Gallivare Wrap Up

Sun, Nov  19, 2006 - By Pete Vordenberg - TeamToday.org

The first weekend of distance world cup races is over.  I have mixed feelings.  For one we didn't ski up to potential but for two we have not prepared to be at our potential this early.  So while it isn't a great feeling to be below where we want to be it is also something we told ourselves to be prepared for mentally going in to the first world cups.

The wax cabin.  We have two new waxers on the world cup this season.  We have some organizational work to do before we are functioning like a team, but all the pieces of the team are excellent we just have to fit them together.

The women's relay.  Warm (0c) and foggy.

In the women's relay our girls teamed up with the two Canadians.  Kikkan raced a better race in the relay than she did in the individual event.

The Norwegians opened up their lead in the women's race on the first leg.

Germany with the hammer down...

Kris is in shape.  Unfortunately we did not do a good job on the waxing.  It is fortunate however that we faced these tough conditions (0c falling to -1 during the race) so early in the year so we can organize our waxing team to take on the toughest conditions.  The waxers were very bummed out by the skis - but it must be said that we had good classical skis on two out of four of our classical skiers... which is more than many can say for the day.

 

Norway women team two.  Our sprinters also used this relay for a training event.

Andrew Newell with hips high...

Niiiice.

Koos was kicking off some snow stuck to his skis... but it was a good training event for him anyway.

The clouds cleared while the men where on course, dropping the temp enough to cause a lot of people trouble with their wax.  Here the lead teams head up out of the stadium.

Hammering it out.  It wasn't a good weekend for Sweden...

These skis worked for one lap... and then Norway fell out of contention.

Beautiful sky, bundled fans.

Hard work.  Newell and a Norwegian guy skied most the race together.

Rolling terrain, no really long uphills but lots of them.

Andrew Johnson and Lars Berger of Norway.

Ole Einer Bjorndalen and a stuffed Reindeer.

Dave Chamberlain.

The sprint team took off for Kuusamo today.  Conditions there are minimal snow with 4km of skiing.  But it will be good for them to get a good feel for the sprint course by doing some specific workouts on it.

The distance team is staying here in Gallivare where there is a lot of skiing.  We are still in a building phase of training and so will take advantage of the amount of groomed trails around here.

The next race is next weekend in Kuusamo - a classical sprint and a classical distance race.

Tune in for a podcast from each day next week - it's going to be more and more exciting as we get into the season.

(Vordenberg Images)