Great Britain may not be renowned for its programs in Cross-Country Skiing, but a group of dedicated enthusiasts at Huntly, Scotland, between Aberdeen and Inverness, are doing their best to change that.
Huntly Nordic & Outdoor Center is a purpose-built facility in a delightful setting, which includes 400m of all-weather classic mat and 800m of tarmac roller skiing tracks. When the there is snow, there are forest tracks in the Clashindarroch Forest, 13 miles from the center.
The Centerâ€TMs members compete at UK level and above. The club also organizes events in the GB Roller Skiing championship and Scottish Roller Skiing Championships during the summer. On snow race events are organized during the winter in the Clashindarroch Forest.
Two club members, Andrew Musgrave and Andrew Young, have qualified to compete for Great Britain in the FIS Cross Country World Cup, which is an excellent achievement and they also acquitted themselves with great credit at the FIS Junior Nordic World Ski Championships 2009 in Praz de Lys (FRA), including a top ten finish.
The special artificial surface used by the athletes for training classic technique has shown to be particularly effective for practising the race start. Indeed, so much so that a Norwegian club has decided to invest in the surface to use for their race start training on dry land.
Further information can be found on the Huntly website at www.nordicski.co.uk/hnoc
One comment
Ben Arians
August 9, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Andrew Musgrave and his family have Alaska connections, they lived in Anchorage for a number of years, I coached his older brother Ben, who was a member of the Alaska Junior National team. Andrew had big goals for skiing when he was just a wee lad here in AK, and it’s exciting to see him competing at the top level internationally.