Alaskan skier Anders Haugen (24) is spending two months training in Norway this summer.
After having spent a couple of weeks training with a few local athletes in the vicinity of Trondheim, I was able to meet up with the private team, Manpower, in central Norway’s Sognefjell region. Team Manpower is a privately funded team that is led by Fredrik Aukland, one of Norway’s famous Aukland brothers. It consists of some of Norway’s most promising young athletes who have all shown top results at the top levels of Nordic competition, both in Norway and internationally. Some results they have to their credit are top ten finishes at the Vasaloppet, U23’s and the Norwegian Championships. So needless to say they are some of best athletes in Norway and the world.
 where we would eat and sleep. The hytta is located between stunning glaciers and mountain peaks, many of which reach higher than 2000m. It is a classic Norwegian scene with small creeks running among the lichen encrusted rocks that poke through the snow. In the warmer summer weather local sheep have also become a regular sight. Up until just a month prior there had been several meters of snow covering the whole area and ski loops had been groomed right up to the cabin. Now with the snow receding the groomed loops had been moved to a large snow patch about 5km from the cabin. So every morning and every afternoon we would drive and then hike a short distance to get to the snow. The ski loop was about 3.5km long and had both steep down-hills and up-hills. In the morning it would be groomed for skating and in the afternoon tracks would be set for classic. So it was an ideal training location.<br />
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