FasterSkier · October 10, 2003
The Norwegians Cross Country Team wants to get ahead of their competitors and are (once again) spending a large amount of money on altitude training and ski testing.
Norwegian Newspaper VG reports:
A total of 32 Norwegian cross-country skiers are starting their Val Senales,Italy on-snow altitude camp on October 9th — 16 days before the start of the sprint World Cup in Düsseldorf.
The Norwegian team hopes to accomplish a head start on their competitors in terms of ski testing.
Results in Focus
“The earlier start and the magnitude of the testing is a result of the continues development of the competition-program to sprints, pursuit/skiathlon, and mass-starts. It requires more ski testingâ€.
“It’s about being prepared at an earlier stage. This is not a championship year, but we don’t treat it as an off-year or in-between season. Results are as important this year as last seasonâ€.
The altitude camp is expensive, but according to Haakonsmoen worth doing. The two week long camp comes at a cost of almost 700.000 Norwegian kroner or roughly $100.000
A support staff of 18 (!) makes sure that the 32 skier team gets ready in all areas of the World Cup preparation.
“It’s our experience that altitude is important. It’s also equally important to let the legs recover by being on snowâ€.
