Nathan Schultz is working with the US Ski Team as a wax tech and athlete coordinator during the Canadian World Cups Jan 19-27. He will file reports throughout the week documenting his experiences in what will hopefully be a very successful week for the USST. Schultz is the owner of Boulder Nordic Sport, www.bouldernordicsport.com. All photos courtesy of Phil Bowen, Competitive Image – http://www.competitiveimage.us unless otherwise noted
Tuesday Jan 22: Pursuit: 15km Women, 30km Men
Today started off early as we had to get in and finish up waxing since the power in the wax cabins was shut off before we were finished last night. The Nation’s Group crew of Chris Mallory (Sun Valley), Brian Fish (CXC), Erik Flora (APU) and Frode Lillefjell (APU) set to work waxing what seemed to be endless pairs of race skis. We had to finish putting on our glide powders on classic skis and skate skis, then binders and kick wax on the classic skis. Needless to say, it was chaotic.
Luckily, conditions were stable and the World Cup wax testing crew fed us good information. It was a little hard for all of us who are used to testing wax on our own to relinquish that responsibility and completely trust that someone else would get it right. We all helped each other when needed and somehow managed to get all athletes on their race skis with very little panic.
After finishing up most of the wax work just in time to race down to the hotel for dinner, I grabbed a little time to talk with Swiss Sprint Coach Trond Nystad and his wife Claudia, who races for the German National Team. Claudia was describing her race and how her muscles ached from the start and she suffered through every stride. She was so tired when she crossed the finish line that she literally wanted to lie down and go to sleep right there. She just finished the 10-stage Tour de Ski less than two weeks ago and then flew over here to race. She finished 12th in the Pursuit here.
Today’s BNS T-Shirt-winning question is one that could take up several months of articles, but here it is:
How do you feel that the sport culture in America differs from those in European cultures, and how do these differences affect or impact our ability to be a force in cross country skiing?
I hesitate to tackle this one since it is an emotional, complicated issue and has been covered in-depth in many other forums. Coincidentally, however, I posed almost this exact question to Trond Nystad before I checked my email that day. I cannot think of anyone who would be more qualified to answer it. Trond grew up in Norway, was an NCAA Champion at Vermont, skied for several years on the Factory Team, coached at Northern Michigan and then Denver Universities and then took on the US Ski Team Head Coaching Position before moving to Europe where he worked as the Atomic World Cup Service Manager. He is now the Swiss Sprint Coach. His twin brother Knut is in charge of the Norwegian Team’s Ski Service. He has seen it all in US Skiing and has traveled around a bit, too.
His answer to this question was simple: the big difference between the US and the rest of the world is cultural: Americans do not grow up moving around and spending as much time outside when they are kids and our sport does not draw the quantity of serious, talented and committed athletes necessary to bring enough talent to the top. The US has the largest pool of skiers, the best organization and the most resources of any country in the world, but skiing competitively is not emphasized as it is in other countries and we:
1. Don’t draw enough talent into the sport.
2. Lose some of our best talent due to inability to coach them, support them or train them.
3. Don’t train enough from an early age.
A few years ago I was in New Zealand at the same time as the US Ski Team, and Claudia was there with Trond. She was training a lot and a lot harder than almost everyone else there, including the guys. This was a moment of clarity for me because it plunked a successful skier down in our midst, in our system, and she was doing things that were so unusual that it really stuck out. She was eating the same food, skiing on the same trails with the same wax, sleeping in the same house. Obviously, she is incredibly gifted and not everyone will succeed like her, but there is nothing magical about what she does. She lives and breathes just like we do, but due to her training history and motivation, she is succeeds in a way that most US athletes are not.
I have had this driven home to me over and over on this trip: the US has arrived on the international stage and the US Ski Team has proven that its system is capable of supporting athletes and enabling them to succeed at the highest levels. We have a handful of very talented athletes who are prepared and capable. What needs to happen now is to feed the system a lot of talent that is prepared to succeed at the highest level. Only then will we see results like the Norwegians and Germans. All we have to do to get there is produce athletes who have the capacity to do it. The system is there, the knowledge is there and the will is there.
An important note: this is not an indictment of US skiing or any individual, team, region, etc. It is a broad generalization about the current state of things, and there are a lot of encouraging things happening. We, however, have a lot of work to do both collectively and individually to produce a team of skiers that can perform at the level of the ski powers like Germany and Norway.
Stay tuned for updates. If you have any questions for any of the US Team staff or athletes who will be here at the World Cup, please send them by filling out the Information Request Form at:
http://www.bouldernordicsport.com/Contact/tabid/175/Default.aspx
I’ll do my best to track people down and get answers. The best question we receive each day will receive a Boulder Nordic Sport T-Shirt.
</font></center></p><p>Lars Flora was moving forward steadily and Kris Freeman was holding position in the top-30. The rest of our guys were struggling with the pace. Zach Violett had great classic skis, but Zack Simons skied by me on the 2nd lap and I could tell his skis were horrible. He looked strong, but when he transferred weight onto his glide leg, he just stopped. Uh Oh.</p><p><center><img decoding=)