Foreigners at Home, US Skiers Shine at Last on Global Stage

FasterSkierFebruary 25, 2009

by Christa Case Bryant

As a spunky teen who entered bodybuilding competitions, skied 74 miles an hour downhill to win the Alaska speed-skiing competition, and nearly ran a sub-5-minute mile, Kikkan Randall acquired the nickname “Kikkanimal.”

It stuck, and it should. No one makes it to the top echelons of cross-country skiing, where the world’s fittest women wage battle in a scrum of flying skis, without a certain ferocity.

That attitude, plus a decade of grueling training, helped Randall score a second-place finish this week at the 2009 Nordic World Ski Championships – only the second American ever to medal in cross-country at Worlds.

“I’ve always had the compulsion, ever since I was a little kid, to do something big,” said Randall via e-mail. “When I got involved in cross-country skiing, the US hadn’t been successful yet. But deep down I felt it was possible.”

In a sporting upset on par with Jamaica’s bobsled gold at the 2000 Worlds, the US ski team was leading the medal count halfway through the championships. True, America – unlike a Caribbean nation – has ample snowy regions to develop winter athletes. But its ski community had long labored under a belief that Europeans were superior racers – a belief mirrored in results. Now, a decade after taking bold steps to reverse that trend, the US Ski Team is seeing promising dividends.

Read the full article from the Christian Science Monitor

FasterSkier

Loading Facebook Comments ...

Leave a Reply