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 /><BR><center><img src=)
Oystein Petterson (to the left) and Simen Ostensen (on the right) looking for snow.
 instructing his skiers.</font></center><BR><br />Against all expectations we had almost only sunny weather for the whole week so training over 4hrs a day on the snow didn’t seem all that difficult. Even though the snow was always there we did have some workouts on roller skis. One such workout was a hill climb/race that started at the base of the valley and wound up the steep narrow road leading up over the mountain pass. This course has been used for years as a sort of test for skiers and their times up the road have been meticulously kept. Bjorn Daehlie had the record for 6 years before being beaten by Per Elofsson in 2001. This record was then broken not long after by a Norwegian named Jimmy Vika. So when we started up the hill one sunny afternoon no one really expected to set any records. Yet right out of the start these boys were going like they were in a sprint and one team member, Roger Djupvik, didn’t really slow down much until he got to the top. So low and behold when we got to the top the clock showed that Roger had set a new record, beating the old one by 49 seconds. It was a reason for some celebration on the team.<br /><BR><center><img src=)
Team Manpower
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