Kris Freeman and Noah Hoffman in the 50 k at 2011 U.S. Distance Nationals.

They spend half the year competing against Norway every weekend in Europe, but for a few days this June, U.S. distance specialists Kris Freeman and Noah Hoffman will be welcomed into the Norwegian National Team’s training camp on the snow fields at Sognefjell.

If you don’t happen to read every paid advertisement that goes up on this site, you may have missed the announcement of this interesting tidbit by Caldwell Sport. As owner Zach Caldwell explains, the opportunity came about via invitation from Trond Nystad, who was a U.S. Ski Team (USST) coach before taking his current position at the head of Norway’s program.

Caldwell will also be picking skis on this trip, but for the two USST athletes he coaches in his spare time, it’s primarily an opportunity to get on snow and learn from some pretty good skiers.

FasterSkier met with Freeman and Hoffman before they headed out for an afternoon session in Bend, Ore., this week to ask about the trip. Both were looking forward to the chance to absorb training perspectives from foreign athletes.

“The Norwegian National Team guys — I know a couple of them but I’ve never really done any training with those guys, really with any foreign athletes,” Hoffman said. “They have some of the best athletes in the world, so I’m really looking forward to that and hopefully … learn a lot and make some improvements.”

Nearly nine years Hoffman’s senior, Freeman also thought exposure to other skiers would be beneficial experience in the offseason. He approached Nystad while on the World Cup this winter to ask if he could get some summer skiing in with the Norwegians.

“Trond’s always been very helpful to me and supportive of the U.S. Ski Team, so there was no problem when I approached them,” Freeman said. “I’m hoping to see something from different skiers that I haven’t thought of yet and see a way of approaching the World Cup that I haven’t seen. I’ve been doing this for a long time and I do most of it solo, so getting perspectives from other people is going to be good.”

On top of training with the current Norwegian all-stars, Hoffman’s Madshus sponsorship might also have him getting technique advice from the company’s technical adviser and resident nordic legend, Thomas Alsgaard.

As Caldwell described on his website, Alsgaard saw Hoffman ski last December in Davos, Switzerland. Madshus’s Stian Grønås pointed Hoffman out to Alsgaard as the American skied around the day after placing 31st in the 30 k, which apparently impressed Alsgaard.

Hoffman skiing the hill climb at Spring Series in March one day after dislocating his shoulder in the sprint. At the time, he was unsure if surgery was in store for him this summer.

“He’s a great technician in terms of producing technique and I’m open to benefit from his expertise,” said Hoffman of the possibility of working with one of Norway’s most decorated skiers. “If I can do a couple of sessions with him that would be awesome.”

Between the Bend camp, Sognefjell and USST camps scheduled in central Europe this summer, Hoffman’s training schedule appears to be fairly booked. We took this as a sign that his shoulder, which he dislocated in March at Spring Series, is recovering well — at least, well enough to ski on.

As it turns out, the shoulder situation is “OK.” After getting an MRI and consulting with multiple doctors this spring, Hoffman learned that he re-tore his labrum in the same spot he had surgery last year. For now he doesn’t plan on going under the knife, but it could be a possibility down the road if the shoulder keeps popping out.

“It doesn’t hurt or affect me on normal range, but I need to be cautious and I have a good understanding of it,” said Hoffman. “It’s looser and much more prone to coming out that it would be.”

“If it goes two years and it doesn’t come out again, I’m not going to go under the knife,” he continued. “I happen to think that it might come out several times this year, and there’s not necessarily a huge increased risk each time it comes out except for it loosens up a little bit more and there is a long-term risk for arthritis if you let it come out over and over again.”

Hoffman hopes he can at least wait until after the 2014 Olympics for any surgery, and in the meantime will be trying to strengthen his shoulder and reduce its risk of dislocating again with specific exercises and physical therapy.

“I’ll try to do that — just looking to be a little cautious,” he said.

– Chelsea Little contributed reporting.

Jean-Phillipe Le Guellec leads Michael Greis of Germany during the individual race at 2012 World Championships in Ruhpolding, Germany.

BEND, Ore. – Jean-Philippe Le Guellec was riding high in 2010 when he finished sixth in the sprint, 11^th in the pursuit, and 13^th in the individual at the Vancouver Olympics. The Canadian biathlete – then 24 – was motivated and aiming for his first Word Cup podium.

The 2011 season didn’t go quite as expected; he picked up just four top-20 results and late in the year received a diagnosis of mononucleosis, which explained his performance lull. After taking a lot of rest in the spring, Le Guellec was back at it this winter, but wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

His results were variable – for example, at the opening weekend in Oestersund, Sweden, he placed 86^th in the sprint and 14^th in the individual. By the time the end of the season rolled around, Le Guellec had improved his consistency, finishing 26^th, 20^th, and 12^th in the pre-World Champs weekend in Oslo, Norway, and then placing 14^th in the sprint at the Championships themselves.

One weekend later in Russia, he placed eighth in a sprint and said he was feeling good at last.

“I felt pretty strong throughout the race, which is really important,” Le Guellec said at the time. “In the majority of races this winter I find I was struggling to keep up pace in the end.”

So is Le Guellec really back? FasterSkier sat down with him on Wednesday morning in the lodge at Mount Bachelor, where the Canadian team is doing a training camp along with the other North American national teams. The answer seemed to be yes – even though he’d missed doing an interval session with the Americans due to a slight head cold.

FasterSkier: How do you like the skiing here?

Jean-Philippe Le Guellec: It’s nice. We’ve skied in Dachstein, on the glacier in Austria, and when the weather there is bad it’s really bad, but here it’s more mild. At least it’s snowing, it’s not raining, and we got a good freeze last night so today’s ski was actually really good. When we were here earlier it was a lot like Ruhpolding, super deep and slushy, and slow.

FS: So good practice for you guys.

JPLG: Exactly. Who knows what the races will be like next year.

FS: You didn’t talk much about being sick during the season, but how did it affect things?

JPLG: Not a lot of people know. It’s not like we made a lot of noise about it. So for sure, when you’re getting slandered in the news and stuff, you’re thinking, “Well…” But yeah. Last year was definitely pretty rough. And what made it rough was that I didn’t know until just before World Championships. So at that point it was like, cruise for the rest of the season and then go back home and rest.

FS: And was it mono that you had?

JPLG: It was mono and another virus at the same time.

FS: I think Tim Burke had a similar challenge when he had compartment syndrome, and he decided not to talk about it and then wasn’t able to explain why he wasn’t racing as well.

JPLG: Yeah, it’s a lot different than in Europe, where you know every little thing about Michael Greis’s ankle and this Russian’s back. Here we’re pretty much doing our own thing.

FS: Is the illness going to have any long-term effects, or are you back on track?

JPLG: The doctor said mono itself apparently affects physical performances up to 18 months after the virus is out. So that’s a year and a half. But I don’t know to what extent I got the disease. I was able to train, and I was able to race all season. So let’s not blow things out of proportion, either. This season was way better than I expected, even though I was still definitely going uphill.

FS: Has it affected your plans for the upcoming season at all?

JPLG: Not so much. I was able to end the season in pretty good shape. And the season itself had ups and downs, but it was constantly going up. So, no, I’m approaching training this season like I usually would, which is refreshing. I still have a little reserve – like sometimes you wake up in the morning and your heart rate is a little higher, and you wonder. You know what the feeling is when you’re totally dead. But it’s nice to be up and running, unlike last year when I had to wait until basically July.

FS: In terms of it being two years before Sochi, are you doing anything specifically for that?

JPLG: Well, here we’ve worked on ski technique and that’s a really good thing actually. We essentially re-learned how to ski.

FS: That’s nice!

JPLG: Yeah! [laughs] You’re never done learning. We’ve done a bit of modification too with the rifle and shooting positions. And this is going to be locked until Sochi. So in terms of the mono and training, it’s always a bad time and you never want it, but it’s good timing because I had Vancouver, and I’ll probably be fine for Sochi.

FS: What about Brendan Green [who had back surgery three weeks ago]? Is it a bummer not to have him to train with right now?

JPLG: Yeah. I think it’s more of a bummer for Brendan not to be able to train. I saw him in Canmore, and he’s doing kind of well – kind of well considering his situation. He’s coming back. For him, it’s totally different because he’s going to be out for a period of the summer. This is physiological; it’s not just that his system has shut down, it’s that he had surgery and hopefully he’ll be able to get back to 100 percent sometime this season. But to not have him around definitely changes things.

FS: So will it just be you, Nathan Smith and Scott training together a lot this year?

JPLG: Yeah. In the best of worlds, Brendan will be able to come back on the World Cup tour, but realistically, I guess we’ll find out. It will really depend on his recuperation.

FS: Is it good to be here and ski with the U.S. guys and have some new training partners?

JPLG: Yeah. We’re kind of all doing our own little things, you know. And it sucks that I was sick yesterday because I would have loved to do the classic sprints with the cross country guys.

And we actually do some training with the cross country guys from Quebec when we’re in Quebec. So I’ll be seeing some of the national team cross country guys in early June in Montreal.

So even if we’re not doing everything together, it’s cool to see everyone skiing around and observing. It’s still good.

FS: You must be pretty jealous that the cross-country guys are going to race in Quebec City.

JPLG: Yeah, for sure. And I would have loved to be there to see the races too. It kind of sucks that I am going to be out on tour, in a way. It would be so awesome for biathlon to have a World Cup in Quebec, but that won’t be for a little while, if ever.

FS: Do you think there will be one in Canada again?

JPLG: In Canada, why not. We have the places for it. It’s just a lot of transitions going back and forth from Europe to especially out West. And there are places in the East like Presque Isle and Fort Kent.

FS: Do you feel like the success of the cross-country teams has helped you guys out at all, in terms of raising the profile of nordic sports?

JPLG: No. Not at all. But it definitely helps the motivation. To see Alex and Devon take the relay away from the Norwegians in Oslo – I mean, I still remember the moment, and I was totally ecstatic. And then Lenny, who has also been podiuming at the end of the season, just seeing that really is a boost. We’re not any more popular though. Not biathlon.

FS: Is there anything you think that could help you get more numbers in biathlon?

JPLG: Um… we should do what cross country is doing actually. Get on the podium. Get some hype.

FS: Get on it!

JPLG: Well, we’re working on it. We’re getting closer.

This summer APU is hosting a masters on-snow ski camp at the Thomas Training Center on Eagle Glacier. Come experience glacier training, just as APU’s and US team athletes Kikkan Randall, Holly Brooks, Erik and Sadie Bjornsen make their seasons.

“Skiers are made in the Summer”

The camp is coached by APU Elite coach Erik Flora. Erik has coached at Olympic and World Championship levels, including the 2011 Overall World Sprint Champion. Snow camp will be from July 5 to July 8th, including 5-6 ski sessions.

Camp includes classic and skate techniques. There is opportunity for participants to ski a lot, plus take part in technique discussion and video review. Cost $600. Includes skiing, coaching, housing, and food. Space is limited.

Please contact Dylan Watts (dwatts@alaskapacific.edu) for registration and further information.

MBSEF juniors jumped in behind Ida Sargent (USST/Craftsbury) as she led the women's relay race at Mount Bachelor on Wednesday.

BEND, Ore. – The U.S. and Canadian national teams are here in Bend to get on snow, and they seem to be loving it.

But what about skiers who are already located in the Oregon Cascades? On several days, local high school athletes have also made the drive up to Mount Bachelor to ski and soak in the atmosphere at North America’s own version of the Dachstein glacier.

Unlike senior World Cup athletes, most juniors are still doing spring sports, and they haven’t started doing ski-specific intervals yet. But regardless of the difference in their yearly training plan, locals are making sure they show up.

“They’re not in ski season, and actually the biggest problem is the kids are all in school,” Mount Bachelor Sports Education Foundation (MBSEF) Head Coach Dan Simoneau said on Wednesday. “They’re all juniors, so they all skipped school today.”

Many local athletes participated in the Pole Pedal Paddle, and some had the chance to see U.S. Ski Team (USST) athletes there. That’s where North Eugene High School coach Tom Opsal ran into USST coaches.

“I met the coaches – Chris Grover, Matt Whitcomb, and a guy who introduced himself as a PT for the team – while setting up boats for the paddle section of the PPP,” Opsal said. “I asked what time they started skiing in the morning and if it would be okay for our kids to observe. I told the guys how little on snow experience we have, and a bit about the kids, and they all said, ‘Sure come ski with us.’ ”

Eugene is far enough west of the mountains that it doesn’t receive snow, meaning that Opsal’s athletes only get to ski at weekend camps and races; they are typically fit runners who do their best to quickly improve on technique. None, for instance, have been to Junior Nationals. But that didn’t limit the goodwill from national team coaches, according to Opsal, who grew up skiing in Canada.

“The next morning as we were getting ready to head out on the snow I saw Justin Wadsworth and again repeated my spiel about the kids,” he said. “Without exception the coaches’ reactions were very, very inclusionary. Even I was surprised how accommodating they were.”

Kikkan Randall with North Eugene High School skiers (l-r) Claire Pettit, Rheanna Williams, Helen Cutting, and Pearl Cutting at Fast and Female in Bend. Photo: Nancy Unruh.

Later in the day, the team lined the side of the hill as three USST coaches worked with Jessie Diggins and Ida Sargent on classic technique. Opsal pointed things out to his racers, including Toby Woods, a graduating senior who is done with his competitive ski career but will be playing baseball in college.

“At one point, Matt Whitcomb came over to us and started talking to the kids and even asked Toby about playing ball for Cornell,” Opsal said. “That a national team coach would take that much interest in a kid from Eugene who is never going to be a next-level skier speaks very highly of Matt in my mind, and in Toby’s.”

MBSEF, Eugene, and other high school teams spent several days skiing around Mount Bachelor, watching and following the national team and senior club athletes. While Simoneau, a 1984 and 1988 Olympian, said that a big goal was for his athletes to be able to observe the older skiers’ technique and mirror it to improve their own, it was also just a fun way to get motivated for another season of training.

“They’re up here jumping in behind skiers,” he said. “I told them to pick up the athletes halfway up the hill because they’ll be a little tired so they can stay with them. What a kick for a J1 to be following Kris Freeman!”

Opsal agreed, saying that his athletes were “shy at first” but then jumped in behind some of the U.S. women and chased them “to the best of their abilities.”

The high school racers picked up plenty of knowledge besides technique improvements, too. For Simoneau’s year-round training group, skiing around with World Cup athletes gave them a way of checking what aspects of skiing they needed to work on the most, which were sometimes different that what they had thought.

“I think it’s huge,” Simoneau said of the opportunity. “They follow them over the hill, they start down, and then they get dropped on the downhill. They’re learning something. What an opportunity – they had a great time. It was amazing.”

For Opsal’s group, just observing how the athletes approach training provided reinforcement for several things that he has been unsuccessfully trying to drill into the athletes.

“We spent a bit of time just looking at how every one of the skiers brought water and snacks to training,” Opsal said sheepishly. “And a big thanks to all the male skiers who skied with their shirts off, so I could point out over and over again that skiers use heart rate monitors. It’s simple stuff, but not one of my kids brought those things.”

Both Simoneau’s and Opsal’s skiers participated in the Fast and Female event on Sunday afternoon, and Simoneau said that he hoped the experience would get more girls from the Bend area involved in skiing.

“The biggest problem this year is that we had our kids event [the mini Pole Pedal Paddle] that day too, so we had 1500 kids doing that,” he said. “We have to get the calendar right next year.”

Fast and Female included a parallel session for parents and coaches featuring presentations on nutrition, physiology, development, and endurance training for young female athletes. For Simoneau, who spent 15 years away from the sport before returning to help out when MBSEF needed a coach, the presentations were a good brush-up.

For the Eugene athletes, the benefit of having the national teams around was mostly motivational.

“There were so many awesome encounters that weekend,” Opsal said. “I got a text that night from [a parent] on the drive home that the kids were still buzzing at 10 p.m. It was not the usual climb into the back of the car and fall asleep trip. … The biggest gain for me is the increased potential for motivated kids next year. Now when they recruit other kids [to the team] they will have stories of Olympians and World Champions to add to their tales.”

U.S. Ski Team member Kris Freeman, who recently joined the Maine Winter Sports Center, during a relay at Mount Bachelor in Bend, Ore., on Wednesday. Freeman teamed up with his new MWSC teammate Welly Ramsey to win the training-camp event.

The Maine Winter Sports Center (MWSC) officially grew by two on Thursday, adding U.S. Ski Team veteran Kris Freeman and US Biathlete Annelies Cook to its roster. They join another national team member, biathlete Russell Currier, and three others on the Caribou-based club’s Olympic development team.

While the MWSC’s competitive program took off in earnest 11 years ago and produced several Olympic biathletes and cross-country Olympian Ben Koons, the recent signings mean more good news for the center. In April, L.L. Bean pledged to donate $1 million dollars to the club’s Healthy Hometowns community program.

US Biathlon team member Annelies Cook en route to a career-best 33rd place in the IBU World Cup sprint on Feb. 2 at Holmenkollen in Norway. (Photo: NordicFocus/USBA)

The extra cash didn’t exactly translate to more money for the elite athletes; competitive programs director Will Sweetser said he convinced Freeman and Cook to commit because of pre-existing relationships. Born in Saranac Lake, N.Y., the 27-year-old Cook trained with MWSC for two years following high school.

A true New Englander, Freeman, 31, has known Sweetser for years. The Maine Winter Sports coach previously worked with Freeman’s older brother, Justin, at Bates College, and Sweetser said he knew Freeman since about the mid ’90s when Kris was a teenager. Once in a while, they found time to chat.

“Occasionally, I’m his punching bag during cool downs,” Sweetser said in a phone conversation from Maine. “I’m a big believer in coaches learning from athletes at least as much as athletes learning from coaches. Any time that the national team athletes are home and I’m at an event where I can go for a ski with one of them, I like to pepper them with questions.”

Sweetser eventually made Freeman an offer too good to turn down. After casually reaching out to him in late March at Spring Series in Craftsbury, Vt., the three-time Olympian agreed to commit to his first actual club last week.

Freeman listed Waterville Valley as his club since he started skiing there at age 5, but explained he was the only member of an essentially non-existent nordic club. At the SuperTour Finals in Craftsbury, he skied for Ski & Snowboard Club Vail (SSCV). Since then, Freeman had said he was deliberating between clubs.

“I think it’s been three seasons now where the U.S. Ski Team has stopped sending us support staff to U.S. Nationals and to SuperTours and being in a club is the best way to get that support,” Freeman said in early May. “Also going to domestic races by yourself isn’t much fun. Being in a club last year, skiing with the Vail guys was just a fun time so I think it was time to join a club.”

The affiliation was mostly based on Freeman’s relationship to three of SSCV’s members: Noah Hoffman, Tad Elliott and Sylvan Ellefson, all of which joined him on the World Cup last season. While the club was appealing, it was also out of Colorado, and Freeman wanted to be in New England.

Sweetser said it took about two months to get him to sign with MWSC.

“All I said was, if he found himself in a position where he needed support, that we were more than happy to provide that support,” Sweetser said. “Following the [U.S.] Ski Team nominations, he decided that, one, he needed to be affiliated with a stronger club and, two, he needed some financial support in the lead up to this year’s World Cup season.”

Freeman would not comment on what level of support he was receiving as an A-team member next season, and USST head coach Chris Grover said that was a private matter that only Freeman could answer.

After a training session in Bend, Ore., Freeman told FasterSkier he joined MWSC.

“A lot of their themes and stuff is healthy living and using sport as a means to an end,” he said. “That goes along well with what I’ve tried to get across with diabetes.”

Considering the club was a six-hour drive from his hometown in New Hampshire, he also liked its local appeal. Between returning from Europe and racing in Craftsbury, Freeman spent time there at the northeastern tip of Maine. Sweetser said he worked with 12- to 14-year-old juniors, demonstrating technique while they chased him.

At the end of June, Sweetser said Freeman will join the rest of his new teammates in Maine for a five-day camp. Freeman will also work toward some 100 hours of community service by spending a day at a diabetes camp. Meanwhile, Cook will do some public-relations work for MWSC.

Later this season, Freeman planned to travel overseas to train with the Norwegian National Team and his coach Zach Caldwell (and teammate Noah Hoffman) in Norway. Sweetser said MWSC was supporting Freeman on that trip, along with all of his domestic race support, the time he spends in Maine and attends their training camps, much of his dryland training and at least his first World Cup period and Tour de Ski expenses.

“In return, he’ll spend more than a month at training camps with us and close to a month doing PR in Maine, youth outreach and diabetes camps and training sessions with the athletes here,” Sweetser said.

“It’s certainly exciting to have somebody that’s not only an Olympian, but has the potential to medal at the next Olympics,” he added. “We have a couple of really strong upcoming Maine athletes, like Hilary McNamee and Welly Ramsey, and we don’t do them a good service if we don’t have somebody that can mentor them. For Welly to be able to able to ski with Kris or Russ Currier, who went through the same path that Welly’s trying to do right now, is really valuable. For Katrina Howe or Hilary to be able to learn from Annelies is very valuable.”

On Wednesday, Freeman teamed up with 21-year-old Ramsey to win a friendly relay at their training camp in Bend, Ore.

“It was a good first workout for us to ski together,” Freeman said. “We’ll see how these camps go. Hopefully I can help raise the level there and in turn their support should help me out in domestic races.”

– Chelsea Little contributed reporting.

Russell Currier leads a group of U.S. and Canadian biathletes down a hill.

BEND, Oregon – Biathlon Canada Head Coach Matthias Ahrens, a native of Germany, had never been to Bend until this month. But now that he’s seen what the town has to offer, he anticipates being back.

“It’s perfect,” he told FasterSkier as his athletes did an interval workout on Wednesday. “It’s so nice that now we have winter conditions – every day it has been perfect conditions for skiing, plus you can go down and mountain bike or run. It’s a nice town, so it’s ideal.”

The Canadians, who are based out of Canmore, don’t suffer from a lack of on-snow training in the spring; Canmore held their snow through early May, and then the team moved on to the Engadine Lodge near Mount Shark, where they were able to do crust skiing for several more weeks. The “B” team is currently at Sunshine Village, doing a similar camp to the one the “A” team is holding in Bend.

But Bend, Ahrens said, has several advantages.

“We have opportunity to ski [at home], but this type of terrain at a medium altitude of 1900 meters is really good,” he said, pointing out that Sunshine’s 2400 feet of elevation creates a bit more stress on athletes’ bodies. If the federation had a bigger budget, he’d bring the “B” team to Bend, too; as it is, only four athletes – JP Le Guellec, Nathan Smith, Scott Perras, and Megan Imrie – made the trip.

The other big advantage? As Ahrens was talking, Smith and Perras were grinding through a workout with U.S. biathletes Lowell Bailey, Tim Burke, and Russell Currier.

“It ended up being the first workout together today,” Ahrens laughed. “We arranged twice to meet up for mountain biking, but things went wrong and it didn’t end up happening. The boys and girls have skied together for easy skis, though.”

It’s also the first Bend camp for the U.S. team (U.S. coach Jonne Kahkonen discussed Bend in an earlier interview), and Ahrens appreciated the chance to see and ski with the other biathletes, as well as the U.S. and Canadian national ski tams.

“Yesterday we were saying among us coaches that even if we don’t do a workout together, and even you must have the same feeling when you’re standing here at this intersection, the interactions going on between both biathlon teams and both cross country teams, it’s just a good vibe,” he said. “Usually we only get this in Europe, say in Ramsau on the glacier.”

The biathletes had originally planned to join the skiers in a relay workout on Wednesday, but one downside to the large number of national team and club athletes present was that planning a coordinated session got complicated. The biathlon teams eventually backed out and planned their own workout.

“Until they decided exactly what they were going to do – you know, there’s so many coaches here, it’s difficult to coordinate,” Ahrens explained. “So Per [Nilsson, the U.S. head coach] and I got together yesterday, and they hadn’t made up their mind yet, so Per and I said, ‘let’s plan for this,’ and that was the main reason.”

Ahrens has a small “A” team, especially since Brendan Green, one of the top men, is recovering from back surgery and unable to train. That leaves the other athletes with one fewer skier to compete against in workouts, which is a blow to the program.

As a result, he was perhaps even more appreciative of having Bailey, Burke, and Currier to push his men.

“It’s neat to have some other training partners and just to gauge yourself,” Ahrens said. “I mean, right now it is not important at all because we’re in the beginning of the new training season, but it’s just to see how others take certain terrain tactically, and how they pace themselves, and it’s always good to ski in a bunch.”

After comparing notes with Nilsson, Ahrens saw that the benefits of the camp were huge and hoped he’d be back next year.

“We like it a lot,” he said. “It’s the first time for us, and the same for Per and Jonne. This could be an annual event.”

Liz Stephen battling up Whiteface Mountain during the 2010 Climb to the Castle. This July, she and Kikkan Randall will get a taste of Norway's rollerski scene at the Blink Ski Festival.

The Blink Ski Festival, touted as the largest summer ski event in the world, takes place in Sandnes, Norway, every July and attracts some of the best skiers in the world. This year its international lineup extends to the US; Kikkan Randall and Liz Stephen will be joining an impressive lineup of other world-class nordic athletes at the festival, which runs July 19 – 21.

The rollerski festival features biathlon and cross-country events for juniors and elite skiers, including a 7.5 k, 640 m climb in Lysebotn and both sprint and distance races.

Randall and Stephen’s participation at Blink makes the most of their planned training in Europe this summer. Their trip to Norway piggybacks onto the front end of the U.S. Ski Team women’s camp in Sweden, which begins a few days later at the beginning of August. All told, the duo will be in Scandinavia for about a month, and Randall said she may extend her stay in Sweden by a few more days after official training ends to help her friends Anna Haag and Emil Jonsson with their kids’ ski camp.

The Norwegian press is already worked up about Randall’s expected appearance at the festival, as the 2012 World Cup sprint champ threatens to dethrone Marit Bjørgen of her five-year winning streak in the Blink sprints.

Between 40,000 and 50,000 spectators and 1.5 million television viewers (via Eurosport and NRK) are expected to watch and cheer for their favorite Norwegian national team members, which so far includes Bjørgen, Therese Johaug, Martin Johnsrud Sundby, Astrid Jacobsen and Marthe Kristoffersen. At the very least, they’ll be defending their turf against Randall and Stephen, a Swiss contingent led by Dario Cologna, and the French national team. Registration is still open but approaching capacity, according to the event website.

The biathlon guns will also be out in full force; Ole Einar Bjoerndalen and Tora Berger lead the Norwegian representation, and will face off against Martin and Simon Fourcade (FRA), Ivan Tsjeresov (RUS), Miriam Grossner (GER), Carl Johan Bergman (SWE) and Kaisa Mäkärainen (FIN).

APU's Sadie Bjornsen (also USST) and Kate Fitzgerald head for the final tagoff.

BEND, Ore. – It may have been spring at Mount Bachelor this weekend, but by the time Wednesday rolled around, it was more like winter. Snow had fallen overnight and stuck to the mountain’s flanks, and flurries continued to drift from the sky as the U.S. and Canadian national ski teams competed in relay races with several club teams.

Canadian Olympian and current Alberta World Cup Academy coach George Grey skied the course before the start and estimated that it was about eight minutes long. It featured a long, grinding climb up the “central corridor” from the start/tag zone at Emil’s Corner, before looping behind the nordic lodge and back down a descent back to the start. Conditions were fairly ideal – fresh powder on top of a packed, icy, base meant that neither the early-morning ice nor the midday slush skiers had contended with over the weekend were anywhere in sight.

Racers were matched up more or less randomly, and usually pairs included athletes from separate teams. Among the clubs represented were the Alberta World Cup Academy, the Sun Valley Gold Team, the Maine Winter Sports Center, CXC, Team Homegrown, Bend Endurance Academy, XC Oregon, Steamboat Springs, the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, and APU.

For a prize – besides bragging rights, that is – coaches seemed to settle on the consensus of a roasted chicken.

That reward will end up going to Welly Ramsey of the Maine Winter Sports Center and Kris Freeman of the U.S. Ski Team, who led the men’s race more or less wire to wire, and to Ida Sargent of the U.S. Ski Team and Chelsea Holmes of the Sun Valley Gold Team, who won the women’s race.

Below, a gallery of the action.

Devon Kershaw, Alex Harvey, Len Valjas and Ivan Babikov make up the men’s World Cup squad, under the leadership of head coach Justin Wadsworth and assistant Louis Bouchard. The head coach at the Pierre-Harvey National Training Centre, Bouchard will also be mentoring Dasha Gaiazova this season.

National team member Dasha Gaiazova holds up a "Canadian Power" T-shirt, an ode to teammates Len Valjas, Devon Kershaw and Alex Harvey, at Canadian Ski Nationals last March.

Gaiazova is one of three veterans returning to the Canadian women’s World Cup team. Chandra Crawford and Perianne Jones round out their roster, coached by Eric de Nys and special consultant Torbjørn Karlsen.

Rather than train at the national team headquarters in Canmore, Alberta, Gaiazova opted to work with Bouchard this summer in Québec. According to CCC high-performance director Tom Holland, that puts her at a “little different-tier level” than her World Cup teammates, but she will be joining their next training camp in Alaska.

“It’s a little different program for her, but it comes from some outside support,” Holland said.

Gaiazova will test in Montreal with the help of B210, a program that supports Canadian athletes with private donations. Holland said the national team was working with B210 and Bouchard on her training plan.

“We just judged this as a program we want to try with her,” he said. “She’s pretty excited about it and we’re going to move ahead.”

In an email, Gaiazova wrote that she always wanted to be a part of the national team and was switching to a new private coach to comply with team standards. She would remain affiliated with Rocky Mountain Racers in Alberta, but no longer work with its head coach, John Jaques.

“I cannot continue training with John … because John is not a National Team coach,” Gaiazova wrote.

When she was 19, she lived in Montreal and trained with Bouchard at the Pierre-Harvey centre. Now 28, she planned to work with him again in Québec City.

“[Bouchard] graciously agreed to take me into his training group even though I never applied and do not intend to, because I made the National World Cup team standard and qualified for the National Team 2012-13,” Gaiazova wrote.

Canadian World Cup Team

Head Coach: Justin Wadsworth

Coaches: Eric de Nys, Louis Bouchard

Men:

Ivan Babikov (Foothills Nordic)

Alex Harvey (Club Nordique Mont Ste. Anne)

Devon Kershaw (Ona Wa Su)

Len Valjas (Team Hardwoord)

Women:

Chandra Crawford (Canmore Nordic)

Dasha Gaiazova (Rocky Mountain Racers)

Perianne Jones (Nakkertok)

For complete NST and NDC lists, click here. 

Jessie Diggins (left) at the finish of 30 k freestyle mass start at U.S. Distance Nationals in Craftsbury, Vt., at the end of March. She didn't know then that it would be her last race in a CXC suit.

BEND, Ore. – Jessie Diggins had a big year in 2012.

After thoroughly dominating the domestic racing scene in the fall and early winter, the CXC and U.S. Ski Team athlete headed to Europe, where she immediately made a splash on the World Cup. In her first race there, in Milan, she finished 18^th in the freestyle sprint, then followed it up with a second-place finish in the team sprint with Kikkan Randall.

Diggins went on to have two top-ten performances in Russia, and contribute to a noteworthy fifth-place relay result by the U.S. women. Her efforts netted her, at age 20, a 34^th-place ranking on the World Cup and inclusion in the top-30-only Red Group for distance racing – as well as an “A” nomination to the national team, a step up from her place on the “B” team that season.

But the excitement didn’t end with the season, and the Minnesota native had a noteworthy spring, too – in a different way. Both of her coaches at CXC left the program: Jason Cork to take Pete Vordenberg’s position with the U.S. Ski Team, and Gus Kaeding to head the newly formed Stratton Elite team. Diggins made a quick but deeply considered decision to leave CXC and join the Stratton team.

FasterSkier sat down with Diggins on the porch of the U.S. Ski Team house on Sunday, and talked about how her life has changed in the last six months.

FasterSkier: It seems like the coaching and club changes were probably not something you were planning to consider, right?

Jessie Diggins: It was not necessarily a surprise, because once I heard that Pete was retiring, Cork has done such an awesome job as a coach that we were like, well, there’s only so many coaches that are left, that they’re going to ask. And also that he’s one of the first choices you’d want. But at the same time, I was coming back from vacation and getting calls from teammates going, “What are we going to do?” And I was going, “What? Fill me in!”

I think that no matter how well you try to prepare for a transition, it’s always going to be hard, and I decided that the last two years working with Gus and Cork have been so perfect that if something works, don’t change it. It takes so long for me to get used to a new coach, a new style of coaching, and for them to know what I’m working on, that it would be really nice if I could keep things as stable as possible.

FS: You said earlier that you would still be in Minnesota a little bit. How is that going to work with the Stratton team?

JD: The longest I’ll be in Vermont will be three weeks, because it’s in between these U.S. Ski Team camps. I was thinking about it, and I don’t know if I want to move everything out there, to move my life to Vermont, if I’m not going to be anywhere for more than three weeks at a time. And I still have so many great friends and such a good support base in Minnesota as well that I don’t want to just pack up and leave. Just because CXC isn’t going to work out for me doesn’t mean that the community won’t work out.

FS: So how much time do you think you’ll actually get to spend there?

JD: I’ll have almost two weeks after this camp, and then a week in July, and a little in the fall. It’s not as much time in any one place as I might want, but that’s the price you pay for getting to travel to all these other sweet locations.

FS: You’ve obviously done the camp thing plenty of times, but how do you think it will affect you to be away from home so much?

JD: I think it will be really fun, actually, I think it will be really nice to get a totally new– I’ve never been to the Stratton area. The only spot in Vermont I’ve been to was Spring Series [in Craftsbury]. I’ve only ever heard good things about the training and rollerskiing, and that it’s a beautiful area, so I think it will be a nice change while keeping everything else stable.

Diggins in the 10 k classic at World Cup Finals in Falun, Sweden.

The other piece is that I’m really excited to be joining this team, and I already know everyone on the team. I’ve gotten to meet them all and I really like them all – I have such great respect for everyone on that team. They’re all such hard workers. So it’s nice to be able to join a team and pretty much know what you’re going to get.

FS: Last year was such a big step for you, was there specific stuff from last year in terms of planning and training that you’ll be trying to carry on?

JD: I think a lot of it for me was learning a little bit more about myself, and taking care of myself outside of skiing – like how much sleep I need to get a night. Stuff like that is so simple, and it should be so easy, but sometimes it’s easy to forget. Like, it’s easy to forget to take the ten minutes to foam roll, but then you’re so sore the next day that you can’t really do your intervals. So just over time picking up on stuff like that.

I’ve been still working on trying to figure out the mental side of it, but I know that if my head’s in a good place I’ll race better, and if I’m out there for the fun of it, actually able to enjoy what I’m doing, I’m going to get more out of it and race faster.

So figuring out those things was really nice, because going into this year I’ll know if I’m super miserable and I’m tired and this and that, then just don’t race! I’ve learned these things so I’m not digging myself into a hole or anything.

FS: All that stuff must be a lot harder when you’re over in Europe on the World Cup.

JD: I was kind of nervous because I’ve never spent more than a month over there, and this year was quite a bit more time, but it was so great because we had a little ski family. There would be times when I’d come in and be so homesick, but then we’d cook Mexican food as a team or do something to try to get a little bit of America, and it was so nice to be able to feel that. Even if you’re on the road and you’re not going to be able to see your family you can skype them, and you have friends on the team.

FS: Are you going to spend the whole season on the World Cup this season?

JD: I think so. Right now the plan is, Novermber 11^th we fly over and we’ll do the ones over there, and then we get to do some in Canada. My family is planning on coming to the Quebec ones, which is really nice. My mom was born there, so we’ve always wanted to go up there anyway, so now it’s like, “sweet!” Family vacation and some racing.

FS: That should be a really fun race, too.

JD: I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve never gotten to race the World Cups in Canada before, so it’s going to be really fun.

And then maybe a quick stop at home, but I’d really like to race the Tour de Ski. It’s a big goal of mine – I think it’s just a badass challenge. And then just kind of seeing if I can carry out the rest of the season, and racing Spring Series here.

It will be kind of sad missing Nationals, and not starting the season out in West Yellowstone is going to be weird, but I think it’s a good change.

FS: Starting in the U.S. worked really well for you last year – is it tough to know you’re just going to be jumping straight into World Cups?

JD:  Something I’ve learned is that I like to race my way into the season. I’ll know that I’m in shape, I’m fit, I’m ready to race, but the first couple of races are getting the kinks out. The World Cup is not very forgiving. If you don’t have a very good day you will just drop like a stone on the results sheet. So that will be interesting to see in the fall, to be patient with it and work my way into the season.

Diggins in West Yellowstone, Mont., where she kicked off the 2011-12 season.

I really did enjoy getting to start my season in the U.S. last year. It was in some ways less pressure and in some ways a ton more pressure, so it will just be completely different this year. We’ll see how it goes.

FS: In terms of teams and funding and sponsors, has that changed a lot since your latest results?

JD: Yes. On CXC, it was a cool system where when I joined, I would not have been able to get sponsorships on my own. I would not have been able to pull any sort of deal. But the older people on the team who have the results and the names, they pull in the big deals and that helps the younger kids. So that really helped me going in last year. You feel like you’re able to give back because you’re pulling in the sponsors that will help the juniors get the skis and the equipment that they need. So, from that standpoint it was hard to leave because I would like to be able to give back more if I could. I was able to for a couple years.

Now that I’m not on a team it leaves you able to pursue whatever sponsorships you want, and that’s cool. It’s a little overwhelming to be signing contracts. It’s part of the job that I never thought about when I started skiing. But I’ve realized that that’s a big part of it if you want to be able to ski for the next ten years. You have to get smart about signing contracts and stuff like that.

FS: Have you had a lot of help and advice from your teammates?

JD: A lot from these guys and coaches, and my parents helped me out, saying make sure you don’t forget this or that in your contract and make sure you read the fine print. Little things like that. But all of the contracts and sponsorships that I’ve had, they take such good care of me. I trust them. I know that when I sign with Salomon, they’re looking out for me and not just trying to use me. We work together, so it’s nice to know that.

FS: So you’re still on the same equipment.

JD: Yes.

FS: And how is the camp going so far?

JD: It’s great. We’re in the same house as we were last year, so we have some good memories already. And I think the camp is twice as much fun for me because this year I know everyone on the team, and I know where I fit in, because last year I definitely had the deer in the headlights look. I was trying to figure everything out, and always so worried about forgetting my boots or skis, and this year I can just enjoy it.

FS: There were a lot of rookies last year, so now it’s just more comfortable for all of you to be together?

JD: Yeah, Holly’s technically a rookie but not really. She knows her way around.

FS: In terms of the coaching change, last year when you were here you didn’t have Cork out here. So is that a big improvement?

JD: That’s been really nice because although it was a bit of a shakeup for CXC, for me it didn’t change things and it might have even I think gotten better for me. I feel bad saying this because it sucked for the club team! But Cork and Matt [Whitcomb, the U.S. Ski Team women’s coach] are going to be my main coaches. Cork has always written my training plan, and now I’ll be able to see them on the road all winter, which is perfect. Because when you’re writing someone’s training plan you can always write it, but it’s easier when you can watch them race, and if you know that athlete you can look at them and say, “I can tell you’re tired, I’m going to change this part.”

FS: Was that something that was hard when you were first on the World Cup?

JD: It was just a lot more work to keep up because you have to be really good on the communication back and forth, so sometimes I’d be tired after a race and wait a little while to send in my training log. So it made it harder for him to write the next week, not knowing and not having seen how the race went.