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

Tag: Team Coop

Gearing up for the Long Run: Ski Classics’ Jizerská 50 in Czech Republic on Sunday

Start of the Jizerská Padesatka, a 50 k classic race near Liberec Czech, Republic. (Photo: Swix Ski Classics)

Sunday’s 50-kilometer classic race Jizerská Padesatka near Liberec, Czech Republic, is the next event in the 2015 Swix Ski Classics long-distance circuit and racers are eager to hit the tracks after a long break since the first races in Italy in mid-December.

Going into the third event in the Ski Classics (after the opening Pro Team Prologue and La Sgambeda), Norway’s Anders Aukland of Team Santander tops the overall ranking. Johan Kjølstad, who won the overall Ski Classics title last season, is second overall.

In the Ski Classics athlete ranking, 42-year-old Aukland tops the list in front of his younger brother Jørgen Aukland. Kjølstad, who races with Team United Bakeries, is in third place, three points ahead of Czech veteran Stanislav Rezac of Team Silvani Madshus, while Sweden’s Jörgen Brink of Team Lager 157 is fifth overall going into the Jizerská 50 k on Sunday.

In the overall sprint competition, Andreas Nygaard (Team Santander) is currently wearing the green points bib, while Team United Bakeries’ Øystein Pettersen is in second place, 10 points behind Nygaard.

Holly Brooks at the Pro Team Tempo, which opened the Swix Ski Classics season in mid-December in Livigno, Italy. (Photo: Swix Ski Classics)

Brooks Skips the Jizerská

American Holly Brooks, who was picked up by the Aukland brothers’ Team Santander just a day prior to the start of the Ski Classics season, is in sixth place in the women’s overall competition. Seraina Boner of Switzerland, who races for Team Coop, tops both the overall standing as well as the athlete ranking.

However, Brooks is sitting out the Jizerská, returning to Europe for the Dolomitenlauf on Jan. 18, and joining her team for the Marcialonga a week later.

“I’m just trying to balance the FIS Marathon Cup, the Swix Ski Classics, and travel,” Brooks wrote in an email. “In years past I’ve done maybe three races 30K and longer spread out over a season, so I don’t know how my body is going to react and/or how the fatigue will build.

“My goal is to race as much as possible without a downgrade in performance,” she added. “I have a feeling I will be very, very tired by the end of the season.”

New Women Join Circuit

Prior to the Jizerská, the competition for the women’s overall Ski Classics title gets tougher. Three different Pro Teams have entered new female skiers into the long-distance series: Norway’s Hilde Landheim will race for Team Coop, Viktoria Melina joins the Russian Marathon Team, and Masako Ishida of Japan will race for Team United Bakeries.

In the Ski Classics, each professional team may enter a total of 10 skiers per season, male and female skiers included. Once entered, the teams may not unregister athletes, but they can enter additional athletes until they reach the maximum of 10 skiers.

Stellar Conditions

Czech Republich, home of the Jizerská 50, which will be held on Sunday, as pictured on Jan. 6.

Last year, the Jizerská races were canceled due to lack of snow, so event organizers are especially excited to put on the races this year and are proud to present stellar conditions on the race course. Promising weather forecasts, decent snowfall in the past week and cold weather have made it possible to produce enough artificial snow to cover the whole course, and the organizers are confident that they will be able to run the race as planned given the weather forecast, which predicted snow at the start and temperatures around freezing.

“We are happy to see that the weather has turned fine and the winter conditions have finally arrived,” Martin Koucky, a member of the Jizerská 50 Organizing Committee, said in a press release. “The whole Jizerská 50 track is now covered with snow while the race preparations continue to run along at full speed. There are some thirty centimeters of artificial and natural snow at potential critical points: at the Bedrichov stadium as

In addition to the 50 k Ski Classic on Sunday, the Jizerská race weekend opens with a 30 k skate race and a children’s race on Friday, and also offers a 25 k classic race as well as a corporate relay race on Saturday. New this year is a 1.5-kilometer double-pole sprint on Friday.

Six More Marathons on Tap

Team United Bakeries’ Pettersen (14), Berdal (11), and Kjølstad (13) at last month’s La Sgambeda in Livigno, Italy. (Photo Swix Ski Classics)

After the Jizerská 50 on Sunday, the Ski Classics moves to Switzerland for the brand-new La Diagonela on Jan. 17.

La Diagonela was introduced to the race series last winter as a replacement for the Jizerská 50, which was be canceled, but was such a success that the circuit included the race as a new, permanent installment on the Ski Classics calendar for the 2014/2015 season. This year, the 65-kilometer La Diagonela will be held on a picturesque new course through the villages of St. Moritz, Zuoz and Pontresina in the Engadin Valley.

After the stop in Switzerland, the Ski Classics moves to Italy for the Marcialonga in the valleys of Val di Fassa and Val di Fiemme on Jan. 25. The 70 k race is famous for its notorious final uphill climb, the Cascata, to the finish in Cavalese town square.

From Italy, the Pro Teams travel to Germany for the 50 k König Ludwig Lauf in Oberammergau, Bavaria, on Feb. 1.

After the König Ludwig Lauf, the athletes get a well-deserved break from competing until the legendary 90 k Vasaloppet from Saelen to Mora, Sweden, on March 8.

After Vasaloppet, the circuit moves on to Norway’s Birkebeinerrennet on March 21. The 54 k classic race starts in Rena, crosses to mountains to the finish line in Lillehammer, the host of the 1994 Winter Olympics.

The series once again ends with the season finale Årefjällsloppet in Sweden on March 28. The 75 k race offers stunning views from the in Vallbo to the finish line in Åre.

More information and complete Ski Classics schedule

January 9, 2015
Marathon Queen Seraina Boner, with Scandinavian Support, Eyes Unconquered Vasaloppet

Swiss national team coach Guri Hetland checks Team Coop’s Seraina Boner’s time on a threshold interval on Wednesday.

DAVOS, Switzerland – Seraina Boner hasn’t been part of the Swiss national team since the 2010 season, when the 2006 Olympian was left off the squad for the first time.

But has that stopped her? Not at all. Boner decided three years ago to focus on long-distance racing, and has become the world champion in that discipline. A two-time Birkebeiner winner, last year she also won the prestigious Marcialonga marathon in Italy and the Engadin Marathon in her home region here in Switzerland.

At 31 years old, she might not be part of the national team, but she’s still welcome.

“My philosophy is that anyone who wants to train with us, can,” Swiss head coach Guri Hetland told FasterSkier. “It’s good to have her here to push the women.”

On a recent Wednesday morning Boner was at a national team training session that actually didn’t include any other women, just Dario Cologna and Roman Furger. She was taking advantage of the fact that Hetland was driving the men down a long, narrow, winding hill – not ideal for skiing down – in between intervals, and hopped in for the workout.

“It’s really good for me to join the training group in Davos when I’m back home, and I’m back home pretty often,” Boner said at the end of the session. “It’s more fun if there are more girls around. There are not so many up here, but we try to fix some workouts together, and that helps.”

Boner, who is part of the Team Coop marathon squad, is focused exclusively on racing very long distances. But that doesn’t mean that she can’t train with the other Swiss women, who are primarily focused on sprinting (Laurien Van Der Graaf and Bettina Gruber are tops on the team). In fact, she doesn’t think that she trains many more hours than them, and still does plenty of fast workouts.

“I think that the basic training is pretty much the same probably,” Boner said. “The ones that are more specializing for sprints will have some specific workouts, and I will have some specific workouts for long distance, but the average is pretty much the same… sometimes it’s good to have company, especially in speed workouts. You can help each other a lot when you’re in a group.”

Boner putting in the hours in Davos.

Boner is also still no slouch at shorter distances. This past season, she won two titles at Swiss national championships. In the 5 k skate, she was fourth behind Americans Liz Stephen, Jessie Diggins, and Holly Brooks. The next day, with the Americans sitting out, she won outright in the 10 k classic pursuit.

But while national teams around the world are gearing up for the Olympics, Boner is focused on the Vasaloppet, a race where she has “always struggled a bit.” She is doing more double-pole training, including a recent 48 k workout in southern Sweden, far from the mountains she is used to here.

“I’ve been three weeks in Norway this summer, so there I focused a lot on double-poling,” Boner said. “And also when we’re at training camps with the team we have a lot of double-poling sessions. But you can also find some flat parts like here, you just have to look for it a bit more.”

And so continues the renaissance of Boner’s career. 41^st in her only individual start in the Olympics back in 2006, she has now won the Swix Ski Classics title as well as almost every major European marathon except the Vasaloppet, where she finished third the last time she tried.

Boner has to look outside of Switzerland for support. Despite her dominance at long distances, she is not the star she would be in Norway or Sweden.

“Cross country skiing is not so big in Switzerland,” she said. “Of course, since Dario is racing pretty okay it’s getting bigger and bigger.”

She jabbed Cologna, who was sitting next to her in the team van.

“But it’s not as big as in Scandinavia, at least not marathons and stuff,” she explained. “There is some support, but for doing the long distance I had to join a Scandinavian team and that helps me a lot of course.”

With Scandinavian backing, she hopes to add the legendary Swedish 90 k race to her list of conquests this year.

“That is kind of the biggest, so it’s a goal to have a good race there,” she said.

September 12, 2013

Tag: Team Coop

Gearing up for the Long Run: Ski Classics’ Jizerská 50 in Czech Republic on Sunday

Marathon Queen Seraina Boner, with Scandinavian Support, Eyes Unconquered Vasaloppet