Along with Simi Hamilton, Jessie Diggins made the jump from B- to A-team status with the 2012-2013 U.S. Ski Team nominations.

Where the spring of 2011 saw six new additions to the U.S. Ski Team (USST) roster, in 2012 the cross-country nominations remain largely the same as the year before. There are a few notable exceptions: Holly Brooks is now an official part of the national team with her B-team nomination and both Jessie Diggins and Simi Hamilton have been promoted to the A-team. The list indicates no departures, though until each athlete officially accepts his or her nomination they can only be considered just that.

For USST head coach Chris Grover, the roster for 2012-2013 season didn’t present many though decisions.

One easy choice, he said, was nominating Brooks, who only missed an automatic bid by five places in finishing the season ranked 55th overall on the World Cup. Even though the second half of her winter was bogged down by a wrist injury and illness, the USST coaches felt that her earlier results — including 13th in the Davos 15 k and 23rd in the sprint the very next day — was a significant step forward and proved she deserved a spot on the team.

The U.S. women's relay celebrating it's fifth-place finish in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, on Sunday. Photo courtesy of Andy Newell.

“She had a fantastic year,” said Grover. “To have a 13th in Davos was a gigantic result.”

Her contribution to the Americans’ 5th place in the Nove Mesto 4×5 k relay (which came after her injury) was also impressive, said Grover. With two championship seasons coming up, fielding a team with more than enough strong relay candidates is important if the US hopes to challenge for a medal.

“If we’re going to be successful in those relays we have to have way more athletes than it takes to fill a team skiing fast,” said Grover. “That means on a 4×5 day we need athletes like Holly and another four or five athletes if you’re looking to really compete for a medal.”

Besides the addition of Brooks, the other significant change to the team is the growth of the A-team from four athletes to six. Hamilton and Diggins have graduated from the B-team and will now be fully-funded USST skiers.

There is no set criterion that delineates the A-team from the B-team, but Grover pointed to two accomplishments that the two athletes each achieved this season as indicative that they were ready for the A-team.

Hamilton leading his quarterfinal in Rogla this December. Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus.

First, both Hamilton and Diggins finished the winter in the Red Group — Hamilton ranked 22nd in the sprint standings and Diggins was 26th in distance. Second, both posted either an individual top-5 or two top-10s on the World Cup over the course of the season. Diggins met both standards (a fifth in the Rybinsk 10 k mass start and a sixth in the Moscow sprint two days before), and Hamilton met the latter (both in sprints: a 10th in the Rogla skate and a seventh in the Drammen classic).

“It’s hard to make cut-and-dry selection criteria, but this year those were places we could point to and say, ‘That athlete is beyond gaining experience, that athlete is starting to succeed on a weekly basis on the World Cup and can go out and have a top-10 or a top-5, or end up in the Red Group and demonstrate they are skiing fast on a year-long continuum,” said Grover.

Kikkan Randall, Liz Stephen, Kris Freeman and Andy Newell were all re-nominated to the A-team. Of those, only Freeman didn’t meet the unofficial bar that Hamilton and Diggins had to reach to join them. As he stated before the nominations were announced, Freeman understands that his status on the A-team is because of results he’s shown in the past rather than for his most recent winter.

The B-team nominations, apart from Diggins moving up and the addition of Brooks, include the same athletes as last year. Tad Elliott and Noah Hoffman are both back on the list, as are Ida Sargent and Sadie Bjornsen.

The D-team, which was a new addition to the USST structure last spring, has Erik Bjornsen and Skyler Davis again listed as the only nominees. The development team will function in the same capacity that it did last year — its athletes aren’t paid, but have access to the athletic support of the USST. Grover said he and his fellow coaches looked at other possible candidates, but ultimately decided not to add anyone this year. He pointed to a lack of standout results that they could definitively point to that indicated one skier or another should be brought onto the D-team.

Related Articles:

USST Announces 2012 Nominations

Before Official Naming, USST Members Talk Possibilities

With USST Nominations Looming, Grover Discusses Strategy, Discretion

Carolyn and Santi Ocariz complete their two-month rollerski across the U.S., called Ski Across America, by rolling into the Pacific Ocean on Friday, May 11. (Courtesy photo/SkiAcrossAmerica.com)

When Carolyn and Santi Ocariz clicked into their rollerskis slightly more than two months ago, neither really knew what they were in for.

The Wisconsin couple heard plenty of stories about the places they’d travel through. They took to heart the warnings about crazy drivers, snakes and treacherous temperatures while crossing America’s heartland. It might not be hot when they left, but it could get brutal, and the elements could change 180 degrees by the time they reached Utah.

Husband and wife, Santi and Carolyn Ocariz celebrate the end of their Ski Across America journey, in which they spent two months and five days rollerskiing from Charleston, S.C., to San Francisco to raise money for Food for the Poor. (Courtesy photo/SkiAcrossAmerica.com)

Carolyn, 23, and Santi, 25, prepared as best they could. As they ticked off the states and thousands of miles, the two couldn’t have been more surprised.

Drivers frequently slowed down beside them and asked what they were doing. Rather than threaten to run them off the road, they were genuinely interested.

“It was unbelievable,” Santi said on the phone from San Francisco, where they finished their journey last Friday. “I think we were better accepted on the roads in the south than we were back in Wisconsin.”

The hospitality they encountered throughout their trip, Ski Across America, had been overwhelming, he said. Once people heard they were rollerskiing more than 3,000 miles across the U.S. to raise money for a charity called Food for the Poor, many strangers opened their homes to them.

In all, the Ocarizes raised an estimated $17,000 to $18,000 dollars to help feed children in impoverished nations. They visited at least 400 churches along the way to deliver packets with their message, which they asked pastors to read to their congregation for donations. With their trip’s website still up and running, Santi hoped more money would continue to roll in.

The newlyweds from the Midwest had come a long way since early March when they first started their journey at the Atlantic coast in Charleston, S.C. In two months and five days, they raised some $12,000, crossed more than a dozen states and visited friends and relatives along the way.

Spending about seven hours a day on the road – sometimes longer – the two often chewed off more than a 100 miles at a time. While traveling through Yosemite National Park on the last leg of their trip, a park ranger informed them 10 miles in that they couldn’t rollerski through it.

They popped out of their rollerskis and ran. After logging a total of six hours on foot, most of which was downhill and would have been much more pleasant on wheels, the Ocarizes arrived on the other side of the park the next day.

“The legs took a beating,” Santi said. “When we’re in shape for running, it wouldn’t be any big deal, but when you’ve been rollerskiing for the past two months, not really running, it was kind of a shock to the system.”

He said they were lucky to have even been able to use the road; it opened the day before. Avoiding the 750,000-acre park altogether would have added an estimated three days of rollerskiing.

They camped overnight in Yosemite and woke up the next morning to find chocolate missing out of Santi’s backpack along with his cellphone. Apparently, a raccoon dug both out and dragged the latter to an obscure place at the campsite. Someone later found his phone and planned to mail it to him.

“It actually ran off with my phone,” Santi said with a laugh. “It couldn’t have been anything else.”

Before Yosemite, the Ocarizes encountered a similar “blessing” at Lake Powell in southern Utah. When they arrived at the second largest manmade reservoir in the U.S. nearly 200 miles long, they learned the ferry across opened for the season that day.

“Otherwise we would have had to go who knows how far around,” Santi said.

After climbing to around 10,500 feet on rollerskis, Carolyn and Santi Ocariz realized a mountain pass to Cedar City in southern Utah was closed. They had to backtrack to Duckville, Utah, then farther back the next day. (Courtesy photo/SkiAcrossAmerica.com)

They would always remember the good fortune they encountered on routes like those, he said. At the same time, they’d probably never forget when they skied more than 30 miles out of the way to the top of a closed mountain pass.

To get to southern Utah’s Cedar City, Carolyn and Santi picked a road that looked pretty doable: 60-65 miles of not-so-tough terrain. On the way, they realized they misinterpreted the map.

“It turned into like a ten-hour skiing day,” Santi said. “The whole afternoon we were climbing, and as we climbed, it got colder and rain turned to sleet and snow and the wind was blowing in our face.”

Alternating between rollerskiing and driving their Subaru, the two arrived at the top of the pass nearly 10,500 feet above sea level. There, they saw a gate across the road indicating the pass was closed.

“That was a demoralizing moment,” Santi said, jovially.

It was already getting dark and they had to backtrack to the next town. There, a landslide had closed an alternate route. They called it a night and drove farther back to an open road the next day.

Looking back, Santi recalled some of the most beautiful places they rolled through: Yosemite, Taos in New Mexico, the redwood trees and mountains near the California coast, and even the south despite its 88-degree days with 90 percent humidity.

“Sometimes the outlook of the south is, oh, it’s dangerous and weird people, but it was completely the opposite,” he said. “You won’t find any nicer places or communities, I don’t think, than down there.”

He and Carolyn bathed in mountain streams, at truck stops and campgrounds, but at the end of their trip — about 3,500 miles total — they soaked up the Pacific. With Santi’s cousin Alec biking alongside them for the last 30 miles while their friend Judy Krueger drove the car, Santi and Carolyn arrived at the West Coast and rollerskied right into the ocean.

Santi and Carolyn Ocariz complete their two-month Ski Across America by rollerskiing into the Pacific Ocean near San Francisco on Friday, May 11. (Courtesy photo/SkiAcrossAmerica.com)

“It was pretty awesome,” Santi said. “We had both been looking forward to completing the trip but at the same time it was like, what now? The last two months had been just all rollerskiing and suddenly it came to an end.”

They had memories to hold onto, friends like Rebecca Dussault and her husband Sharbel to thank for joining them for a day and a night.

They met a man running across the country for the American Heart Association (willpoweredrun.org) and even watched Tad Elliott mountain bike race. The spoke at churches on weekends and had plenty of people to inform that they finished.

Finishing up some computer stuff at his relative’s home in San Francisco, Santi said they were preparing for the next step. A member of the Central Cross Country (CXC) Elite Team for the last two years, he decided months ago to join XC Oregon in Bend.

Also a former CXC member, Carolyn would move there to train with the team as well. She was flying home to Wisconsin on Wednesday to spend time with family and gather their belongings before driving west once more. In June, the two will celebrate their one year anniversary.

Santi said Bend was a destination that had been on their minds for years. He spent several summers training there while in college at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Both born in the Midwest, he and Carolyn viewed their cross-country trip as the best way to get there.

“Bend is amazing. It’s a training mecca,” Santi said. “I think they still have ten feet of base snow so they’re gonna have snow until who knows when in July. So we’re going to be ditching our rollerskis and getting back on snow for a while.”

More appealing was the amount of people they could train with, which included elite runners as well as skiers.

“There’s just a very good crowd of fit and enthusiastic people,” Santi said. “Even though the team is smaller we have many more people to train with than Hayward.”

Part of the reason they finished their anticipated three-month trip earlier than expected was so that Santi could get to Bend sooner and Carolyn could spend more time at home. She would be meet him in Bend in a few weeks, he said.

On Saturday, Santi planned on racing the Pole Pedal Paddle in Bend with his brother Javier. After that, he’ll jump into training with old friends at the U.S./Canadian ski team camp there.

“I feel great, honestly; I have a ton of energy,” he said. “The body adapts. It gets stronger and I definitely feel very strong right now.”

For some, two months of nonstop rollerskiing might be draining. In his case, so many easy-distance days in a row gave him the rest he needed.

“In a way this trip was training, but I guess we didn’t consider it training,” Santi said. “We were just kind of doing it for the fundraising aspect of it.”

For more details on the trip, visit SkiAcrossAmerica.com and check out this FasterSkier interview from before they left.

Holly Brooks completing the 2012 Tour de Ski with a broken wrist.

There’s only one new name on the list of nominations to the U.S. Ski Team that were published on Monday: Alaska Pacific University’s Holly Brooks. Given her unconventional path to the team, we called her this morning (in the middle of a battery of treadmill tests at the Center of Excellence in Park City) to talk about what being nominated at this point in her career means to her. The interview will be the feature of our upcoming podcast to be released in the next few days, and since we’re still editing the audio here’s a snippet of Brooks’ reaction to making the team:

It’s always been a goal, for past two seasons. This year I felt like maybe it was attainable. Going into the first period I had no idea what kind of results I’d turn in, not having a ton of experience on the World Cup in Europe. I really surprised myself in that first period, and I definitely started to think about it more and more as a realistic possibility.

Then the whole wrist thing happened in the Tour de Ski, and my season took a little bit of a dive from there. And so it was kind of a rollercoaster both results-wise, and physically and emotionally as well — just thinking, ‘Ok I’m on track, I’m on track’ — and then with the whole injury I kind of felt like I fell off the boat.

And really until the end of the end of the season, even in Vermont, I wasn’t given any indication as to whether what I’d turned it was good enough or not. So when I got the call, I was just ecstatic.

Check back soon for the full interview on our next podcast.

Mt. Bachelor in Bend, Oregon is hosting training camps for four North American national teams starting this week. Photo: MBSEF Nordic.

Something unique is happening in Bend, Oregon this week.

No, not the mere existence of multiple kilometers of groomed trails in May, though that certainly plays a big part. For the first time in recent memory, four North American national teams will be training on the same trails at the same time for their first official camps of the summer. Athletes started arriving this week, and will be in Bend for the next ten days or so for the rare spring skiing that Bend has to offer.

The U.S. Ski Team and Canadian National Ski Team will both be there, and have worked together in Oregon before. But the addition of the US and Canadian biathlon teams to the mix of skiers on Mt. Bachelor’s trails will be new, and the coaches of all four groups are looking forward to the prospect of getting quality on-snow training in for their athletes and the opportunities to collaborate while doing so.

Joint workouts will more than likely come together on the fly, but the presence of four groups will give each team more than one training partner to choose from on any given day. The two cross-country teams will likely ski together — the same goes for athletes of each nationality, whether biathlete or nordic skier — and the US and Canadian biathletes will have the chance to train together as well.

From the two American teams, skiing together in Bend will be a continuation of a training relationship that began in Lake Placid, NY last summer.

“In Lake Placid last year, our athletes really liked being able to ski with other people than they normally do,” said US biathlon head coach Per Nilsson.

The American biathletes have never done official training in Bend before, and like all the athletes planning on attending this May, are looking to put in high volume on snow in the mornings while also taking advantage of Bend’s dryland opportunities for the second workout of the day.

“It’s probably the best environment for spring training — not so long a drive to the snow, not so high, and you can do afternoon workouts with super conditions there also,” said Nilsson.

There is no shooting range in Bend, so the biathletes will not be bringing their rifles with them. Since the team just finished a shooting camp in Lake Placid, the time on snow is Nilsson’s primary focus.

For the USST, which is currently finishing up testing in Park City, Utah, “it’s kind of a no-brainer to go out there,” said head coach Chris Grover.

The workouts the various teams will do together hasn’t been exactly pinned down yet, but Grover expected the collaboration to be established day-to-day.

“The biathletes have goals they want to accomplish; we have goals we want to accomplish; the Canadians have their own set of goals… There’s a ton of moving pieces,” said Grover.

From the Canadian ski team’s perspective, the Bend camp is important largely because it presents an opportunity to work with American skiers.

As he recently explained, CNST head coach Justin Wadsworth views the chance for the Canadian women to ski with the Americans as crucial, which they will do in Bend and on Eagle Glacier in Alaska later this summer.

“Our national team is quite small,” said Wadsworth. “We’re just three women, and we want to make sure they have as many opportunities to train…in group situations as possible.”

Training camps are a balancing act between meeting the needs of the team, taking advantage of group training, and achieving the goals of each individual skier, he continued.

“Of course you can’t always do everything somebody else is doing in their training plan, otherwise you’re not really meeting the needs of your individual athletes, but in a lot of the camp situations, I think we can attain both.”

In addition to working with the USST, Wadsworth is planning to coordinate some workouts with the Canadian biathlon team. The two groups have teamed up together before, but this is one of the first official camps that overlap for both teams.

“It’s great…they did some double-poling workouts with us last year, and I thought that was really good,” said Wadsworth.

The Canadian biathletes have previously trained at Whistler and around Canmore, BC in late May, but decided to come to Bend this year for the joint attraction of the snow and the new training partners.

“Since all the Canadian and US teams are going to Bend this year we thought it would be a nice change in training venue doing some workouts with other teams,” said Canadian biathlon coach Matthias Ahrens.

Ahrens also plans to incorporate mountain biking around Bend into their afternoon workouts.

With 483 inches of snowfall received this season, the camp promises to provide worthwhile skiing for all four teams. Wadsworth took a family vacation in Bend this month, and as of early May was still experiencing powder days.

“There’s still, like, 120 inches of snow pack on the ground,” said Wadsworth. “Snow will not be an issue.”

Alex Matthews and Chelsea Little contributed reporting.

The Nordic Racing Manager is responsible for managing all aspects of the Nordic race department to achieve brand objectives within the race market. This will include developing and maintaining a strong presence in the race market at retail, with athletes and coaches. The racing manager will assist management with development and execution of the business strategy as objectives are achieved.

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• Assist in the development of short and long term strategies for the category
• Management of elite athlete programs • Inventory management
• Assist with training on Rossignol product to retail partners, athletes, and coaches
• Keep Rossignol top of mind for athletes and opinion leaders
• Maintain a data base of racing programs
• Management of equipment test fleet
• Assist sales team with leads and identifying opportunities
• Prepare and present reports for management, sales and related audiences

Position Requirements:

• Education and Experience:
• Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Communication or Marketing is preferred
• Strong proficiency with MS Office applications, primarily Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Also, a working knowledge of various social media platforms
• Expertise in strategic planning and marketing principles
• Ski industry experience as a coach, program/team management or retail is preferred
• Expert knowledge of Nordic ski racing and equipment is required
• Experience as an athlete or coach in USSA or NCAA events is required

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• Strong analytical, decision-making and problem solving skills
• Excellent verbal, written and interpersonal communication skills
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• Position will require travel up to 10 days at a time
• Approximately 15 weeks of travel per year

This is a full time, year round position based in Park City, UT

To apply for this position, please send a resume and cover letter to nordicracingusa@rossignol.com

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Store owner Brian Knutson - ski fit legend.

At its most basic level, “ski fit” can be defined as finding a ski that is of correct length and stiffness. This baseline is something you should be able to obtain at any reputable ski shop. But what does a Gear West ski fit entail that makes us so much different that the baseline? We use our hands, eyes, 3 flex benches, and a one-of-a kind ski flex test analyzer to distinguish us a leader and innovator. We have close to a hundred combined years of ski fitting experience and are never satisfied until we have found your new favorite pair of skis.

Matt Liebsch assembling his Fischer Carbonlite race fleet November, 2011.

Like many years in the past, we are currently working with our suppliers to obtain the very best quality skis for our customers. Our leadership in the industry allows us to make certain that only the highest quality skis are carried at Gear West. This summer we will be working with and travelling to national and international race departments to score the highest level of race quality skis.

So what is this “quality” that keeps getting mentioned?

Quality is a term that can be misleading when it comes to skis and ski fit. What are we talking about when it comes to quality?

• The quality of materials that comprise a ski?
• The quality of matched skis? The quality of base or base finish?
• The quality of manufacturing or finish or graphics?

In my opinion, quality is how fast a ski is when gliding on snow, how well it kicks and how easy it is to ski on. I want the fastest ski possible when I am racing but stability and ease of use also play a part.

So back to our baseline length and flex.

• When it comes to length we typically suggest longest ski possible that you can still ski on comfortably. All things equal, a longer ski is generally a faster ski. For example, just ask Tad Elliott why he is now on 192 cm skate skis vs 187 cm skis. The one caveat to this is, some ski manufacturers are better at building certain lengths of skis. A few years ago, Salomon produced some very high quality skis in 187cm skate and 201cm classic. Production batches and day to day (even hour to hour) quality at the factory can play a factor in this as well. We at Gear West know our inventory very well, and work with our ski manufacturers to ensure only the highest quality.
• Flex – this is the fuzzy area. So, what’s with all the numbers on skis these days? Basically, they help determine if the skis are matched and give a baseline on how stiff the ski is. No flex number I have ever seen gives a quantitative value of flex. If they did, I wouldn’t have a job! Truth is, ski companies don’t want you to know there is a difference in quality of flex. They would like consumers to believe that one $600 ski is equivalent to the same $600 ski at another ski shop! That is not the case, and is it is also the reason Gear West spends considerable time and money maintaining the largest high quality ski selection in North America.

So what does this all mean to you, the skier? Well, if I were a consumer of Nordic racing skis, I would find a shop that not only has your baseline fit covered but also understands the “quality” involved in the ski fitting process.

Josh Doebbert - Gear West Flex Specialist using the one-of-a-kind Gear West Flex Tester to determine a perfect fit.

With that said, I invite you to be involved in the process! As mentioned earlier, I am working with national and international racing departments to find the best skis for Gear West’s inventory.

If you are in the market for a high level racing ski from Fischer, Rossignol, Salomon or Atomic, we encourage you to fill out a ski request form. Getting your name in the hat early on ensures that we will keep your personal needs in mind, putting the world’s inventory at your fingertips and therefore guaranteeing the absolute highest quality imaginable!

Click HERE to submit a ski request form.

Holly Brooks (APU) is the newest nomination to the US Ski Team.

The U.S. Ski Team announced Monday morning its 2012-2013 nominations, listed below. According to the press release, the nominations include those active athletes who qualified based on published selection criteria. The USSA will announce the actual team roster this fall, naming those athletes who accept the responsibilities of being a part of the U.S. Ski Team and are planning to compete in the 2012-13 season.

Athletes nominated to the 2012-13 U.S. Ski Team are:

A TEAM

Men

• Kris Freeman (10/14/80; Andover, NH; Waterville Valley BBTS)
• Simeon Hamilton (5/14/87; Aspen, CO; Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation)
• Andrew Newell (11/30/83; Shaftsbury, VT; Stratton Mountain School)

Women

• Jessica Diggins (8/26/91; Afton, MN; Stratton Mountain School)
• Kikkan Randall (12/31/82; Anchorage, AK; Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Club)
• Elizabeth Stephen (1/12/87; East Montpelier, VT; Burke Mountain Academy)

B TEAM

Men 

• Tad Elliott (7/2/88; Durango, CO; Ski and Snowboard Club Vail)
• Noah Hoffman (8/1/89; Aspen, CO; Ski and Snowboard Club Vail)

Women

• Sadie Bjornsen (11/21/89; Winthrop, WA; Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center)
• Holly Brooks (4/17/82; Anchorage, AK; Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center)
• Ida Sargent (1/25/88; Craftsbury Common, VT; Craftsbury Green Racing Project)

D TEAM

Men

• Erik Bjornsen (7/14/92; Winthrop, WA; Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center)
• Skyler Davis (12/22/91; Jericho, VT; Stratton Mountain School)

Laura Spector racing in a World Cup mass start in Antholz, Italy last season. Photo: nordicfocus.com / USBA.

Note: This piece is a preview to our upcoming series on how American biathletes navigate the question of college. Check back next Monday for the first installment, which will address in more depth many of the issues brought up here.

After the 2011 IBU World Cup season, American biathlete Laura Spector was riding high. That January, she had collected her first top-20 result and become the first U.S. woman in six years to qualify for one of the circuit’s prestigious 30-woman mass starts. She had a total of five top-30 races that season, and seemed like a solid leader on the rapidly rising women’s team.

A year later, things looked different. In the first period of World Cup racing, the 2010 Olympian failed to crack the top 70. She stepped down to the IBU Cup level and didn’t return.

“I’m definitely not happy with how the season went,” Spector told FasterSkier in an interview last week as she prepared to move to Bozeman, Montana. “It was below par and below what I was expecting.”

Spector said that she knew as early as October that things weren’t quite right; by the time the team was having their fall camps, she was already tired.

“I think I went into the season already pretty worn down from all the training in the summer and the fall,” she explained. “I talked to my coaches about it just a little while ago, and they pretty much agreed that that was probably what had happened. Trying to push through four months of racing without being able to take breaks didn’t really help things.”

Spector attributed the change to her first autumn of training full-time with the national team. Prior to 2012, she had been a student at Dartmouth College, taking the winters off from school to race but attending classes in the spring, summer, and sometimes fall. She had never trained day in and day out with the national team or its coaches.

“When I was at Dartmouth the previous fall, which was right before I had some of my best results, I was able to be a lot more responsive to what I was feeling because I didn’t have a coach watching me every day,” she said. “I think that part of doing more training than I was able to handle was being with my coach every single day, and therefore having to do the exact workout whether I felt like I could do it or not.”

The women’s national team coach, Jonne Kahkonen, agreed that Spector had come into the season at less than full speed, but saw a different cause, and believed that she had been tired as early as the end of the summer.

“After school was done – typically when you finish something you might get sick, or you get more tired actually after you finish that work load,” he said in an interview from Lake Placid. “I think that had a big role in that for sure, even more than Laura really realized, and that probably carried a little further out than any of us could really think of.”

According to Kahkonen, part of the reason that it took a whole season to realize what was happening was due to the fact that he had never worked closely with Spector before, at least not in comparison to the other national team members who were in residence at the Olympic Training Center. Without a good understanding of her baseline and how she showed stress, it was more difficult for him to pick up on the problem.

“If I’m being really honest, for me, as a coach, that is for sure not an ideal situation,” Kahkonen said. “Even last year she wasn’t training fully with the team because she finished school at the end of August, so there was not that much time after school was done and before the season started…Even getting to know Laura a little better, it wasn’t the same as when you see an athlete every day.

“I think all these motivated athletes, especially like Laura, she is really motivated and when the plan is there, she will do it by the book, by the second,” he continued. “It’s tough to get that really honest answer of whether you really feel tired right now, or if you feel good then maybe you could do even more of some other kind of training.”

By the middle of the season, Spector was able to finish 10^th in an IBU Cup race in Canmore, Alberta. She also had several top-30 finishes in IBU Cup races in Europe and at Open European Championships in Brezno, Slovakia.

It wasn’t much consolation, though.

“It’s hard to go through an entire season and watch yourself racing at a level that you should not be racing at,” Spector said. “The whole time I knew that I was not racing as well as I could, but I couldn’t really race any better because I didn’t have any time to recover. It’s definitely hard.”

And so Spector is trying to get back on track by returning to what has worked in the past: school. A biological sciences major at Dartmouth, she hopes to attend graduate school in the future. This summer she’s taking an intensive organic chemistry course at Montana State University.

What does that mean for biathlon?

“We’ll see,” she said. “I’m going to go to school this summer and I’m taking everything out with me. They have a biathlon range at Bohart, and I’ll be running and biking and staying active. I don’t have time to fly back East to go to camps or anything… then when the fall comes around, we’ll see what happens. Really I’m just playing it by ear.”

Based on her IBU Cup results, Spector was named to USBA’s “B” team, a step down from the “A” funding level she has been at for several seasons. That didn’t faze her, but she also said that she didn’t plan on integrating fully into the national team system any time soon.

“I plan to not ever in the future be just solely an athlete,” she said. “Because that just doesn’t work for me.”

For Kahkonen – who said that he “didn’t have any finalized plans yet” for Spector, and that they still needed to have another conversation about her season – it wasn’t the most welcome news.

“To be honest I’m kind of worried that that’s something that might happen,” he said of the possibility that Spector wouldn’t return to Lake Placid. “Obviously from my point of view I’d love to have Laura here, just to get to work with her more individually, because that’s how I feel about coaching, and that’s how I want to be coaching. I haven’t really had that chance with Laura yet, and obviously when you look at her results there’s huge potential there.”

Nevertheless, he said he’d do what he could to give Spector the best shot at success.

“If school and taking classes is something that she really wants to do right now, it is obviously her decision,” he said. “What I always say is that if you want the top result, then you need to do biathlon 100%, but at the same time biathlon is only a part of life, and you have to be happy doing biathlon. It’s sometimes a tricky combination. I want to give all the information and all the support that I can give, and then the final decision is up to the athlete.”

Spector was grateful for that support, and said that she felt like USBA staff understood her choices.

“They’ve seen that I’m able to handle it pretty well, and still perform well,” she said. “Since I’ve talked to them they are definitely supportive, because they know that their athletes have to have a healthy mind as well as a healthy body. Whatever it takes, they are willing to support you as long as you turn in good results.”

With her return to school, she hopes that she can give them – and herself – just that.

Mike Cavaliere, Alberta World Cup Academy founder and racing director, looks on during the NorAm opening weekend on Dec. 10, 2011, at the Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre in Vernon, British Columbia. Cavaliere recently announced he would took on the new position of men's coach. (Photo by Dan Roycroft/AWCA)

Looking out at his athletes plugging along during a workout last fall, Mike Cavaliere of the Alberta World Cup Academy sat inside the team van and listened to his coaches.

A few years ago when Cavaliere started the Canadian national training centre in Canmore, Alberta, he and his staff recognized the lack of high-level female skiers. Back then, they resolved to work toward producing more, but at a training camp in Whistler, British Columbia, all eyes were on the men.

Inside the van, national team team psychologist Dr. Sharleen Hoar made the initial observation.

“Something she said really hit me hard,” Cavaliere said in a phone conversation from Canmore. “All the male coaches went out to watch the males ski and there was an equally good workout just 100 meters behind them and nobody’s paying attention.”

Then and there, Cavaliere had his eureka moment. If somebody took complete ownership in overseeing a women’s program, the females on that team would inevitably improve. They’d likely have a better experience and in turn, higher-quality workouts.

He decided that was the path the academy would take the following year and separated the program into men’s and women’s teams. Instead of 10 women and 10 men training under one head coach, as the academy had in years prior to last season, its new roster included two main coaches leading 12 women and 11 men.

According to Cavaliere, it was the first time a national training centre women’s team eclipsed a men’s in size. While athletes still had to make the team based on criteria, Cavaliere met apprehension when he wanted to break it up by gender.

“I was questioned at out ski team meeting,” he said. “They said, ‘What do you hope to accomplish?’ and I really couldn’t answer that question. I don’t know, but we’re gonna go here, and we’re gonna see how it works out, and at the end of the day, we’re going to have something to look at and evaluate and make better in the future.”

Alberta World Cup Academy coaches Chris Jeffries (r) and Stefan Kuhn (l) work on skis during the opening NorAm races at Sovereign Lake in Vernon, British Columbia. (Photo by Dan Roycroft/AWCA)

Head coach Chris Jeffries said the concept of retooling and improving was part of Cavaliere’s vision when he started the academy five years ago.

“One of the things that we have long talked about but haven’t always acted upon is that female athletes have different needs than male athletes,” Jeffries said, referring to physiology as one factor. “It’s always a challenge because programming generally comes from men because there’s more coaches than female coaches.”

For starters, they hired a female strength coach to complement the man they had in that department.

“We just thought it was really important for us to start to dedicate certain resources that would be a bit more focused on one gender and the other,” Jeffries said. “We have a very strong women’s team. I think the strength of the women in our program and the need that we see for developing more females at the top international level, it was like a no-brainer.”

National Team Changes

While Cavaliere figured out how to restructure his academy – assuming the position of men’s coach in addition to racing director, making Jeffries the women’s coach, and 2010 Olympians Stefan Kuhn and George Grey what he called “unisex” coaches – the higher ups at Cross Country Canada were playing around with similar ideas.

After its female World Cup athletes offered feedback during a retreat last fall, the national team coaches and staff reviewed the information in February and created a formal plan. The next month in Olso, Norway, Canadian coaches met with their three World Cup women – Perianne Jones, Chandra Crawford and Dasha Gaiazova– along with senior development team skiers Alysson Marshall and Emily Nishikawa to present the new format.

Canadian head coach Justin Wadsworth (r) gives Devon Kershaw splits during the 15 k freestyle pursuit at the World Cup Finals in March in Falun, Sweden.

“We thought, it’s time to start a separate women’s team in conjunction with a men’s team,” said Canadian national team head coach Justin Wadsworth.

“We didn’t want to totally separate the teams, but we felt like they deserved their own coach and their own program and opportunities to train with both the Canadian women and the U.S. women.”

With former senior development team coach Eric de Nys heading up the women’s team and Wadsworth coaching the men, their World Cup athletes would train separately for the most part throughout the summer.

The women – which were confirmed as Jones and most likelyCrawford – would take advantage of their national team headquarters’ proximity to the Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA) and train cohesively with athletes like Marshall and Nishikawa. According to Wadsworth, they would attend training camps in Alaska and Whitefish, Mont., inviting Marshall and Nishikawa to the former and joining the AWCA at the latter.

Torbjørn Karlsen, who coached Beckie Scott to Canada’s first Olympic gold in cross-country skiing in 2002, would serve as a special consultant to de Nys. Jones expected he would work remotely from the U.S. and join the team at certain camps.

“Someone coming in and looking at us once in a while can almost be more helpful,” Jones said. “They can see different things than the coaches see day in and day out.”

With at least one of the three women from last year opting out of the World Cup training plan (Dasha Gaiazova said she was exploring options at a national training centre this summer), Wadsworth stressed the importance of developing top-notch females in Canada. That’s why he put de Nys and Karlsen on the job.

Canadian national ski team members Perianne Jones (l) and Chandra Crawford (r), who placed 12th and 7th, respectively, in the World Cup freestyle sprints in Milan, Italy, on Jan. 14. They finished third in the team sprint the next day.

“Eric and Torbjørn are the only two coaches that have ever coached North American women to gold medals at Olympics [in nordic skiing],” Wadsworth said, referring to Crawford’s sprint victory in 2006 and when his wife, Beckie, earned gold in the 5×5 k pursuit.

On the men’s World Cup team, Devon Kershaw, Alex Harvey and Lenny Valjas will generally unite at camps, including trips to Hawaii and New Zealand. Scattered throughout the country, the three will be coached with the help of Louis Bouchard, Harvey’s personal coach at the Pierre-Harvey National Training Centre in Québec.

Both teams planned to kick off the season with an on-snow and dryland camp in Bend, Ore., from May 16-28. There, the men and women will train separately as usual, but with the specific guidance of their newly appointed coaches and the added boost of others.

Still the head coach, Wadsworth moved his team’s camp up 10 days earlier than originally planned. He wanted his skiers, specifically the women, to work with the Americans and scheduled the rest of their summer camps generally around theirs.

“One difference in sports between men and women is the social aspect, and for the women, it’s a very strong element,” Wadsworth said. “We really want to address that and our national team is quite small. We want to make sure they have opportunities to train. That’s why we canned the camps in New Zealand [for the women last year] and sent them to Alaska, and that was a big success.”

While he set up rendezvous with the Americans in places like Park City, Utah, Wadsworth said it was equally important to create training opportunities at home.

“We can’t just have our women training with the U.S. and ignoring the younger athletes in Canada at the development level,” he said. “It’s really important that the tradeoff goes both ways for our women’s team.”

By officially including the AWCA in its summer plans, the national team created what both sides considered a “win-win” environment. The World Cup women would have training partners with when they were in Canmore, and the 12 academy females could regularly jump into workouts with Canada’s best.

Jones, for one, was excited.

“I went for a bike ride with the academy girls [Wednesday] morning and it was great,” she said. “It’s nice to be on the same schedule so that we can actually train together.”

Despite being next door to the academy, Jones said coordinating with its athletes was often frustrating before.

“Like, ‘I’m on a rest week and you’re doing intensity and volume!’ ” Jones recalled. “We were all doing the same thing but at different times. This will make it a lot easier.”

Cavaliere said the arrangement, which allows two of his development team skiers (Marshall and Nishikawa) to join national team camps and workouts in exchange for winter support when World Cup women are occasionally back in Canada, isn’t entirely different than before. Regardless, it created an unparalleled training group.

“Just as the older girls get to mentor some of the younger girls, this is an opportunity for Alysson and [Emily], even Heidi, Marlis, all those girls, who all have the same hopes and dreams, for them to be able to train beside Chandra or Dasha or Perianne,” he said. “It’s the logical step.”

Immediate Effects

With so many changes essentially going on around her, Marshall, 24, didn’t expect much to change. Cavaliere would continue to write her training plans and she would train mostly with the academy under the guidance of Jeffries, the AWCA head coach.

Alysson Marshall (AWCA/NST) after the start of the 10 k freestyle individual start at the 2012 Canadian Ski Nationals in March. Marshall went on to place second.

“I did two extra camps with the national team last year and that’ll probably work out to be the same this year with Park City and Alaska,” Marshall said. “I’m really excited about Alaska.”

Last year, that’s where the lasting bonds between the U.S. and Canadian women got started. Nearly 20 elite females and their coaches spent two weeks in Anchorage, Alaska, training on Eagle Glacier for the first “North American Women’s Training Alliance” camp. From that experience came a wealth of feedback.

“Alaska was great last year,” Jones said. “When there’s a group of 20, you know you can always find someone to train with or someone who’s going at your pace and doing what you’re doing.”

She noted that a similar scenario would take place in Bend, where the Canadian and U.S. Ski Teams would be joined by several other top-tier groups, including the Canadian biathletes and AWCA.

“It’s pretty awesome to have all the best women in North America to push each other,” Jones said. “When we do intensity, it’s for sure better competition than at a NorAm race because all the World Cup girls are there.”

Looking ahead to the rest of the camps, Jones said she was trying not to compare destinations with the men’s team’s. Her fiancé and national team wax technician, Joel Jaques, will be traveling to Hawaii and New Zealand with them.

“For sure it’s tough when I’m going to Alaska and they’re going to Hawaii,” she said with a laugh. “They’re kind of like different ends of the spectrum. I guess, first and foremost, I’m a ski racer so I need to do what’s best for ski racing, and for me, going to Alaska is definitely the smarter, better choice. At times it feels like they’re rubbing salt in the wounds, but I’ll get over it.”