Canadian Women, World Cup Academy Start Camp in Whitefish

Welcome the land of fried chicken. That’s what Alberta World Cup Academy and Canadian development team skier Kevin Sandau saw on his drive down to Whitefish, Mont., when he tweeted a photo of a license plate: Montana. Treasure State. FRDCHKN.

The entire World Cup Academy (AWCA), with 23 athletes between the men’s and women’s squads, most likely had a better reason for driving six hours directly south to Whitefish, Montana, nearly 500 kilometers from Canmore, Alberta. On Thursday, the Canadian Women’s World Cup Team arrived as well for a joint training camp with the Academy.

According to Canadian women’s coach Eric de Nys, the two Canmore-based teams coordinated a 10-day dryland camp for the first time in Whitefish. National team member Chandra Crawford will be participating in a few days after spending more than two weeks in Sweden, where she trained with the U.S. and Swedish national women’s teams in Sälen and Torsby. She’s taking a little breather in Canada first.

In an email, de Nys wrote that Perianne Jones would also be in Whitefish. The third woman on the World Cup team, Dasha Gaiazova wasn’t going to make it to Montana, but she’ll be at the next team camp in Park City, Utah.

“For a few different reasons we felt it would be best for her training to stay in Quebec,” de Nys wrote. “We will miss having her at the camp but that’s the way things go some times.”

Here are his responses to a few other questions:

FasterSkier: How much will you be coordinating workouts with the AWCA? 

Eric de Nys: This is a joint camp and for the most part all workouts will be the same (of course, some athletes may execute more or less reps of intensity etc) except that a few of the junior athletes may drop a workout here and there. Boys have a different plan than the ladies also.

FS: What are some objectives for the camp?

EDN: The main objectives are to build on intensity while focusing things towards women’s team cohesion.

FS: What might a typical training day involve?

EDN: We are on a lake here so I am sure there will be a fair bit of cooling off in the lake after our workouts. [Friday’s] plan is for 5×5′ skate roll intensity with an easy recovery workout in the afternoon.

FS: What’s the draw of Whitefish?

EDN: The draw to Whitefish was its relative closeness to Canmore while being somewhere new. The elevation, albeit, not sea level is also significantly lower for us than Canmore which will aid in recovery and higher rolling speeds.

Note: The elevation of Whitefish is 923 meters (3,028 feet) while Canmore’s is around 1,480 m (4,856 feet).