The US Cross Country Team is currently in Muonio, Finland preparing for the regular World Cup opener in Ostersund Sweden on November 20-21. FIS races are on the agenda already this weekend and coach Trond Nystad reports that they currently have great training conditions.
Trond, can you give us a quick situation report from Finland?
– We are now in Muonio, northern Finland. The skiing is great. We have about 12-kilometers of great skiing and about 30km of OK skiing. 16-kilometers of lighted trails make for good night skiing. Lots of skiers from other nations here: Norway, Belarus, Poland, Korea, Japan, Germany, Estonia, Ukraine, Czech Republic and others.
Our training is going great and the skiers are looking great. It’s good for our athletes to see that we are right there with technique and training. We have two FIS races on the plan for this weekend: 10-kilometer (women) and 15-kilometer (men) classic on Saturday and 5-kilometer (women) 10-kilometer skate on Sunday. We’ll be leaving for Ostersund on the 16th and then get ready for the World Cup race there. All in all, life is good and we are exited to get the season underway, reports Trond Nystad
www.TeamToday.org, USST member Andrew Johnson also says that things are going well in Finland:
– Daylight here in Munio (a couple hundred kilometers north of the arctic circle, right on the Finland/Sweden border) is a little on the short end but not as bad as I was expecting. Starting the morning workouts at nine ensures that we have good light, although a little dusky to start. Our four o’clock afternoon sessions are totally dark, but with more trails around here with lights than most American ski areas even have trails, we really don’t have a problem.
To read more of Andrew's take on Muonio, go to: http://www.teamtoday.org/news.php?id=143
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