Jeff

Ya form a pro league, the athletes perform to standards, and get paid (as they should) well for doing well, and you loose your contracts if you do not perform. If you are 25 years old and still have not performed to several top 30 placings per year in 5km or longer, or are not consistently within 7% or so of the winner, during a full season of racing, move over and lets spend the money on somebody who can possibly get on podiums.

Sorry, Canada is going to kill us in next Olys because they have a much stronger governing body with a stronger commitment to x-c ski racing and getting more kids per capita involved.

USST and USSA has had 30 years to make a winning team and they have not been able to. They have a good x-c coaching staff, but lousy funding when compared to total funds raised by the organization. As Donald Trump says…”your fired”. Give the NGB status to APU, CXC, or NENSA for 15 years and see what happens – THEY care only about OUR sport.

BTW, “Best in the World” is a scary-good marketing slogan and I hope the USSA marketing firm got a good bonus for that.

Let the girls jump in the Olys or we should boycott! Grow a pair!

I suspect that there have been many similar discussions such as this in the Swedish ski community, because their team has been pretty sad for a while and they are supposed to be the cradle of Nordic!

Doping exists. People are disadvantaged by the cheats. The FIS sure downplayed Beckie Scott being the real winner because Russia is a bigger player than Canada. But, to blame all bad results on doping is also not much use. There needs to be healthy discussion as to why results aren’t better, and how to best go about changing that. I don’t think going back to how things were done in 1980 has any value. Look at the storms over Helgerud’s recent articles and comments about Vegard Ulvang for proof training methods move onwards.

As always, if you don’t like what you’re reading, change the channel, don’t piss on those doing the talking unless you’ve got some earth shattering to say.
David Lovgre

Some of the team had raced in Europe before and so before the first race I asked them who they wanted splits on. One or two wanted splits on their teammates and I knew we were in trouble. I told them we didn’t come to Norway to race each other and so we eventually settled on the East Germans. It was a good match-up and along the way we got to know some of their team, guys like Klause and Grimmer.

Two years later we went to Grenoble for the Games, same splits, same two teams basically, and we weren’t embarrassed by the DDR.

Then came Czechoslovakia in 1970. Again, basically the same two teams, figuring on the same splits. First race I’m out on the course and in checking my first split I thought my watch was screwed up or I figured on the wrong start time for someone. Next split, worse! It didn’t take long to figure out that we were being totally outclassed by the DDR guys.

After that race I skied around the stadium and talked to a bunch of coaches that I knew well by know, using my best fractured German, “Was gibt mit DDR?” To a man they all looked around to see who was watching, then rolled up their sleeves and pretended to do an injection.

So there it was, right out in the open. Naturally, there had been rumors long before, years before in fact, not just about the DDR, but other countries as well. But here the jump in results was so startling as to give the game away.

I’ve always figured there at least three things we can do about the drug scene in skiing. We can try to adopt it, but I know of no one who would favor that. I surely don’t. Next, we can wimper about it and use it as an excuse and sort of give up. Well, that’s never been my forte. Finally, we can take advantage of it, get a bit pissed off and work like hell to beat the cheaters. This is clearly what many other countries have done. The doping actually raised the bar for cross-country racing. How to beat the cheaters is I think what Zach was talking about. Unfortunately, too much of the discussion has degenerated into who’s doping, what good results are, how good our skiers really are, and so on.

Until I’m convinced that our skiers are training harder (especially more hours) than I think they are AND that they have learned to ski technically well, I will consider statements about our prowess, about our having some of the best skiers in the world but they’re being pushed down the ladder by the dopers, etc., as self-defeating. This sort of talk sounds too much like an excuse. Are we accusing the Swedes and the Norwegians of doping? They generally trounce almost all our skiers. How about Babikov, Kershaw and Harvey of Canada? These guys doping? I doubt it and so we should ask what the story is here instead of talking about doping. How are these skiers doing it?

We can get into arguments on what constitutes good results, so let’s look at our US distance skiers, men’s division. (Most of the world focuses on these skiers, while we in the US have focussed on the sprints of late.) If there’s anyone in the US who can hold a candle to Kris Freeman, I ‘d like to meet him. The rest of our field is distant! We need to ask ourselves why we don’t have more Kris Freemans. (His medical problems may actually help him better focus on big event races since he’s into the business of listening to his body. Someone suggested Zach supply info on Freeman’s training program and I think most of us know that has been forthcoming, almost to the point of boredom.)

We can go back–and I know you younger folks hate this–to around 1982, long after acknowledged doping was taking place and look at the club of Caldwell, Galanes, Koch and Simoneau. If these guys were doping–they were all in the Red group–it sure fooled me and would have to be classed as the most successful, undiscovered drug program in the world. The team didn’t even have a doctor along on their trips to the WC events and to the FIS in Oslo in 1982.

The same question comes up again–how did these guys do it? I can tell you that they trained damned hard and skied damned well and knew how to get up for races. After we can get our skiers into this mode we can start paying attention to less important items which often deflect us too much these days, such as equipment, waxes, pole lengths, proper clothing, levels one through five or whatever, charts, graphs, pulse rate monitors, snow conditions, specialty events, doping, etc. Yup, sounds old-fashioned and that’s exactly what it is. But it works.

John Caldwell

Thanks Dorcas for the book ref.

“cheat and illegal doping throughout his life followed­ by denial and liers – exactly the same as his­ countryman ARMSTRONG and the other drug taking American­ cheat who won the Tour De France…same as their­ athletic sprinters – steroids and drug taking are­ almost compulsory in US sport not to mention baseball,­ american football and basketball. Not only in sports – ­ It’s not for nothing they are the world’s­ biggest market for cocaine and heroin, it’s­ embedded in their culture now same as firing your gun,­ teaching your 8 year old brat to do the same and then­ crowing on about how it’s your right to defend­ yourself and your freedom – sickos….then they scratch­ their heads and wonder why some fruitcake goes loopy­ ats chool and shoots dead 20-30 classmates.” – quote from Eurosport Cycling blogger

So we have to be honest with ourselves along these lines as well. Even though we all believe our athletes to be clean, there is enough precedent of American cheaters to cast doubt on our results when we do well. We have also had several high hemoglobin tests come back at especially in-opportune times and these have knocked our reputation back a couple of rungs. And we still have the Kerry Lynch debacle to deal with and the echoes it still brings. One thing I would highly encourage is that our own staff make damn sure we have had the last of high hemoglobin results, whether it’s de-hydration or improper use of an altitude chamber, we can’t afford it.