Sometimes, the specifics of ski racing are not necessarily told through the results sheet. Sometimes, there’s more to the story than meets a singular pair of eyes. Here are a few impressions from the US Ski Team, told through pictures and through words from the opening World Cup race of the season in Gallivare, Sweden. Enjoy.
Valkommen till Gallivare, Sweden – The World Cup Season Begins Anew
FasterSkier · November 24, 2008
“That was an impressive performance.â€
– Randy Gibbs
“What are you doing only catching the men’s race? Really… that’s bush league.â€
– Pete Vordenberg
“I felt today was a really good start to Kris’ season. Real solid. We were talking yesterday and kind of figured top-thirty would be very satisfactory and top-twenty would be stellar.
“I don’t know if it’s good news or bad news but it didn’t look like a top twenty effort out on the course. Compared to even some of the training I saw this summer, today Kris was missing a gear, maybe two. In the last couple days some of the coaches and I have talked to him about some technical stuff, opening up some gears to find a little bit more tempo. He’s been working on that. It’s improved over the paced intensity effort we saw a couple days ago. You know, he’s not all there. This is not all he’s got. I find this encouraging. To ski on capacity and strength and follow a race winner for ten kilometers of a fifteen is real encouraging. Kris’ race wasn’t a knock-out performance. But it was still real encouraging.â€
– Zach Caldwell, also Kris’ personal coach
“Kris is strong. He do it well with his diabetes.”
— Jocke Augustsson US Ski Team Serviceman
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