Following a chilly warm up, our USA athletes began to speed out of the stadium and on to the course, launching a series of intense 5k (women) and 10k (men) individual start races. The Americans' skate skis flew up the grueling climbs, and zoomed past the Euros' on the icy downhills, thanks to the intellegent and amazing wax techs. Quickly, the US athletes began flopping over the finish line in exahustion, resembling gasping fish. Probably because the amount of tasty cod and salmon we have indulged in the past week... YUM!! After wandering around in search of the lunch room at the race venue for a solid half hour, we stumbled upon a quaint cafe serving none other than the Norwegian specialty, moose hamburgers (or so the Americans thought).  For many, the best part of the day was discovering ketchup to accompany our moose-burgers, it turns out ketchup is a rare delicacy here in Norway! Our team is now recuperating from our day and will soon head over to an awards ceremony/banquet nearby.

XOXO,

Hailey and Gretchen

Haakon navigates one of the tricky corners on the course

Cully is glad to be finished

 Classic sprint tonight under the lights. 4 American girls made the rounds, Heidi qualified 2nd, Julia 7th, Nicole 21st, Hailey 24th. Katharine just missed in 32nd, Gretchen fell on a tough corner but still finished 47th. No boys qualified in the top 30. I'll post those results when I see them. Heidi moved on in her quarter, the other girls were eliminated. Heidi then moved onto the A final! In the A final she lead into the stadium, and was in a tight battle for a podium position, when a collision with a spectator slowed her down. She still finished 5th. A GREAT result, but she's hungry for more! Tomorrow is 10mk/5km skate races. Go USA! Better write-up to come...

Yesterday we woke up to the song "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry. Following our breakfast, we went on a run along the fjord, exploring various attractions such as churches, docks and parks. Katharine and Gretchen attempted to communicate through echo bowls, which ended in a failure. In the afternoon we headed over to Granåsen, the race venue to test skis, do some starts, and practice the tricky turn. Our schedule simulated sprint day so we could get to adjust to the cold temperatures and the little light that would be present for the night sprint. Bowling was the team bonding activity in between the two dinners the Norwegians like to have. Cal was the top bowler with Nicole and Julia following. After that, we dined on a typical European bread based meal. Before hitting the sack we went over a plan for the night sprints discussing many helping tips such as "watching out for the fins"(Heidi Halvorsen). We all went to bed, pumped up for the highly competitive night sprints. 

-Katharine and Julia

We've been in Norway for a few days and nights now. We are getting adjusted to the time change and into the routine and experimenting with some new foods! It sounds like most of your kids aren't sending very good updates home, so here's one from me! Also, check out the J1 Team page on Facebook for some pictures. We are working to get the J1 Trip blog (http://usaj1team.blogspot.com) updated for this year, hopefully tonight (trouble with passwords...)

Breakfast is served buffet style and includes a variety of foods, both familiar and foreign. Some kids are more adventurous than others. Lunch and Supper are served sit down style. Lunch at 12:30, supper at 6. We then have dinner (evening meal) at 8:30. Dinner strongly resembles breakfast.

We usually ski right after breakfast, today we'll ski in the afternoon under the lights, to prepare for tomorrow's night sprint. The sun rises around 9:30 and sets at 3:30. Many of the trails are lighted, but we've skiied in daylight so far. The people of Trondheim wear reflective high vis garments pretty much all the time, from what I can tell.

The venue is about a 15 minute drive from the hotel, which is right in downtown Trondheim. The other teams arrived last night so we'll see them today I'm sure. There are 70 girls registered for the races this weekend and 94 boys. There are 6 athletes each from the US, Swe, Est, and Fin. There are the top 6 Nor athletes, who will be scored for nations cup points, then there are dozens of additional Nor athletes who will be here with their home clubs. The kids are nervous about the level of competition, hopefully their nerves result in positive energy!

The venue is called Granasen. They had tons of snow and great skiing from Oct-Dec. but 2 weeks of warm temps and rain wiped it all out just after New Years. They've been making snow and trucking it all over the courses. They are hoping to have all the trails for racing prepared today, so far we haven't been able to train specifically on the course, because no one knows what it will be. The stadium is situated such that you must climb a pretty big hill to leave it, so the courses will all contain some hills. The trails are teared for great spectating from the stadium area which contains bleacher seating for a few hundred people. hopefully we get some spectators for the weekend!

Friday's classic sprint qualification starts at 4pm. with heats from 5:30-7pm. Saturday are individual start skate races. We won't start until 11:30am, girls 5km first, then boys 10km. Prior to our races are some open races that will see younger athletes, J6-J2 age. There are 100 athletes or more registered in each class, so the courses will be well skiied in! Sunday is the relay, starting at 10am. Girls will do 3 by 3km, boys 3 by 5km. The first leg is classic, the second 2 skate.

Our hotel is a few blocks from a huge mall, and right next door to a movie theater, movies are in english, with Norwegian subtitles. Everything is expensive here! Tonight we'll go bowling after dinner. After the races we'll do some fun stuff. Monday we'll go to Norways' biggest water park and go for an evening ski. Tuesday we'll take a train ride to Roros and go for a long ski there, as well as check out the 1800s era mining town. Wednesday we'll go to Meraker for a long ski, and maybe to check out the ski school there. This was the school of Peter Northug. His youngest brother will be competing in the J1 races this weekend. I think our boys can whoop him!

Hei (that’s Norwegian),

Three days ago we arrived in Norway focused on the competition at hand, skiing, but the amazing city, local girls, and lack of sunshine soon turned our heads. We are staying in Trondheim, Norway, a college city centered in the Trondheimsfjorden. Skiing the course for the first time only further excited us to race. Unfortunately, there’s no natural snow, yet we still have an amazing man-made loop to ski on. The hills, sharp corners, and fast snow should yield a fun sprint under the lights; however, none of the other teams have shown up so we aren’t sure what to expect.

Cal and Cully

Our hotel is right in downtown Trondheim. The team has been exploring. We found a local rec center where there were 6 games of team handball being played. It kind of looks like lacrosse meets basketball. Maybe we'll play after the races. There was also floor hockey going on. Norwegians are super active and healthy!

Men's 3 x 5km Relay Video

A Reflection: USA J1 Scando Trip 2012

It's hard to believe its already been 3 weeks since touching down from our Scandinavia trip and representing the U.S.A. in Estonia in the National Junior (under 18) championships.   Athletes have since returned home to their respective clubs and bounced back to racing this week at US Junior National Championships at Soldier Hollow.  I missed the team the moment we parted ways in Tallinn and I was thrilled to get to see everyone racing (fast!) again in Utah.  It was exciting to see everyone out representing their home regions and battling it out for Alaska Cup points.  I saw teammates turned to fierce competitors in a matter of days. 

This year's trip was a valuable learning experience.  I wanted to give a shout out to the kids and to Scott and Adam for being so flexible, understanding, animated and inspiring.  Three crazy days of racing culminated in the team relay event; a perfect conclusion to an amazing week.

Its hard to calculate success on this trip.  For most athletes, this is their first ski racing trip overseas and for many their first high level international competition.  Exposure to this kind of event is the first step to creating comfort and confidence on the international level in the future.  Its easy to be intimidated by the bus loads of kids hopping off of team Norway or team Sweden's bus in matching national team jackets, suits and backpacks.  But, what you realize as soon as you strap on your skis and hit the trails with them is that we're not all that different.  They love to ski.  They train really hard.  And, they race fast.  The biggest difference I see is level of support and cultural respect for the sport.  One afternoon while we were training at the venue an endless stream of Estonian schoolchildren were bussed in to the Mammaste Sport Center.  By the time we were packing up to leave their were several hundreds of kids taking part in some kind of outdoor winter sport.  Some were racing on cross-country skis, some were sledding, or snowboarding, but all were enjoying their time outside.  Later in the week we leap frogged around the Estonian countryside chasing some famous names as they navigated the 63 kilometer Tartu Marathon course.  We saw military personnell at every road crossing and hundreds of townspeople lined up to offer food, drink or encouragement to any of the thousands of racers.  Skiing is a part of the culture here and you can feel it all over.

The trip:
We started with a week long training Camp at the Tehvandi Sport Center in Otepaa Estonia.  We were greeted by cold clear skies and sunny days at this world cup venue and enjoyed exploring the challenging trails.  We checked out the ski jump, went night skiing, snow tubing and explored the "winter capital" of Estonia.  At the end of the week we ran a classic time trial and hopped in our VW vans to drive 40km East to Polva.  This year's competition took place at Mammaste Sport Center, a short 3km drive from our hotel in Polva.  We arrived 5 days before the first competition to dial in the wax and begin testing.  The race courses were awesome.  The trails had a bit of everything, from rolling hills to steep difficult climbs, and tight fast corners.  From a waxing perspective things were tricky.  We were greeted by warm and wet weather.  About half of the track was man-made and half was natural.  A few km's had a bit of each.

Thursday the 23rd of February brought the eve of our first race: A night sprint!  Qualification began at 1600 and final heats concluded under the lights at 1930.  All 6 women qualified for the heats and 4 of the 6 men.  Adam Martin raced his way from a 30th place qualifying time all the way to the B final, and our women hung tough through the rounds to put 3 in the top 12 (Nichole Bathe 8, Heidi Halvorsen 10 and Anika Miller 11).  At the end of the day we put 4 men and 4 women in the top 20.  The following morning we woke to contest the classic individual start.  We tested rigorously and ended up settling on straight klister.  Conditions remained tricky and slow throughout the day and upper body strength proved an important factor in success.  Julia Kern ('97) posted our fastest finish in a respectable 14th over 5km.  Bathe and Halvorsen were close behind in 17th and 19th respectively.  In the men's 10km, Adam Martin paced the team in 23rd and teammates Jack Hegman and Eli Hoenig followed close behind in 24th and 25th.  Two days down, one to go.  On the final day of competition the women raced a 3 x 3km relay and the men a 3 x 5km.  Leg one was classic, and legs two and three were freestyle.  We rallied together and everyone pushed themselves to the limit one final time for team USA.  Our women crossed the line in 6th and 8th place and the men battled hard with Finland 1 for 8th and 11th.

One of my favorite parts of the entire trip happens the moment the competition ends.  After the final award is handed out all of the kids gather together to trade hats, jackets, suits and stories.  A few lucky guys will get the top Norwegian's number and most trade Facebook or other contacts.  The coaches were removed packing and travel waxing skis, but it was easy to see how much fun everyone was having wagering (sometimes in broken English) for the coolest gear they could find.  Best trade goes to Max Scrimgeour for his Team Finland (Nordic Combined) Parka and best gift goes to Adam Martin for the pine bough bouquet (and digits) he received from A certain fast and beautiful blonde Norwegian.

And finally, THANK YOU NNF.  Without the National Nordic Fountain, and all of its generous supporters, this trip would not be possible.  We Thank You for your generous support.