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Torin Koos

Torin Koos is a member of the National A Team for the United States. A World Cup, World Championship and Olympic competitor, Koos brings this experience to the FasterSkier sportscasting arena for the 2008/2009 season.

Meeting Gunde Svan was not supposed to happen this way. No, not while pushing a Swedish meatball through a puddle of lingonberry sauce. Maybe a shake of the hand at the prize giving ceremony for the Royal Cup Sprint around the King’s Castle in Stockholm, or at Café Opera after the World Cup Finale. No, not while eating dinner in Torsby. In a dining hall filled with Sweden’s national team, Gunde sat down beside coach,...

Peter Johansson (L) and Larry Paromaa catch a quiet moment before beginning a 1600 kilometer drive up to northern Sweden. The two were in Torsby last week helping the USST sprint team test skis. World Cup service techs make for a special breed. On the U.S. team, former serviceman Per-Erik traded in waxing skis for tracking domesticated reindeer along the tundra of Alta, Norway. Lasse spent his working days away from the ski races by...

Aotearoa Atop a mountain, in a country known by the native Maori as Aotearoa — land of the long white cloud — weather moves in and weather moves out. One day to the next can make all the difference. On Friday morning the U.S. team ran for 2 ½ hours up the Matukituki Valley in t-shirts, then put in a distance and on-snow specific strength session in the half-light of the evening sky. The nighttime...

Testing is just that — a means of measuring fitness, rate of force production and economy. Testing gives an indication to how training is going. Training, though, is where the work gets done that makes skiers faster. With this on their mind, four American women and five U.S. men currently are in a three week on-snow altitude camp, putting in the kilometers, testing equipment and refining technique at the SnowFarm on New Zealand’s South Island....

Flying above the Baltic Ocean to Russia, thoughts of the 1980 Moscow Olympics come to mind. From history’s prism, the American led boycott of 1980 Olympics hardly registers. Our athletes were political weapons in 1980; Russia returned the favor four years later at the LA Games. And Afghanistan? It would be nine more years before the tanks would retreat. Better for us to battle with bikes and javelins, or skis. “The ancient Greeks believed the...

Torin Koos is a member of the National A Team for the United States. A World Cup, World Championship and Olympic competitor, Koos brings this experience to the FasterSkier sportscasting arena for the 2006/2007 season. Equipment: Rossignol Skis, Boots and Bindings, Toko gloves and wax, Marwe, Exel poles, Rudy Project Eyewear, Powerbar Home Ski Club: Leavenworth Winter Sports Club ( www.usapears.com ) Best Western Icicle Inn ( www.biosports.net )

With one month to go before the World Cup opener in Dusseldorf, Germany the U.S. Ski Team preparations have moved east to the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center in upstate New York. The two-week training camp has taken advantage of Lake Placid’s low altitude, rolling terrain and U.S. Olympic Committee-funded accommodations. Athletes from XC Oregon, Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation, CXC, and New England’s top juniors have joined the U.S. Ski Team in Lake Placid....

Building the aerobic base. Distance and lactate threshold training. On-snow skiing. Time at altitude. Skiing powerful, but relaxed. Staying healthy. These are the phrases U.S. Ski Team athletes and coaches have bandied about in New Zealand. Now with the three-week camp coming to a close, the team is encouraged by the progress. “Back in May, pretty much across the board, our skiers were still in need of consolidating their aerobic base,” said USST national team...

Chris Cook Age: 26 Personal Coach: Chris Grover Cook emulating Packer employee #4 in a San Diego pickup game on the beach. Koos photo. Springtime- back home in Rhinelander the whole time, or any notable trips? No real notable trips, but I did spend a lot of time talking to schools throughout the state about the Olympic experience and how they can excell in anything they set their heart on. Best of luck with the...

Morgan Arritola Age: 20 Personal Coaches: Pat Casey and Matt Whitcomb Torin Koos is a member of the National A Team for the United States. A World Cup, World Championship and Olympic competitor, Koos brings this experience to the FasterSkier sportscasting arena for the 2006/2007 season. Equipment: Rossignol Skis, Boots and Bindings, Toko gloves and wax, Marwe, Exel poles, Rudy Project Eyewear, Powerbar Home Ski Club: Leavenworth Winter Sports Club ( www.usapears.com ) Best Western...

Lindsey Weier Age:21 Personal Coach: Sten Fjeldheim and Jenny Ryan Hometown: Mahtomedi, MN Since the race season finished up, what have you been up to? After the race season I didn't really have time to do too much because I had to catch up with all the school that I missed. There was really good spring skiing in Marquette so I did a lot of that. I also went back to work so I could...

Andrew XGames Newell Age: 22 Hometown: Shaftsbury VT Personal Coach: Chris Grover What about the snowboard concussion story? Yeah… I was snowboarding with Foster and some guys two days after I got back from Japan spring World Cups. Apparently I went big off the knoll and whacked my noggin pretty good. I woke up in the hospital. I still don’t remember going to the mountain or anything that happened that day. It was funny –...

Matt Gelso Age: 17 Personal Coach: Jeff Schloss Hometown: Truckee, CA http://www.wunderground.com/US/CA/Truckee.html?bannertypeclick=big2. What is your first impression about training with the Continental Cup and World Cup teams? It seems like the team gets along very well. Many of the team are fairly like minded in their competitive drive and everyone seems to be pretty down to earth and intelligent. The team has good chemistry. What are you looking forward to getting accomplished at the July...

Andrew ‘AJ’ Johnson Age: 28 Hometown: Greensboro, VT. Park City, UT. AJ in Baja Summer life in Park City: How's the Home Depot gig going? The Home Depot Olympic Job Opportunity Program still provides me with flexible, part time work at their stores and is a crucial part of my support structure. I’m also going to school part time – taking a couple classes at Westminster. That’s fun. I haven’t taken a class since ’99...

Poked, pushed, measured and evaluated. That's been the name of the game for the USST's World Cup and Continental Cup members for the last week in Utah. The USST coaching staff has put a greater importance on sport science to better understand the capacities and liabilities of America's top skiers. The tests measured endurance, power, strength, speed and coordination. Seeing how these factors change during the preparation period (with testing three more times through summer...

Final Part of Three Part Series Trond, we’re centered so much on developing top racers, so what constitutes a talent in skiing to you? Talent is so complex it’s hard to define. I think of talent like a puzzle. Some people have parts of one piece, might be lacking one piece, or some having a more of this type. Obviously talent has to do with physical capacity. But it comes down to having the mental,...