essential to learn how to regulate it in order to achieve success.
[Racing] is exciting; it is also the origin of all your nerves, dreams and fears.
April is the period of rest and recovery craved by almost everyone at the end of a 3-5 month racing season. But for many it simply turns into the month of caving in to everything that we deprived ourselves of for 11 months: parties, staying up late, cramming in studying before exams, and being human for a change. Doing “normal” things? It’s the hardest month of the year, and every year I crawl my way to May 1st with desperation, more exhausted than at the start of April.
This past April, I decided to face my mental health issues that I had always known existed, but never understood or recognized for what they were. What an awkward thing to talk about, mental health, but it shouldn’t be. Our minds have to be taken care of with the same attention that we give our bodies through training and recovery. It doesn’t matter what it is that makes you begin to acknowledge your difficulties, but it has to be done; it is grossly underestimated just how permanent unchecked mental health issues can be. I didn’t acknowledge my health issues because I cared about my health, but I did care that it was starting to affect the way I raced, and although not the most important reason, it was enough to motivate me to work on my mental “fitness.”
Since moving to Norway, the issues I have had with my mental health have faded into the background. I’m too motivated and excited about where I am to think about such things. But it is still there, and the novelty of where I am will eventually wear off, and then I will have to be ready to deal with these things. It is important not to allow happy distractions to get in the way of how you deal with your mental health, because for every incredible high, there is a devastating low. It is better to take the time when you are feeling good to plan coping strategies, so that when you are hurting you can maintain your overall health in a way that is better for your success as a skier, and a person.
Although ski racing at the highest level can seem like the only important thing in life, that level of racing can’t be maintained forever. For people who may have been training hard with a single goal in their head since they were small children, throwing them into the regular world can be an overwhelming shock. The skiing community needs to put an emphasis on not only producing elite skiers who will ski fast, but also on developing people who will be successful and healthy beyond their years in competitive sport.
Norwegian Phrase of the Week:
Norwegian: Uten mat og drikke, duger helten ikke.
Translation: Without food or drink, even heroes aren’t good enough.
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Part III: Skiing Healthy
We don’t get to choose the bodies and minds we are born with or the ailments that afflict us. But we can choose to learn about ourselves, talk to one another, and explore how we can be successful because of, not just despite, our unique personalities. Instead of struggling to get by in spite of what hinders us, thinking about our mental health should be seen as an opportunity to become better at the things in which we want to succeed.
An evening run with teammates Erland and Eirik during Team Asker’s 10-day training camp in Mar de Pulpi, Spain, in October. (Photo: Erland Kvisle)
People don’t understand how to talk about mental illness. If it’s in your head, then it’s not real, so get over it, right? When someone is functioning at a seemingly normal level on the surface, it is hard for people to recognize all mental illnesses as real issues. Excuses for unexpectedly poor races can be found everywhere, from eating the wrong thing for breakfast to having difficulty clearing lactate. For every race there’s a new excuse, something simple that can be easily improved on for the next race, but the subject of mental illness is never brought up. Everyone wants to hear the story behind your broken leg, but people have been taught to tip-toe around the subject of mental health. “Be considerate. Make sure you don’t offend him. She’s sick in the head. He’s really delicate. You can’t talk to her like a normal person.”
Not everyone wants to talk about their mental health issues, but many need to. When I decided to try to improve my mental health, I was afraid to talk to others. I wanted to talk to someone, but I didn’t want to burden those that I care about with the things that I thought about myself. I am generally a happy person and I did not want people to see me as anything less than that. What I really wanted was to talk to someone straight up: “Hi, I’m Maks. I’m a happy person who loves life, but for some reason I often hate myself.” I didn’t want to see the scared or awkward looks in the eyes of those I care about as they struggled to look for something positive to say. I didn’t want pity. I didn’t want someone to tell me something positive. I needed to talk logically about what I feel, why I feel it, and what I can do to control those things.
I desperately needed a third-party person, someone with whom I didn’t share a connection and with whom I could talk openly without affecting their happiness. This led me to seek the help of a psychologist.
Seeing a psychologist isn’t like getting a flu shot. Part of my brain thinks in a certain way, and that can’t be fixed. I can’t hide or run away or fight it. What I can do is acknowledge what I am feeling and what it makes me want to do. Seeing a psychologist was a relieving experience for me. Instead of feeling an unclear jumble of emotions constantly tearing me apart, I could talk with someone about exactly what I felt and how I could be happy and productive in the face of how I felt.
Spain sunsets (Photo: Maks Zechel)
Now when I feel an incessant urge to train in a way that is unhealthy, I recognize that urge, I think about what it is that I want to do, and then I give that thought space to dissolve in my head. For my issues, it has been more productive to allow these destructive thoughts to enter my head and to think about them, rather than clenching my teeth, pretending that they don’t exist and training myself into the ground. I train out of need, but I also train because I love it. The key to finding a balance between my dependence on training and doing it because I love it has been to think about the driving force behind why I train each day. Categorizing the motivations behind my actions has helped me to do what is best for my health and progression as a skier. This allows me to think positively and rationally with focus. Allowing space in my head to understand why I feel the way I do has been more effective for me than beating these thoughts away with artificial positivity.
If you’re reading this, then you probably really love skiing. It’s OK, I love skiing too, and I am happy to admit that it is one of the most important things in my life. But if I want skiing to continue to be a big part of my life, I can’t let it harm the rest of the person that exists beyond skier-Maks. Ski-racing careers can last a long time. I am lucky enough to have grown up around athletes and coaches who have proven that you can train and race for life, but in order to do that you have to take care of yourself. We skiers are competitive creatures, but acknowledging a mental health issue doesn’t have to mean giving up in defeat. The greatest skiers are those that understand their bodies, training, equipment, and minds the best. Each of our bodies is different, but that doesn’t prevent anyone from achieving their goals, and the same goes with our mental health.
Norwegian Phrase of the Week:
Norwegian: Gi drømmer en sjanse.
English: Give dreams a chance.
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About Maks: Maks Zechel is a competitive cross-country skier who secretly wants to become a professional mile runner. He loves hiking and going on canoe trips with his family, as well as peanut butter cups in ice cream. Johan Olsson is his favourite skier and he hopes to race the Cortina-Toblach stage of the Tour de Ski one day. He enjoys writing about his experiences. Follow him on Instagram @makszechel.
Soft Scandinavian Cup track as seen last weekend at the Dec. 15-17 Scando Cup in Vuokatti, Finland, “the same conditions for Sundby all the way down to me,” author Maks Zechel writes.
Editor’s Note: The following is part of a series proposed by Maks Zechel, a 20-year-old Canadian cross-country skier embarking on his first season training abroad. In August, he made the big move to Norway, where he’ll be training and racing with Team Asker for the entire winter. Through these updates, Maks hopes to share his personal “observations, stories and lessons learned” to help close the gap between North American and Scandinavian nordic skiing. Previous posts: #1,#2,#3, #4, #5, #6, and #7.
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Part 1: Vuokatti
It’s Thursday morning and I’m in the Oslo airport, waiting to catch a flight to my second Scandinavian Cup race weekend of the winter. I haven’t seen the sun yet and, from what I’ve heard, my destination of Vuokatti, Finland, doesn’t look much like a Caribbean postcard either.
Two flights and an hour on a bus later, we arrive in Vuokatti. There is something about 3 p.m. total darkness that I suspect I will never grow accustomed to; it’s the impending sense of urgency that I need to go to bed soon. Or maybe that’s just coming from the fact that I still have to check into the hotel, ski the race loop, test skis, eat dinner, and then write my final exam for my online university course. By the time I start my exam, and reboot my laptop after it crashes, it’s 8 p.m. … classic.
We wake up before the first race in the dark. The sun allegedly rises into the cloudy, snowy sky at 9:59 a.m. and sets at 2:07 p.m. Despite our noon start time, the trails remain cast in dusky shadows, and the entire race loop, and ski jumps overlooking the stadium, remain lit 24/7. For the record, I spent approximately 72 hours in Finland, and I can’t confirm that the sun actually touches that part of the world; for all I witnessed they might just brighten the streetlights every morning.
We jog a few hundred meters from the hotel to the race site, located by the Vuokatti Olympic training center. All the racers are staying in two large hotels within walking distance of the race site, which creates an exciting “athlete village” atmosphere. Vuokatti is an epic training and racing location with 7.5 k+ of lit world class ski trails, early season snow making, a ski tunnel, and ski jumping and biathlon venues. Nordic countries don’t seem to like hosting races anywhere with a big chalet, or with any chalet at all, so we set up base in the snow. Luckily for us, the infamous Finnish cold weather decided to leave for the weekend. The stadium is tiny, hardly wide enough for a finishing straight, miniscule individual start corral, and a lap lane. It’s easy to feel lost amongst the tall, uniform pines of a snowy Finnish forest, but the Vuokatti course has something for everyone. Each day, 200-250participants are on the senior men’s start line, with Norway, Sweden and Finland well represented; the top 100 doesn’t get more competitive than this anywhere in the world.
As I’m warming up for my 15 k skate race, I have never recognized so many people that I’ve never seen before in real life: “Oh hey random Norwegian skier, congrats on beating your 3000-meter track PB this summer! By the way, say hi to your dog for me.” The potential for a seriously awkward conversation with one of my idols is too high, so I try my best to avoid in-awe-eye-contact…
Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo in his debut race of his record-setting 2017/2018 season. In eight World Cup starts so far, he’s won seven of them. Here he’s shown racing at Norway’s FIS season opener in Beitostølen last month. (Photo: Maks Zechel)
At the end of the first day our teammate, Erland, placed 19th, with Ryan and I at 107th and 132nd. After racing in the Beitostølen Scandinavian Cup and Gålå Norwegian Cup race weekends in November, it remains hard to swallow our pride as we race better than we ever have, but still fall far short of our lofty goals.
However, the lessons that we learn in every international race that we compete in are crucial to our development. During the 15 k classic race in Vuokatti, my teammate, Eirik, was caught by the eventual top-two skiers of the day, Ristomatti Hakola (Finland) and Martin Nyenget (Norway). Eirik is a strong double poler, so he was impressively able to stay with them until the set of steep hills in the last 2 k of the course, where they put around 50 seconds into Eirik per lap. What he was unable to match, was the insane power that Hakola and Nyenget were kicking their skis with, giving them big glides on even the steepest pitches where I had to run out of the tracks
Racing with athletes who are able to ski at this level creates an unforgiving racing environment if you are unable to push yourself to new heights. After a poor race, the performance is reflected by a drop of dozens of spots down the results sheet. Scandinavians respect the high level of these races and they know that there are hundreds of skiers working just as hard as them, ready to take their place if they don’t race fast. Poor races by even the best cause them to disappear down the results (Petter Northug finished 17th in a Norwegian Cup race this winter). Although Erland is an incredible skier who is capable of top-20 Scandinavian Cup results, he had placings of 89th and 47th in Beitostølen. This is nothing to be ashamed of, but the results clearly represented that he was not in top form at the time. Good performances are rewarded in the opposite manner. That is the nature of these races, where 1 minute gained or lost can mean 30-50 spots. In the Vuokatti sprint, the top-30 men in qualifying were all within 5.87 seconds, with the top 58 within 10.55 seconds, and top 84 within 15.15 seconds. The reality is harsh, but it feels productive to know exactly where I stand against the best.
World Cup racing is ridiculously hard, and that is a lesson that should be experienced as early as possible. When I was 132nd in the 15 k skate race in Vuokatti, a good race for me, it felt like a smaller reward than I was used to for my efforts. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of competitors, but it helps to look at the time gap when looking for achievable next steps. In this race I was 4:38 minutes behind race winner, Daniel Stock (Norwegian skier with a World Cup podium from last year). It’s a lot over a 38-minute race, but if I can shave off 1 minute by the end of the season, then I’m in the top 100. Wherever I place, at the end of the day I know how far away I am from top World Cup contenders. Doing these races doesn’t make getting fast easier, but it does put into perspective exactly how much my efforts and improvements mean on an elite level.
Every weekend these races feel a little more familiar, a bit more like home. The competition is intimidating, but every race still has the same enthusiastic community of athletes, volunteers, coaches, wax techs, friends, and families that we are used to in Canada. In Beitostølen, a stressed Ryan was enthusiastically interviewed four minutes before his race start and the NRK commentators talked about our goals in Norway and this FasterSkier blog for over a minute on national television. In Vuokatti, the race announcer introduced us as the two Canadians living in Asker, Norway, with their goal of becoming two of Canada’s best World Cup skiers. It’s flattering to be known like this, despite struggling to come even close to the top 100, and it makes us feel like we belong. Soon enough we will make sure we are known for more than just booking a couple of plane tickets to Norway.
Part 2: Getting to the Top
Author Maks Zechel repping the Asker Skiklubb white and blue.
Racing in Scandinavia is like getting on the freeway out of the city at 5 p.m. on the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend; everyone is heading in the same direction, and no matter who you are, you have to be patient and observant in order to seize the opportunities that will bring you to the front of the never-ending queue. In Canadian racing, we often lack this traffic, and this causes skiers to race at their own level, because there aren’t enough skiers of similar abilities to push each other to the top. I believe that it is still possible to become a great skier from racing in North America, but we have to be prepared to take even bigger risks than our Scandinavian counterparts, as we can be sure that they are encountering far more opportunities than us.
From my experiences watching NorAm, SuperTour, Scandinavian Cup, and World Cup results, the best skier of the day will often win a three-lap 15 k with a certain order of lap times: the first lap is the fastest to take advantage of fresh legs, the second lap is the slowest, and the the third lap is the second fastest. These margins are small, but they indicate a skier who has skied a smart and controlled race, riding the edge of blowing up in order to expend energy perfectly and close fast where weaker skiers tire. This is how a winner skis a race. The skiers who don’t win the race ski differently because they are not at the same level. If they ski in the same controlled manner, they fall short of the win because they cannot maintain the same pace/execute the same pace changes. A dark horse who is trying to win, or merely trying to break through the ranks, gives everything in an effort to ski at a level that is higher than they can actually maintain. They may try to go out as hard as possible, risking blowing up early with the hope that they will be able to maintain a “suicide pace”. The skiers who don’t control the race usually ski with positive splits, becoming slower each lap on a good day, because if their splits are negative it means they will lose too much time at the start of the race.
In North America, we get comfortable skiing like winners. The shock comes when we try to make the jump to World Cups, and we suddenly have to relearn how to ski like developing skiers, to ski like we are trying to break through to the top.
Here’s a fact: nobody comes to World Cups from North America and starts winning right away. The jump is too big to make all at once. Scandinavians can sometimes go straight to the top, because they had to grow up skiing like losers, or at least skiing like winners who had to fight against 30 other winners every race. The issue is that North Americans begin to relearn the lessons of devastating time gaps at an important point in their careers, when ideally they would be fighting competitively for coveted World Cup top 30s. We’re not developing as much as we could at home, because we’re not desperately fighting just to come top 50 or top 100 as juniors and U23s. Not to say that you can’t develop hugely between the ages of 25 and 35 (many do), but we rarely see this happen in North America because the attrition rate of skiers in that age range is so high. Many skiers never see their full potential realized.
In North America, we get comfortable skiing like winners. The shock comes when we try to make the jump to World Cups, and we suddenly have to relearn how to ski like developing skiers, to ski like we are trying to break through to the top.
In Vuokatti, numerous small skiing nations were well represented, countries that we North Americans would see as “lesser” skiing nations, when in fact they’re doing things better than us. The Vuokatti Scandinavian Cup saw a large contingent of Chinese national-team skiers compete, and at Beitostølen, Japan was well represented. I even saw a couple of Mongolian skiers in Finland. These national-team skiers are consistently starting Scandinavian Cups in their pursuit of becoming competitive on the World Cup (zero Chinese skiers started the Toblach World Cup, while 10 Chinese men and women started in Vuokatti the same weekend). These small skiing nations recognize that they cannot develop all of their athletes through World Cup starts, so they send their remaining skiers to the next best thing. This mentality has led Japan to produce podium-capable World Cup skiers such as Masako Ishida and top 15 contenders such as Keishin Yoshida.
We need to fill up our quota spots on the World Cup, but for the rest of us, Scandinavian Cups are an equally good opportunity to develop. A month of World Cup racing can cost a Canadian National Team member upwards of $5,000 Canadian dollars (not including flights). Last winter Team Hardwood Elite ran a one-month trip from Canada to Norway for $2,700 CAD (flights included)per athlete, where they raced nine Scandinavian- and Norwegian Cup-level races. We shouldn’t scoff at local-level Norwegian races either, which can be found all over the country every weekend of the winter. Sondre Turvoll Fossli, a World Cup medalist, won a local race, with a senior men’s field of 12, in Lier, the same weekend as Toblach and Vuokatti. At a local race in Konnerud the weekend before, I was bib number 1051 as the last starter of the day. Only 17 senior men raced, but the winner has placed top five in Norwegian Cups.
Many North American skiers want to break through on the World Cup, but there are limited World Cup starts that offer a small and difficult opportunity for us to impress on a stage that we have never experienced before. The chances of breaking through this way have proven nearly impossible for numerous talented North Americans. For the countless incredible skiers who didn’t even receive those World Cup opportunities, the chance of World Cup success is a long-dissolved dream. This builds the impression that only a select few North American skiers can ever be great. This is untrue. The truth is that only a select few will ever break through when offered a handful of World Cup-level racing opportunities. The truth is also that us remaining North Americans have the ability to achieve that same level, but we must do so more patiently and down a less traditional path. If you truly want a chance at becoming competitive on the World Cup, you don’t have to fight for years to qualify for a World Cup development experience that most of us cannot afford. Instead you can race as many Scandinavian/Norwegian Cups as you like, every year, at a far cheaper cost, which will allow you to race against skiers who are already at the World Cup level that many of us dream to achieve. These skiers are no more talented than our skiers, they just have had the time and the countless opportunities to race at a level that most of us never have the chance to see.
This leaves an important question: who is left to race in North America? It is hard to develop our best senior athletes to become World Cup podium contenders, it is harder still to do this in such a way that will allow all of our younger skiers to develop, too. My experience in Norway has been a positive one so far, and I will continue to promote what I am doing. But I should not have to come to Norway to develop. The simplest way for an individual to learn to race like the Scandinavians is to come to a country like Norway, but by individually developing overseas, we put a stop to the widespread development that we could be doing back home.
Norwegians are successful at skiing because they love it; skiing is everywhere in Norway, and for that reason Norwegians never have to go far from home to ski fast. Top Norwegian skiers race in local races because they know that good racing is great development, no matter who you’re racing against. If we want races to be competitive, then it’s up to us to race fast.
Youth and masters alike getting some early season ‘ k’s in on Nakkertok Nordic’s “Nakkertrak” on opening day Nov. 11, 2017. (Photo: Nakkertok Ski Club)
My home club, Nakkertok Nordic, was able to purchase snowmaking equipment last year. Due to the enthusiasm and incredible dedication of the parents and volunteers who are the backbone of Nakkertok, they were able to host two early season race weekends this year, just outside of Ottawa (a city of 900,000 people). Ottawa is in an excellent central location for Eastern Canadians and Americans. The same weekend as the Dec. 15-17 NorAm race weekend in Rossland, over 200 people raced the Candy Cane Cup on the “Nakkertrak” early season snow loop. In the future, I see this becoming a main event in an early season racing series, where athletes race in Craftsbury, Vermont, at their annual early season races, then drive the mere four hours to Ottawa for two back-to-back high level FIS races. Eastern Canada and the U.S.A. are full of the skiing culture that makes Norway so great, our issue is that we fail to coordinate to create the fantastic race opportunities that we could have. Many top Canadian skiers already travel to Craftsbury at the beginning of the winter to be in a race where Patrick Caldwell takes the win and the field is deep with professional, university, high-school, and part-time racers of all levels. There is a fear in Canada of burning young athletes out by letting them race up. I agree, we shouldn’t just allow our “prodigies” to race up; I think that everyone from age 16 and up should race together. Development as a skier is only loosely correlated to age, and I am grateful at every training session with Team Asker for the young junior skiers that kick my butt in workouts. Our egos have to be thrown aside, because the more we segregate our racing categories, the less we can help each other get faster in the way that the Norwegians do.
The simplest way for an individual to learn to race like the Scandinavians is to come to a country like Norway, but by individually developing overseas, we put a stop to the widespread development that we could be doing back home.
Many Norwegian skiers race almost every weekend, all winter long. We have to create these same local racing opportunities, and if we make them accessible, they will soon turn into world-class events. Nakkertok took a race, which has simply been a club time trial in past years, and turned it into a CPL (Canadian Points List) level race with a field of 68 open men and 45 open women in one year (that is a bigger field than the Rossland NorAm). The depth of such events, with their diverse assortment of competitors, creates an environment where both our top racers and our developing racers can grow. An athlete is much less likely to quit skiing if they are regularly racing in a field with dozens of skiers at their level and with similar ambitions of going to university or working full time, all while skiing as fast as they can. Because you know what, racing is really fun, but only if it is a commodity made accessible to every North American skier, not just our Olympic hopefuls.
A local race in Sjusjøen, Norway, with hundreds of racers of all ages. (Photo: Maks Zechel)
About Maks: Maks Zechel is a competitive cross-country skier who secretly wants to become a professional mile runner. He loves hiking and going on canoe trips with his family, as well as peanut butter cups in ice cream. Johan Olsson is his favourite skier and he hopes to race the Cortina-Toblach stage of the Tour de Ski one day. He enjoys writing about his experiences. Follow him on Instagram @makszechel.
“Norwegian fjell running.” Team Asker doing some dryland mountain training during a training camp in Norefjell, Norway. (All photos: Maks Zechel)
Editor’s Note: The following is part of a series proposed by Maks Zechel, a 20-year-old Canadian cross-country skier embarking on his first season training abroad. In August, he recently made the big move to Norway, where he’ll be training and racing with Team Asker for the entire winter. Through these updates, Maks hopes to share his personal “observations, stories and lessons learned” to help close the gap between North American and Scandinavian nordic skiing. Previous posts: #1,#2,#3, #4, #5, and #6.
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There is something about passion that drives people to push boundaries like nothing else. For many Canadians, this passion lies in hockey. If it’s January and you aren’t within walking distance of at least two outdoor hockey rinks, you probably don’t live in Canada.
I’ve never been a huge hockey fan, but regardless I still went through a phase as a 9 year old when I practised my stick-handling skills religiously, making marks against the garage door or the basement wall. Black marks and dented aluminum are the proud checkmarks of passionate Canadian youth (and the source of endless frustration for Canadian parents). Canadian hockey drives youth and even adults to fervently practice a sport that only a small percentage will ever play professionally. Even on a weekday night in the middle of winter, if you bring a stick and skates to any Canadian outdoor rink, you will be allowed to join a game of shinny. No matter your gender or age, whether you claim to have been a AAA hockey legend or have never skated before, whether your family has lived in Canada for generations or if you are a newly landed immigrant, Canadians are brought together by something that transcends sport.
National passion for a sport ensures that a large and diverse percentage of the population will actively pursue that activity in a multitude of ways. It encourages creativity and innovation. Similarly to hockey in Canada, albeit on a smaller scale, there are an astonishing number of Norwegian skiers who dedicate much of their time to just training and racing fast, even without sponsorships or national-team status.
This creates a field of close to 500 open men at the Norwegian national championships. In the 10-kilometer skate race at last year’s national championships, the top-100 racers were separated by 1:47.6 minutes, the top 200 by 2:33.2 minutes, and the top 300 by 3:31.7 minutes (note that the conditions were fast that day). The medal winners, and many of the skiers far off the podium, were World Cup, World Championship and Olympic medalists (Anders Gløersen won, Martin Johnsrud Sundby was second, Emil Iversen was 11th, Sjur Røthe was 32nd (full race results here). The depth of field at Norwegian and Scandinavian Cups and national-championships races rivals that of World Cup races, with many believing it to be more difficult to crack the top 30 in the aforementioned three than it is at most World Cups.
Team Asker skiers recover as they run down an alpine ski slope during 10- x 4-minute Zone 4 bounding intervals, with one minute rests in between, at a recent training camp in Norefjell, Norway.
The success that we see in the Norwegian senior ranks begins with Norway’s junior skiers, and I am lucky enough to be training partners with some of these top-level athletes. One of Team Asker’s most successful junior skiers, Harald, has two medals from last year’s Junior World Championships. To put his level of skiing into a senior-racing perspective, he was 26th in the previously mentioned 10 k race at the Norwegian nationals — as an 18 year old.
It can be deceptive to see skiers who still look quite young, but to know that they are already skiing fast enough to potentially crack the top 30 on a World Cup. I believe that much of this ability stems from the incredible amount of maturity in Norwegian junior racers, although not necessarily in the traditional sense. Not all of them are obsessive about the small things; I have seen top Norwegian skiers down two Cokes per day at training camps, eat Nutella for breakfast and stretch as little as possible. Their maturity becomes apparent in how they approach training and races, ready to learn to push their bodies in the best way that they can.
With more skiers, you see more body types and different minds. My teammates have told me to expect many funny styles of double poling when I race Norwegian and Scandinavian Cups this winter. Already at the junior level, skiers spend hours working on their double-pole technique, not just doing exactly what their coaches told them to do, but practising different movements and seeing how it works for them. Double poling is a simple motion, in theory, but with different body types you can have countless different styles of double poling that all produce the maximum amount of power for those individual skiers.
With Team Asker, we discuss technique with our coach and we do group-technique sessions, but then we are encouraged to try things out by ourselves and see how we can adapt those basics of power transfer to how our individual bodies work. The same goes with training plans. The spectrum of what type of training makes someone ski fast is all over the place, and that is something that many Norwegian skiers seem to accept. Some athletes on Team Asker disagree with certain things that our coach says, but they are not criticized for this and are supported in altering their training as they see fit, although they are encouraged to discuss why they are making these choices.
In Canada, I have often heard repeated “golden rules” to technique and training, things that are accepted by most coaches across the country. In Norway, I learn a new philosophy every time I speak to a different coach or athlete. For some skiers, it is important for them to train long and slowly in Zone 1 so that they have the energy to focus on interval workouts. Other skiers do short Zone 1 workouts, but push the workouts so that they are in high Zone 1 or low Zone 2, skiing closer to competition speed. Many skiers do sprints with every workout, even long runs, while others add sections of Zone 3 pickups in the middle of their easy workouts. I have a teammate who builds up to a period in the training season where he is doing 30 short sprints per day. I know Norwegian 16 year olds who are training more than 1,000 hours per year, but there are also World Cup skiers who are barely training 600 hours.
Team Asker finishing a combo rollerski/run workout at recent training camp in Norefjell, Norway.
Some people think that too much base training (slow Zone 1) is a waste of time, so they do the bare minimum that is required to be able to absorb intensity training and the long race season. Johannes Klæbo’s big breakthrough in the past couple of years is said to have come from an emphasis on strength and sprint training, while Petter Northug has long sworn by doing intervals in “myra” (spongy and uneven bog/marsh), but for some people, those same things will make little difference to their speed on snow. Talent may have helped them in the beginning, but whether it was Klæbo or Northug, they didn’t reach the top level through talent alone, but by perfecting all the things that make them fast.
There are skiers, some point to Therese Johaug, who many think could do almost any type of training, and they will be fast simply from general fitness, but for most people training is not so simple. Fortunately for us mortals there is no limit to what we can achieve, so long as we are willing to take chances and use our brains rather than just succumbing to that “training junkie gene” that so many skiers possess. Each one of us is so different, that it is not possible for us to do the same things and achieve the same results.
Over and over I have heard coaches and athletes, who go to Scandinavia for a few weeks to learn the “secrets” of the best skiers in the world, come back and confidently tell us Canadians that “they do the same training as us” and therefore we can be just as fast as them. I agree that we can be just as fast, but from my first three months in Norway, I can tell you that we do not train anything like the Norwegians. We may do similar bounding, rollerskiing and running workouts, but training in Norway is taken to the highest level by the competitive dialogue that takes place among young skiers, old skiers, back of the pack skiers, and top skiers. From my perspective, training innovation and experimentation doesn’t happen in North America on the same small scale level as it does in Norway.
The go-kart track where Team Asker held “King’s Court” style rollerski skate sprints (8 x approximately 1:30 minutes) during a recent training camp in Norefjell, Norway.
In Canada we look to those that are better than us, whether they are national-team members or World Cup skiers, and try to copy them from afar. This puts us decades behind the competition. A lot of the technique innovations that we will see on the World Cup in the next two decades will have come from the Norwegian junior skiers of today, but by the time North American skiers take note of these changes, and adjust their training, the next generation of Norwegian juniors will already be working on the technique advances for the next decade.
When I first came to Norway, the first thing I did was try to copy how the best skiers on the team double poled. I copied them for 12 weeks, but every time I looked at video footage of myself, I still looked completely different. It wasn’t until my coach explained a miniscule timing difference to me that I understood what the others were doing differently. With the switch flicked, my double poling has improved because of things that I could not figure out just by watching others ski. It is this type of interaction, between skiers and coaches of all levels, that causes breakthroughs in technique. Not all club-level coaches in Norway look to the Norwegian national team for advice on all aspects of skiing. Many coaches disagree with the common consensus on technique and training, and this opens up the discussion which is so important to moving forward.
Most skiers love to talk about technique and the finer aspects of skiing, but when I was in Canada, I found these discussions usually revolved around what faster people were doing. In Norway I find myself having more discussions on what we individually think we should be doing, and even if someone is superior at a certain aspect of skiing, they are usually eager to try what someone else thinks might be better.
As “Mad-Eye Moody” from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series would say, “Constant vigilance!” and adjustment are required in all aspects of our training if we want to succeed. We have to seek variation in training, and learn together to discover the things that make us go fast as individuals, or else we suffer individually under the repetition of uniform training that cannot meet all of our needs.
Norwegian Phrase of the Week:
Norwegian: “Jeg er ut å mate.”
Google Translate: “I’m out to feed.”
True meaning: “I am training a lot.” (slang)
Team Asker during a long run through the mountains at a recent training camp in Norefjell, Norway.
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About Maks: Maks Zechel is a competitive cross-country skier who secretly wants to become a professional mile runner. He loves hiking and going on canoe trips with his family, as well as peanut butter cups in ice cream. Johan Olsson is his favourite skier and he hopes to race the Cortina-Toblach stage of the Tour de Ski one day. He enjoys writing about his experiences. Follow him on Instagram @makszechel.
Canadians Ryan Jackson (l) and Maks Zechel (r) with Team Asker coach Ola Kvisle at the Oslo Marathon 10 k rollerski race in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: Anne Haarstad)
Editor’s Note: The following is part of a series proposed by Maks Zechel, a 20-year-old Canadian cross-country skier embarking on his first season training abroad. In August, he recently made the big move to Norway, where he’ll be training and racing with Team Asker for the entire winter. Through these updates, Maks hopes to share his personal “observations, stories and lessons learned” to help close the gap between North American and Scandinavian nordic skiing. Previous posts: #1,#2,#3, #4, and #5.
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It was a typically frigid day of January ski racing in Thunder Bay, Canada (any Canadian cross-country skier will have grimaced just from reading that). Halfway through the A-final of the Ontario Cup U16 classic sprint, I was already far behind the leaders, Tony Gunka and Ryan Jackson. The previous day I had won the distance classic race, my first ever “O-Cup” medal, finishing only three seconds ahead of Ryan, and now my expectations were higher than ever. The margin between us in the qualifier that morning? Three seconds.
Swinging around a fast corner into the last big climb of the race, already out of contention for the win, I looked at the ground in front of me and just skied as hard as I could. I had nothing to lose, so I skied my best. As I crested the hill, I suddenly noticed that I had caught Ryan and Tony and was dropping them. Elated by the empty track ahead, I double poled as hard as I could.
Ryan Jackons (front) and Maks Zechel turning the final corner during a 2013 classic sprint in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Suddenly, Ryan and I were neck-and-neck again. We turned the final corner and could see the whiskers marking the finishing lanes, tantalizingly close. Side by side, neither of us able to see, just focusing on slamming those poles down. We remained stubborn until the finish, with Ryan pulling in front right before the line.
The remainder of the season continued in much the same way, and strangely the margin between Ryan and I in most of our races, no matter the distance, was three seconds. We didn’t know it at the time, but every time one of us lost to the other, we both won.
Since that year, Ryan and I have been close friends and competitors, even roommates for a year. We have both had good and bad years of results, but I have continually been inspired to push my own limits by his work ethic and accomplishments. On Sept. 15, Ryan joined me here in Norway, where we begin our latest venture to see how fast we can become.
Ryan arrived in the middle of my second testing week with Team Asker, where I was happy to achieve new personal bests in the uphill running test, skate time trial (not too difficult as I went the wrong way last time…), and the double-pole sprint qualifier. Most of these improvements are likely due to being more familiar with the courses and being more comfortable here, but regardless it was nice to move forwards.
Testing week was highlighted by the replacement of our regular uphill double-pole test with a 10-kilometer classic rollerski race in downtown Oslo, as a part of the Oslo Marathon race weekend. The week prior to this race, Team Asker held a 10 k qualification race, where the top-10 Asker skiers were selected to race in the Oslo Marathon for the team prize of $30,000 NOK (approx. $4,673 Canadian). This qualification race was the most tactical rollerskiing race that I have ever competed in. About 16 of us raced eight laps of a mostly flat 1.4 k loop. Like a road-biking race, positions were constantly changing. It was great for me to practice staying calm and absorbing speed changes so as not to waste energy, but I still regularly found myself catching up to the lead pack after being “accordion-ed” off the back of an attack. Having been sick that entire week, I didn’t have an excellent race, but it was enough for me to qualify (see a video of the race, and me flying off the course on the first lap, below).
The night before the Oslo Marathon was not the usual quiet, pre-race evening. Having crossed the finish line of the uphill running race at around 7 p.m., I biked home where I met Ryan and helped him settle in for his first night in Norway. A long pre-race sleep was quickly lost to our excitement of having finally both made it to Norway, a trip that has been in various stages of planning since we first discussed the idea on an offseason run through Vincent Massey Park in Ottawa two years ago.
After a short night, we were out the door before 7 a.m. to take the train to Oslo for a 9 a.m. race start. The big stress that morning was how we would survive the race without suffering broken limbs or equipment. I had skied the course the weekend before with Team Asker, and in just that easy ski through the streets of Oslo, we broke three pole tips. The race organizers were predicting that 50 percent of the field would break poles.
I thanked the “ski gods” for the perfect sunny day and dry pavement that the morning had brought, as I outlined the obstacles of the race for Ryan: a fast downhill right after the start leading into a sharp turn and funneling the race through a narrow, cobblestoned street guarded by waist-high posts in the middle of the race course; multiple stretches of streetcar rails; sewer grates and small curbs to be hopped; more sections of cobblestones; and a downhill finishing stretch marred by manhole covers and pavement dished out by years of traffic. Oh, and then we had to jump two tall timing mats across the finish line. At least road cyclists can use bikes designed for cobblestones when they race Paris-Roubaix, not so with rollerski wheels that fit perfectly between cracks. It was an excellent opportunity to work on agility while racing with 60 other skiers and being filmed by NRK … at least that’s what I told myself. (See course preview below)
In typical skier fashion, we complained a lot about the race conditions until the race started, the field spread out and it ended up being surprisingly easy for most people to stay on their feet. Our team raced well and we won the team competition, with teammates Erland Kvisle and Harald Amundsen coming third and fourth behind Junior World Championships medalists Thomas Helland Larsen and Magnus Kim. Andrew Young, a World Cup sprint medalist, was fifth. I finished 18th, 1:45 minutes behind the winner.
Part of the lead group at the Oslo Marathon 10 k classic rollerski race on Sept. 16 in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: Sindre Ryan)
How do I react to these results? I finished 19 seconds behind the winner in the qualification race and 1:45 back in the Oslo Marathon, both against world-class competition. On the outside, these margins seem like nothing, but in reality they represent a massive gap between where I am now and where I hope to be in the coming years. It is easy to dismiss seconds as being irrelevant, but these seconds mean everything in the winter. This winter, 19 seconds in a 10 k race at a Scandinavian Cup could mean the difference between finishing in the top 50 and finishing in the top 100. If I am unwilling to fight for those seconds now, then the winter’s results will reflect that. To close a gap of seconds, it will require a lot more than just improving my recovery strategies or drinking a litre of beet juice a day. My fight for seconds has to be taken to every interval session and time trial and become a mantra taken into race season.
It may not be such a big gap now, but come winter, this game of seconds will become a real life battle for minutes. For Ryan and I, this is nothing new, but now the stage is bigger than ever before. To come three seconds behind the other will mean ten spots on the results sheet. It is a daunting reality for any skier, but I am lucky to have a friend from home to pursue these challenges with. In a foreign place, teammates and friends are more than just people to hang out with — they’re family.
Norwegian Phrase of the Week
It’s not the fart that kills you, it’s the smell. – Petter Solberg
Translation: It’s not the speed that kills you, it’s the slam (crash).
*A quote from Norwegian professional rally car racing legend, Petter Solberg, known for speaking “Noglish” (Norwegian-English), resulting in excellent quotes lost in translation.*
Team Asker on the podium after winning the team competition at the Oslo Marathon 10 k classic rollerski race on Sept. 16 in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: Anne Haarstad)
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About Maks: Maks Zechel is a competitive cross-country skier who secretly wants to become a professional mile runner. He loves hiking and going on canoe trips with his family, as well as peanut butter cups in ice cream. Johan Olsson is his favourite skier and he hopes to race the Cortina-Toblach stage of the Tour de Ski one day. He enjoys writing about his experiences. Follow him on Instagram @makszechel.
Team Asker gets together for a group shot in the ski tunnel in Torsby, Sweden. (Photo: Johanna Lier)
Editor’s Note: The following is the fourth post in a series proposed by Maks Zechel, a 20-year-old Canadian cross-country skier embarking on his first season training abroad. He recently made the big move to Norway, where he’ll be training and racing with Team Asker for the next nine months. Through these updates, Maks hopes to share his personal “observations, stories, and lessons learned” to help close the gap between North American and Scandinavian nordic skiing. Previous posts: #1,#2,#3, and #4.
***
I never thought that on my 20th birthday I would be shivering at the top of a ski resort, a thick fog obscuring the spectacular view of Oslo, listening to 30+ Norwegians sing the Norwegian birthday song for me. But I guess turning 20 was bound to be different!
“No more excuses,” was my first thought. Gone is the security of being a teenager. Rather than impressing people with maturity, it now feels like it is expected. I think it’s a good thing, but it doesn’t make being an adult any easier. My trip to Norway has been full of moments when I suddenly realized, “Oh, I guess I’ll just have to figure this out on my own.” My parents are no longer always present to make introductions, so now it is up to me to advocate for myself. Risks taken as an adolescent do not come with the expectation to produce results. “I’m impressed,” people say, and they applaud you just for trying. But adults are expected to see things through to completion.
Team Asker group core session after a ski in the tunnel in Torsby, Sweden. (Photo: Johanna Lier)
Back on a cold, foggy Norwegian ski slope at the end of August, my teammates and I were about to tackle 6 x 6 minute Zone 4 bounding intervals. In Norway, bounding with poles is called elghufs, or “moose-hooves”. I had never done a bounding workout of this duration and intensity. Despite this, I decided to take a risk and stick with the best runner on the team, who was two and a half minutes faster than me on our last uphill running test. I stuck with him from the first interval, and stayed with him as he threw in big surges on the plateaus between climbs. He added these surges because he is trying to get better at working the flat sections of ski races in the winter, which happens to be one of my goals as well. We did the whole workout together, and I stayed with him until he got away on a downhill and a steep climb at the end. I took a risk in a workout, not caring if I blew up halfway through, and it allowed me to train at a higher intensity than I would have thought possible.
Earlier this summer I listened to a “TED Talk” by Eduardo Briceño on “the learning zone and the performance zone”. At first it didn’t seem like a life-changing lesson, but since I arrived in Norway, his ideas have led me to think differently about my actions, and in particular, my training. Briceño discusses how people, from office workers to athletes, fail to improve at what they do, whether it is a hobby or a job, because they do not give themselves the opportunity to take risks, make mistakes and learn. In our society, the “performance zone” is the default; this is where we only do the things we are comfortable with, because we want things to be perfect, because that is how we envision our end goals to turn out. Briceño argues that we should encourage employees, athletes, and ourselves, to spend more time in the “learning zone,” where we break our ideal performance into the things we need to work on to get there. It is only here that we get better, because it is here that we allow ourselves to try things that we would otherwise never attempt for fear of failure. In the learning zone, risk and creativity produce the most astounding results. Having reached higher comfort levels, it is possible for someone to apply their repeated failures and lessons-learned to a better end result.
Author Maks Zechel doing pull ups: “the most popular Norwegian strength exercise.” (Photo: Johanna Lier)
A few days after “birthday elghufs”, Briceño’s ideas come back to me as I am training in the ski tunnel in Torsby, Sweden. I am back here for a long-weekend training camp with Team Asker. In the tunnel I confront a skiing related fear of mine, developed over a few years of poor performances in classic races. I dread the feeling of my grip giving way while striding up a hill. I am determined to become a better classic skier, the technique I was strongest in when I was younger, so I work hard at anything that I believe will make me a better classic skier: bounding intervals, core, double poling, hours of video technique work, and skiing without poles. If I can ski up a hill legs-only, then surely I can do it with poles in a race, right? Whenever I am on skis, I challenge myself to stride up the steepest hills without poles, but it becomes a challenge that I must perform to perfection, otherwise in my mind I have failed as a classic skier. The pressure that I put on myself leads me to shuffle stiffly and tentatively up hills, not allowing myself any room for error. The result is a poor imitation of the principles of classic skiing, lacking any weight shift, pop in the ball of my foot, or ankle compression. Sure, I made it to the top of the hill, but I didn’t summit the mountain.
On our first morning in Torsby we have a distance classic ski in the tunnel. Rather than skiing slowly around the tunnel for a couple of hours, our coach has added some variety to our workout: one lap legs-only, one lap thinking about good striding on the hills (not thinking about heart rate), and one lap with a short “race pace” acceleration. The variety in this workout is important in early season skiing so that we can take advantage of our short time on snow to train our muscle memory to ski properly, getting rid of lazy habits developed while rollerskiing.
Maks Zechel working on legs-only in the ski tunnel in Torsby, Sweden. (Photo: Johanna Lier)
On my legs-only loops, I decide to take a risk. Instead of pressuring myself to make it up the entire hill, I ski as dynamically as I can, focusing on full commitment to each ski and compressing the wax pocket as if I had perfect grip. Although frustrating, I know that it is better for my development to ski properly up half the hill, than to shuffle up the entire thing. A few times I am rewarded with making it to the top, and other times I almost face plant spectacularly in front of the Norwegian junior national team coach.
The risk of embarrassment is one that I am willing to take. I made a decision to escape my comfort zone when I left Canada, leaving behind family, friends, and a team that I have trained with for nine years. I left behind the chance at another year of racing on the NorAm circuit and seeing marginal, or perhaps substantial, improvements up the results board. I was sick of feeling like there was an order to things. If I beat a friend of mine during a race, that meant that I had had a good day, but if someone finished ahead of me who I was supposed to beat, then the day was unsuccessful. To me, this type of racing environment was toxic, as I struggled through a season of failed expectations. I am fortunate to have had the means to come to Norway, where simple training aspects, things that had lost their magic over the years, are now bringing back the same giddy excitement that skiing originally gave me. I am in a place filled with potential opportunities, but now I need to have the guts to seize them.
Team Asker reparing for an intensity workout in the ski tunnel in Torsby, Sweden. (Photo: Johanna Lier)
While training in Torsby, we were lucky enough to be there at the same time as the Norwegian junior national team and national recruit team (a step below the national senior team), as well as Anders Gløersen, Charlotte Kalla, Stina Nilsson, and Hanna Falk. I watched some of the members of the recruit team doing offset sprints, and it was the fastest I have ever seen someone sprint on skis in real life. Rather than being intimidated, I felt almost relieved to watch some of my idols skiing this fast. The mystery was gone; this is how fast you have to ski to be great, as simple as that, and now I could spend the entire weekend shadowing some of the best skiers in the world.
On our first day in Torsby I had the opportunity to do two things for the first time in my life: rollerski on a treadmill and take aVO2 max test (maximum rate of oxygen consumption). Naturally, because of my name, I prefer to say it in Norwegian: VO2maks.
After an initial stumble on the treadmill, I found it quite easy to classic rollerski on. Before the test started I warmed up on a few different gradients and speeds, unable to stop smiling at myself in the large mirror in front of me. Here I was, rollerskiing in the same laboratory that has tested countless World Cup skiers! The test began at a gradient of 10 percent and speed of 10 kilometers per hour, with the gradient increasing every minute until it reached 18 percent. This felt remarkably steep. From then on the gradient remained the same, but every 30 seconds the speed increased.
The rollerski treadmill/testing lab in Torsby, Sweden. (Photo: Maks Zechel)
During testing there is a harness around your waist so that you don’t fall off the treadmill, a heart rate monitor around your chest, and a mask strapped to your head to measure oxygen consumption. It’s a lot of gear hanging from your body, and your head has to remain relatively steady, but once the test started I found that the pain was an adequate distraction from all of this. Unfortunately, during my test a strap on my mask came undone and the mask fell off while I still had something left to give, so I was robbed of the chance to ski until collapsing (the skier’s dream). My VO2 max result was 74.5 ml/kg. Last year Harald Amundsen, the top skier on the team, reached a VO2 max of 85 ml/kg as an 18 year old (an exceptional result).
Being in a new place, with a new team, and in close proximity to many of the world’s best skiers, there is a lot to take in. It is important for me to absorb as much as I can during my time here, but it is also important to stay consistent with things that I have been working on before I got here. If I jumped to apply every newly learned training philosophy to my training, I would be all over the place and have no chance to improve. I am allowing myself to take risks and make mistakes while staying true to some of the basics that got me to where I am. In the midst of so many talented and competitive skiers, I am trying to create a learning space for myself, devoid of expectations, so that I can learn without restrictions. When winter finally comes, I hope that I can translate my learning to some fast performances on skis. I have had a lot of practice translating after all…
Norwegian Phrase of the Week
Norwegian: Kan jeg få skyss?
Translation: Can I have a ride?
Norwegian: Kan jeg få et kyss?
Translation: Can I have a kiss?
*An important distinction that could add an unexpected twist to your ride to practice, as skyss and kyss sound almost exactly the same.*
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About Maks: Maks Zechel is a competitive cross-country skier who secretly wants to become a professional mile runner. He loves hiking and going on canoe trips with his family, as well as peanut butter cups in ice cream. Johan Olsson is his favourite skier and he hopes to race the Cortina-Toblach stage of the Tour de Ski one day. He enjoys writing about his experiences. Follow him on Instagram @makszechel.
Asker til topps uphill running test, featuring author Maks Zechel (front) and his teammate Ola. (Photo: Lars-Erik Nygaard)
Editor’s Note: The following is the fourth post in a series proposed by Maks Zechel, a 19-year-old Canadian cross-country skier embarking on his first season training abroad. He recently made the big move to Norway, where he’ll be training and racing with Team Asker for the next nine months. Through these updates, Maks hopes to share his personal “observations, stories, and lessons learned” to help close the gap between North American and Scandinavian nordic skiing. Previous posts: #1,#2 and #3.
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Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017:
It is late at night when I finally get the message: “Meet at Føyka stadium, 9:00am, for practice, 10x2min zone 4 double poling.” I panic. In less than ten hours I will be meeting my new teammates for the first time. My initial reaction is defensive: “I can’t do this. It’s too late. Maybe if I had more time to prepare…. I’ll just do the workout on my own.” I know what to expect, and it terrifies me.
Views of the Black Forest, Germany, 2011 (Photo: David Zechel/Dad)
When I was 13 years old I went to a school in Germany for a year; nobody spoke English and I barely spoke any German. On my first day of school, I walked through the school doors alone. Somebody asked me what my name was, and I replied “I don’t know,” only realizing what they had said after they looked at me like I was crazy. I ended up having an amazing year in Germany and I am still in contact with some of the friends I made there.
Seven years later, the thought of yet again integrating myself with a peer group in a country where I don’t know anyone and can’t speak the language, makes me nervous. It was time for me to make some decisions, time to step up and seize my opportunities. I did not come all the way to Norway to train in solitude for fear of the awkwardness that comes with learning a new language and meeting new people. This may have been just one practice, but to me it was a decision point on whether or not I had what it took to make this trip successful.
I went to practice. I arrived 20 minutes early and waited, breathing in the thick air of anticipation. Slowly, the rest of the team started to arrive. I greeted each of them with a smile, a handshake, and “Jeg heter Maks (My name is Maks)… I am from Canada.” Almost everyone spoke English well, and even if they didn’t, we all spoke the language of “I think I’m going to puke” at the end of the interval session. I rollerskied home from training, giddy with happiness. This was why I put myself into these situations that scare me, because the friendships formed and the memories made are more rewarding than staying in my comfort zone.
Asker til topps uphill run course (Red = very high heart rate, ouch)
After Tuesday’s intensity workout we transitioned quickly to the team’s second testing camp of the year. The “lactate-party” started on Friday evening with a brutal 5.8-kilometer mass-start uphill running test. The race started with a lap of the track in the center of town, then climbed steadily to the halfway point, where the course entered the forest and followed steep, narrow trails requiring all of my willpower just to keep running. The race finished on top of Hagahogget, a rocky peak with an incredible view over the fjord and surrounding towns. I ended up third, far behind the winner, Erland, who happens to run an 8:50-minute 3,000 meter.
The next morning we began the second test, a 4.4 k mass-start uphill double-pole race. It was difficult to go from racing at 7 p.m. the night before to racing again at 9 a.m. the next morning, but it reminded me a lot of afternoon distance race starts followed by early sprint qualifiers the next day, something that I experienced last year at U.S. nationals in Soldier Hollow and Canadian Nationals in Canmore.
Day 3 started off with one of the tests I had been looking forward to the most: a 9.5 k individual-start skate time trial at the Holmenkollen rollerski track. After driving up a long road out of Oslo, I arrived at arguably the most recognizable nordic sports stadium ever built. In the center of everything is the spectacular ski jump. Rollerskiing over the top of the course, you are treated to a panorama of Oslo, the Inner Oslofjord, and all the surrounding towns. Warming up around the course brought me back to the 2011 World Championships, which took place at Holmenkollen. I watched the races live on TV while I was living in Germany. There are many iconic moments from that World Championships that I remember clearly to this day (although I must admit, I regularly re-watch the races).
As we are rollerskiing, my new friend, Erland, points out special parts of the track. The last hill before you enter the stadium is called “Hellenbakken,” named after Swedish skier Marcus Hellner and the attack he made on that hill which won him sprint gold over Norwegian favourite Petter Northug in front of thousands of Norwegian fans. I ask Erland if the stadium is called “Harvey stadium.” No answer, but he laughs amiably. Now, rollerskiing exactly where it all took place, I can see the asphalt turn to snow and Alex Harvey crossing the finish line. He puts a finger to his lips in response to a stunned and silent Norwegian crowd as he and Devon Kershaw take team sprint gold ahead of Norwegian legends Ola Vigen Hattestad and Petter Northug. The crowd may have been speechless, but 13-year-old Maks was yelling in excitement at German Eurosport.
The Holmenkollen rollerski course is filled with the types of steep climbs common in winter ski races, but almost non-existent in summer rollerski races. There were two or three hills per lap where I was forced to offset, something that I have never done before in a rollerskiing race effort. This type of dryland training is invaluable to winter racing success.
View from Hagahogget, end of the uphill running test. (Photo: Maks Zechel)
With the morning time trial finished, we completed the testing camp with a flat, double-pole sprint qualifier in the afternoon. Four race efforts in three days, and five intensities in a week; not a gentle introduction to Norwegian ski training. The amazing part about this weekend was having many strong teammates to compete with. Everyone has different strengths, and depending on the test, I had between five and 10 skiers with whom I was competitive. I did not have the best four race efforts of my life, but I am excited to be training with people who are around my speed, and to have others who are pushing all of us to reach new levels.
Some schools of thought may disagree with cramming this many intensities into such a short period of time, but Team Asker puts a big emphasis on recovery after these intensity blocks. Athletes only ever post on social media about their most “epic” workouts, so it is easy for skiers to think that they need to be doing these ridiculous workouts all the time. I think it is important to recognize the purpose of these workouts, and also gain an understanding of the training that surrounds these big workouts. With regard to Team Asker’s testing week, I appreciated becoming familiar with the difficulty of back-to-back race efforts — the refocusing and the physical shock that one experiences from competition — all in the risk-free safety net of summer training. The next testing week will take place in five weeks’ time and I am excited to give it another shot.
I have to acknowledge how welcoming and kind the Asker Skiklubb community has been. I have already made many friends and have talked to numerous parents who have sought me out just to get to know me. It is never difficult for me to find a ride to training with a teammate, and everyone helps me feel comfortable, while at the same time pushing me to learn Norwegian and become a bigger part of the team. I am having no difficulty working with the coaches, who are excited to have me join the team and want more skiers like me to come train with them as Team Asker grows.
Have I convinced you yet?
Norwegian Word of the Week:
Hjem. Home.
Due to popular request, a picture of another, smaller, roommate of mine. (Photo: Maks Zechel)
About Maks: Maks Zechel is a competitive cross-country skier who secretly wants to become a professional mile runner. He loves hiking and going on canoe trips with his family, as well as peanut butter cups in ice cream. Johan Olsson is his favourite skier and he hopes to race the Cortina-Toblach stage of the Tour de Ski one day. He enjoys writing about his experiences. Follow him on Instagram @makszechel.
August skiing on the Dachstein Glacier in Austria as seen in 2015. (Photo: Claire Grall)
Editor’s Note: The following is the third post of a series proposed by Maks Zechel, a 19-year-old Canadian cross-country skier embarking on his first season training abroad. He recently made the big move to Norway, where he’ll be training and racing with Team Asker for the next nine months. Through these updates, Maks hopes to share his personal “observations, stories, and lessons learned” to help close the gap between North American and Scandinavian nordic skiing. Read Post #1 and Post #2.
***
Arrival.
My landlord greets me warmly at the bottom of the driveway as soon as I step out of the taxi. In his mid-70s, he doesn’t even give me a chance to protest as he quickly scoops up my heavy ski bag and staggers up the steps leading to the house. He’s fit, and in the coming days I see that he goes running, kayaking or rollerskiing every day, while his wife goes swimming. After unpacking my things I am treated to an evening meal that includes brunost (Norwegian “brown cheese”, it’s soft and sweet) and smoked salmon. Later I am shown where to put my bike in the shed. Wooden skis hang in the rafters, the same ones he used to compete in the Holmenkollen 50-kilometer race in the 1970s (this was before it was a designated World Cup, but it was still a prestigious event). It’s like finding a pair of skates in my grandfather’s attic, and discovering that he played in the NHL with them. Welcome to the home of cross-country skiing.
And what is more Norwegian than skiing in the summer? My arrival in Norway coincided with the time that most Norwegians go on holiday. Team practices were suspended for a couple of weeks so I decided to take a trip of my own to nearby Torsby, Sweden. This is a small town that is known to skiers around the world for its partially underground ski tunnel. A few other well known ski tunnels designated for cross country skiing, are: Oberhof (Germany), Toksovo (Russia), and Vuokatti (Finland).
Time spent on snow becomes crucial to a skier’s success as they enter the junior and senior level, and skiing in the summer grows in importance. Summer is an expensive time to get on snow for many, but it is extremely valuable. Skiing in the summer allows athletes to put in big hours of volume and quality intensity workouts that are harder to fit in closer to the race season. It is easy for skiers to get excited in the fall and early winter as we finally get on snow.
As the race season draws closer, it is common for skiers to frantically put in huge volume and many hard workouts in the short periods that they are able to ski. It is frustrating when fall arrives and you go from great summer fitness, to suddenly feeling that your dryland training is not directly translating to good technique and shape on skis. Nevertheless, trying to fix all of this too quickly before the first races in December can ruin your entire race season if you burn yourself out. One solution is shifting some of that on-snow work to the summer, when it is easier to absorb a lot of training with the absence of school and races and the presence of sunshine and Vitamin D.
I have had three different summer skiing opportunities over the last three years, and I have compared my experiences for your benefit:
The ski tunnel in Torsby is easy to access and great for a short or long stay due to the excellent training variability. Besides the tunnel, this includes a rollerskiing track, biathlon stadium (outside and in the tunnel), extensive running trails through the surrounding hills and forests, and a fully equipped gym attached to the tunnel.
The ski tunnel is one loop with a wide “stadium” area at the start. The entire loop is a concrete tunnel and the temperature is kept around -5 degrees Celsius (23˚F). The loop has two hills per lap, which are steeper in one direction and more gradual in the other, making for a great place to work on striding. Most senior men would one-skate the hills at race pace, but they are still steep enough for offset technique work at lower speeds. I was thrilled to be on snow for my first few five–minute laps, but after approximately 150 laps in three days, it became less exciting. The “eurobeats” playing in the tunnel were entertaining at the start, but one can only listen to “Despacito” so many times…
While in Torsby, I stayed in a room at the Valbergsängen Sporthotell (a six-minute walk from the tunnel). Valbergsängen offers the option of staying in a hostel for a reduced rate where you are given your own room in a house with a bathroom and kitchen that are shared with other guests, or you can stay in a hotel room where you have more privacy and breakfast is included. You can even choose between the two if your Swedish is good enough. Unfortunately I missed this expensive difference, and without a kitchen, ended up making creative “meals” on my desk out of tuna, cheese, beans, peanut butter, and an assortment of bread and vegetables.
Outside the Torsby ski tunnel. (Photo: Maks Zechel)
I returned from Torsby, after twelve hours spent skiing loops in a “bunker”, to discover that I had a new roommate. I was sitting on my couch working on a blog post when I heard a noise that only your average-sized mouse should make when hitting the floor. I looked up and, with a jolt, realized I was looking at a spider almost the size of my hand scuttling towards my fridge. In that moment, I decided two things: one, I did not want a roommate, and two, this spider was too big to tackle with a tissue. I jumped up and grabbed my broom handle from the corner (coincidentally this broom handle doesn’t have a broom on the end of it, something that will likely be an issue at some point in my stay here). When I looked up, he was gone (I say “he”, because I am praying it is not a female about to start a family in my apartment). I slept restlessly that night. A week later, after discovering that this is a common Norwegian house spider, I am now in the acceptance stage, and I hope that the two of us can coexist peacefully for the next nine months. If not, one of us will have to leave….
Norwegian Phrase of the Week
Norske:Jeg sølte en stor beholder med yoghurt i melkegangen. Jeg beklager så mye.
English: I spilled a large container of yogurt in the dairy aisle. I’m so sorry.*
(*True story of my first few hours in Norway, unfortunately.)
Maks Zechel in the ski tunnel in Torsby, Sweden. (Courtesy photo)
About Maks: Maks Zechel is a competitive cross-country skier who secretly wants to become a professional mile runner. He loves hiking and going on canoe trips with his family, as well as peanut butter cups in ice cream. Johan Olsson is his favourite skier and he hopes to race the Cortina-Toblach stage of the Tour de Ski one day. He enjoys writing about his experiences. Follow him on Instagram @makszechel.
The views from the running trails around Asker, Norway. (All photos: Maks Zechel)
Editor’s Note: The following is the second post of a series proposed by Maks Zechel, a 19-year-old Canadian cross-country skier embarking on his first season training abroad. He recently made the big move to Norway, where he’ll be training and racing with Team Asker for the next nine months. Through these updates, Maks hopes to share his personal “observations, stories, and lessons learned” to help close the gap between North American and Scandinavian nordic skiing. Read Post #1.
***
Maks Zechel during his early days exploring Asker, Norway, his hometown until next spring. (Courtesy photo)
Ideas: they pop into my head, always big, and they seem so simple at the time, but as soon as I take the first step, the path ahead becomes overwhelming. Many people know this right from the start, but I am continually learning exactly what it takes to bring wild dreams into existence. This year I found out that moving to a new country is not the smooth transition that I had pictured. I knew there would be challenges, but I did not expect to regularly feel that it was impossible for every piece to fall into place. Moving to Norway to train and ski race for a year may sound like a nice holiday, but it took many steps for me to get here. These included securing a visa, finding affordable accommodation, joining the ski team most likely to help me succeed, and navigating the ever-unpredictable world of language barriers and cultural differences.
Visas can take one to three months to process and you usually need a good reason to be living in your destination (e.g. you have a job or are studying in that country). Canadians, like myself, can stay in Norway for up to 90 days without a visa. For longer stays, there is a special option for young Canadian adults that allows you to go to Norway for an “extended holiday” of sorts. I am lucky enough to have Swiss grandparents and to have lived in Switzerland for two and a half years, so before I came to Norway I went through the process of obtaining my Swiss passport (which was stereotypically efficient). As a Swiss citizen I am entitled to live and work in Norway as long as I register at a police station within three months of arriving and prove that I can support myself, have health insurance, etc. Figuring out visas can be intimidating when you get started, but there are many options and it helps to call or book yourself an appointment at a Norwegian embassy.
Another difficult task is trying to find accommodations in a country where you do not know anyone. I looked for places primarily on www.finn.no and wrote several emails to potential landlords in both Norwegian (roughly translated) and English. I rarely received replies and had difficulties playing phone tag with various landlords. I recommend starting your housing search six months before you plan on arriving, as long-term renting options disappear quickly. In the end, I found a basement that an older couple was renting because my mum has a friend, who has a Norwegian friend, who has a colleague, who became one of my landlords. Lesson learned: use your connections, no matter how distant.
Looking towards Oslo/Inner Oslofjord from “Skaugumsåsen”.
Through connections at Nakkertok, I am fortunate to know John Halvorsen, a Norwegian citizen and former elite athlete — he represented Norway in the 10,000-meter at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. John put me in touch with a few people in Norway who could explain how the Norwegian skiing world works and recommend clubs where I would have the most success.
Naturally, my initial wish was to live in Lillehammer — host of the 1994 Winter Olympics (before I was born). Lillehammer is surrounded by endless rollerskiing, including multiple rollerskiing tracks; has a ski season beginning in October; is just 20 kilometers from Sjusjøen, legendary for its beautiful and endless ski trails; and home of the Lillehammer Skiklubb, the biggest club in Norway. It sounds ideal, but Lillehammer is different from most Norwegian towns and cities, where there are many small clubs instead of one big one. Lillehammer Skiklubb has had a lot of success and so it is difficult to join their team.
I think that it is better to be an important member of a small team than an overlooked member of a large team. From talking to other Canadians, I have found that often the biggest deterrent they face in moving to Norway, or in the trip being successful, is that they are worried about being lonely. I knew that my best chance of success in Norway would be to form good connections with as many people as I could, which would help me get rides to training, allow me to have a better relationship with my coach, and help me make friends.
Asker Skiklubb soccer fields
Team Asker was recommended to me by John and a few other contacts in Norway. The club has about 25 athletes in its junior/senior program (large compared to most Norwegian clubs), including Harald Amundsen, a bronze medalist in the skiathlon and a member of Norway’s gold-medal winning relay team at the 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Utah. From what I’ve seen in Germany and Norway, many European ski teams are based out of sports clubs. Asker Skiklubb has many different teams, from handball and bandy to track and field and ski jumping. This has its advantages, as Asker’s cross-country ski team has access to the club’s full-sized rubber track, multiple soccer fields, and a small rollerski track. Just 20 k southwest and 25 k northeast from Asker are the world-class rollerski tracks of Drammen and Holmenkollen, where Team Asker regularly does workouts. Through a parent of an athlete on the team, we also have access to a rollerski treadmill. There are many other strong programs near Oslo, including BSK Ski Elite (Bækkelagets Skiklubb’s junior/senior program) and Team Konnerud (known in Norway for its strong women’s team and hosting the Drammen World Cup).
Asker Skiklubb has a…camping trailer??
My flight arrived in Oslo on Aug. 1 and I have been living in my new home for two weeks now. Asker is a beautiful, although admittedly rainy town set against a hilly forest with endless running trails. Most of the area looks out over a portion of the Inner Oslofjord, an extension of the North Sea. The town is modern and bike friendly with paths everywhere, but it doesn’t fail to retain its traditionally European “at your own risk” character. In some places, Asker has bike paths the size of roads, and in others, there are roads that surely only a bike could navigate. Last week I was convinced I was biking along a “bikes and pedestrians only” path, raised and separated from the main road that it followed, only to meet a car pulling onto the path from its driveway. As I learn about Asker and Norwegian culture, I look forward to more surprises in the coming weeks … so long as those surprises don’t contain headlights.
Norwegian Phrase of the Week:
Cashier: Trenger du poser?
(Translation: Do you need bags?)
Me: Ughh, Mastercard, takk.
(Translation: Ughh, Mastercard, thanks.)
Cashier:Vil du kvitteringen?
(Translation: Would you like your receipt?)
Me:Ingen poser, takk!
(Translation: No bags, thanks!)
Cashier:…
(Translation: …)
Quick Tips for Moving Abroad:
Make sure that your passport doesn’t expire until six months after your last day in your destination.
Confirm that your health insurance covers you abroad. Furthermore, in Ontario, you have to get a temporary health card if you will be away for more than 7 months.
Consider setting up a bank account once you arrive at your destination (foreign e-transfer fees are huge and ATM fees add up quickly when withdrawing cash regularly).
Buy plug adapters and confirm that your devices/appliances work with the voltage ratings of your destination.
About Maks: Maks Zechel is a competitive cross-country skier who secretly wants to become a professional mile runner. He loves hiking and going on canoe trips with his family, as well as peanut butter cups in ice cream. Johan Olsson is his favourite skier and he hopes to race the Cortina-Toblach stage of the Tour de Ski one day. He enjoys writing about his experiences. Follow him on Instagram @makszechel.
Author Maks Zechel hiking in Canmore. The 19-year-old skier recently left Nakkertok Nordic in Ottawa to spend the next ninth months living and training in Norway. (Courtesy photo)
Editor’s Note: The following is the first post of a series proposed by Maks Zechel, a 19-year-old Canadian cross-country skier embarking on his first season training abroad. He recently made the big move to Norway, where he’ll be training and racing with Team Asker for the next nine months. Through these updates, Maks hopes to share his personal “observations, stories, and lessons learned” to help close the gap between North American and Scandinavian nordic skiing.
***
Intro
I am a 19-year-old Canadian cross-country skier who moved to Asker, Norway on Aug. 1, 2017, to pursue my goal of qualifying for, and being competitive on, the World Cup circuit in the coming years. The World Cup is a big stage, one that I am not even close to being ready for. Many North Americans, if given the chance, race World Cups because it is a wonderful opportunity that is almost impossible to turn down. But for many skiers, these chances do not lead to further success because they are not prepared for the intense level of competition that is World Cup ski racing. One of the issues is that North American skiers do not develop in close proximity to the world’s best skiers. We don’t know how fast a top World Cup skier races because we are never in the same races. Norwegian skiers are exposed to this level of skiing, even just through observance, during their entire ski careers.
This is the introduction to my series of observations, stories, and lessons learned as I live in Norway and train with Team Asker for the next nine months. I want to make it easier for other Canadians and Americans to come to Norway by making as many connections as I can and I hope to make them feel a little bit closer to the environment that the world’s best skiers grow up in. I am here to be in races that have a depth going all the way from your average junior skier to last weekend’s World Cup medalists so that I can attempt to pick away at the visible steps that lead to World Cup success. If we can be a bigger part of the Norwegian ski scene and see the environment that produces skiers like Martin Sundby and Heidi Weng, maybe that will erase some of the barriers that we see when trying to chase down seemingly “otherworldly” athletes.
Post 1: Why Norway?
Maks Zechel finding his name all over Norway. (Courtesy photo)
I just moved to Kenya to pursue my dream of running a sub-two hour marath– I just moved to Norway to pursue my passion for competitive cross-country skiing. Just two days have gone by since I arrived, and I already love it here.
In Asker, Norway, my name is written in greeting on signs all over town! Well, maybe they are not greeting me. It is actually one sign by the beach saying that you can only park there for a “Maks.” of three days (maximum=maksimum in Norwegian), but hey, it is a step up from people thinking my name is a typo.
My name is Maks Zechel, and I am a Canadian skier who is made unusually happy by Norwegian signs. I learned how to ski at Cypress, just outside of Vancouver, at around the same time that I started walking. Since then I have lived in York, England; Zurich, Switzerland; Kingston, Canada; Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany; and most recently, Ottawa.
I started racing with Nakkertok Nordic, based just outside of Ottawa, when I was 11 years old. Once per week, my parents (both avid skiers) younger sister, and I would drive two and a half hours to Ottawa from Kingston so that we could all go skiing and I could train with Nakkertok. Being the biggest club in Canada, Nakkertok made me fall in love with skiing, as I always had one or two dozen skiers my age to train with. There is not much skiing in Kingston, so once I graduated from high school I moved in with some friends in Ottawa and took advantage of training with teammates and getting on snow more than once per week.
Over the past two years, I have studied part-time at the University of Ottawa, raced in Switzerland and Austria, skied on the Dachstein glacier in August, skied at Sunshine (near Canmore) in May, raced in Park City, trained and raced in Silver Star, and had various other amazing opportunities all over Canada and the U.S. All of this thanks to my incredibly supportive parents, who somehow rarely get frustrated by how excited I get over World Cup predictions based off of Lysebotn Opp results, or how this insignificant change in my double poling is going to make me race like Alex Harvey. As you can see, I like skiing…
Maks Zechel and friends skiing in Campra, Switzerland, this past February. (Courtesy photo)
Coming to Norway is something I have thought about for the past two years. I have come here with the goal of learning as much as I can from training and racing with the Norwegians. This season I will be racing at the Scandinavian/Norwegian Cup level and focusing on my personal development.
As many Canadians can attest to, it is hard to go from racing solely in North America to racing on the World Cup. European ski racing is unrivaled by anything we see in North America and — because of the distance separating us — we are not often exposed to that level of competition. By familiarizing myself with the European competition atmosphere, I hope to set myself up for success and show others back home what I have learned. As a first-year senior, I still have far to go, but I am here to learn and hopefully improve. Getting a start on a World Cup is not an opportunity that many Canadians receive; if I ever get such a chance, I want it to feel like a step, not a near impossible jump, up from my regular races.
Another reason that I have moved to Norway is, strangely enough, to reduce my skiing costs. In Canada it costs a ridiculous amount every year to fly to early season skiing opportunities, to train with other fast skiers at camps, and to attend as many high level races as possible. Despite all of these flights, I have still found it difficult (even as a junior) to fill my race calendar with enough opportunities to race at a high level. In Canada, the entire season is mostly centered on our World Junior/U23 qualification races that happen in January. Before that, we have two NorAm race weekends that happen in December. Everyone gets fired up for these fun and exceptionally well-organized races. However, once January is over and you have not qualified for anything yet, there are few races with deep fields left until Nationals at the end of March. Some opportunities exist, like SuperTours and Carnival races in the U.S., but they are infrequent, far away, or they overlap with Canadian races.
In Norway, once you have bought your plane ticket, there are regular high-level races, within driving distance, from mid-November until mid-April. The fields are deep, with most of the Norwegian World Cup team racing the Beitostølen Scandinavian Cup in November, and you are paying for a weekend trip within driving distance instead of flying away for ten days in Park City. Food in Norway has so far been reasonable; some things are more expensive and you should not expect to be buying “Costco-style”, but you can eat well without breaking the bank. Rent is expensive in some parts of the country, but through connections and a bit of luck you can make things work. I was particularly lucky and am paying $634 Canadian dollars (about $501 U.S.) per month for an adequate basement apartment.
Planning my trip to Norway was filled with days of excitement, but also with days of doubt that things would ever work out. From the start I knew that I was going to see this through to the end, so with a lot of willpower, and even more help from others, I am now finally in Norway. In my next post I will share my first impressions of Norway and explain how I was able to make it to Norway and join Team Asker, my new ski team!
Norwegian Phrase of the Week:“Hilse på!”
= What you say to a dog if you want to shake its paw. Literally: “Greet”
(Lesson brought to you by Kira, the dog who lives upstairs).
***
About Maks: Maks Zechel is a competitive cross-country skier who secretly wants to become a professional mile runner. He loves hiking and going on canoe trips with his family, as well as peanut butter cups in ice cream. Johan Olsson is his favourite skier and he hopes to race the Cortina-Toblach stage of the Tour de Ski one day. He enjoys writing about his experiences. Follow him on Instagram @makszechel.
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