PARK CITY, Utah (Oct. 23) – Arguably the strongest preseason training and conditioning regimen has Head Coach Pete Vordenberg smiling about his U.S. cross country athletes as the World Cup ski season nears.
Vordenberg, who moved up in the spring to head coach after four years as World Cup coach, and his staff set an immediate goal of being one of the best-conditioned teams on the tour this season. Through dryland camps in Utah and Lake Placid, NY, plus the annual August on-snow camp in New Zealand, he felt the athletes made improvements each time they gathered. “Yeah, it's the preseason,” he reasoned, “but they look awesome. We've had some excellent training.”
After the World Cup season opens with the annual sprints Oct. 28-29 in Dusseldorf, Germany, the Ski Team will head to Ramsau, Austria, for a mini-camp and then set-up the final preseason base in Sweden. The season resumes Nov. 18-19 in Gallivare, Sweden.
Sprinters Andy Newell (Shaftsbury, VT), who produced the first American top-3 finish in more than two decades last season, and Kikkan Randall (Anchorage, AK), who turned-in the best U.S. women's result in Olympic and World Cup annals, point to the emergence of the sprinting program. Torin Koos (Leavenworth, WA), a two-time Olympic racer as is Randall, and Chris Cook (Rhinelander, WI) – who, like Newell, was in his first Winter Games last February – also came up with World Cup top-15 results a year ago.