Filed under: Training
For J2 – OJ skiers (ages 14 – 19). Spend 6 days in the High Peaks of the Adirondacks. Training activites include mobility, strength, running, ski walking, rollerskiing, hiking, speedball and a multi-sport challenge day against the NENSA J2/EHSC camp who is staying at the OTC during the same time. Video and technqiue review sessions. Athletes should have rollerskiing experience. Housing and meals are at The National Sports Academy. Guest appearances from Olympic Biathletes Tim Burke and Lowell Bailey.
Contact: Margaret Maher, NYSEF XC Head Coach mcmaher@alumni.unh.edu
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Filed under: Alumni
For many of the athletes it’s hard to keep the level of motivation up towards the end of a season. Therefore, Mikael Lofgren, the Swedish head coach of the US team arranged a special surprise event for his athletes before the final two stages of this year’s World Cup. When the team arrived on Oslo’s Gardermoen airport, Lofgren only told them they were not going straight to the team hotel but rather head somewhere else where they would spend the night and the following day. They only thing Lofgren told them was: “Get warm clothes for tomorrow”.
Naturally, the tension of the athletes was rising by the minute on their 2.5 hour drive, especially when they finally realised that they were been heading to Torsby, the Swedish training centre for Nordic sports with the world’s biggest ski tunnel. So, the athletes didn’t even know if it was going to be a fun surprise or a hard surprise. Speculations ranged from a day at the spa to extra training sessions.
Yet, they had to survive another night before they finally found out what was really going on. And it was only on the next day when they saw the cars on a big ice field that they finally realised this was going to be a drivers training. Coached by two former Swedish rally champions, the seven athletes had a great “holiday on ice”. Lofgren was especially “pleased” with the girl’s performances: “They had the better feeling for testing on ice and knew where their own limits were”.
We have asked Tim Burke on how he liked the drivers training.
biathlonworld.com: How much fun was it?
Tim Burke: “On a scale of 1 to 10, it was right up there. It was such a great mental break from training at this stage of the season. We had a lot of fun competing against each other and we learned some good skills to use when driving in the winter. biathlonworld.com: Did Denise Teela really beat all of the men in the slalom event?
Tim Burke: That is under dispute. The men all think she was disqualified on a technicality!
biathlonworld.com: I was told that the instructors made everything look very easy, sometimes just steering with one hand and never slipping or losing control. How easy was it to match them?
Tim Burke: It looked very easy when we were watching. Then I took the wheel and promptly drove the car into a snow bank!
biathlonworld.com: Sometimes, too much competitiveness can do more damage that it helps…
Tim Burke: Yep, the instructors told us not to push too hard on the gas when we started or the car would go nowhere on the ice. So Jay Hakkinen promptly got into the car, hit the gas and was digging holes under the tires.” (more)
Filed under: Cool Stuff
Lake Placid (July 12) – Lake Placid, famous as home of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics, hungers to play host to another. Until then, the Adirondack Mountain village would be happy to settle for the teenage version… (more from timesunion.com)
Filed under: Cool Stuff
Work to build a brand-new 2010 Olympic Cross-Country, Biathlon and Ski Jumping venue in Callaghan Valley is on schedule. While the British Columbian wilderness has posed some very unique challenges, the project should be complete by this autumn.
The Nordic Competition Venue will be located just 14km from the Whistler Olympic Village. At the end of November, a new 10 km road will open to take skiers into the venue from the Sea-to-Sky highway that links Vancouver and Whistler. Travel to Vancouver is then estimated to take about 75 min.
A total of 28 Olympic competitions will be carried out at the Nordic Venue including 12 Cross-Country, three Ski Jumping and three Nordic Combined events. Inside the venue, the two side-by-side jumping hills (HS 106 and HS140) will be flanked by a large rock statue of Illinak, the 2010 Inukshuk logo to welcome visitors. The company manufacturing and installing the large in-run steel structures is used to build roller-coasters for the Disney Company. The first of the two so-called “super structures,” made of massive steel trusses measuring ca. 24 meters in length by eight meters in width, just arrived on-site a few days ago. The second will follow later in July.
Near the ski jumps, the Day Lodge and Cross-Country stadium are coming out of the ground. The stadium is shaped as a horseshoe, with the skiers in view of the spectators for more than 800m. The technically challenging Olympic sprint loop is entirely in view from the main stadium bleachers. The two separate 5 km competition courses are quite different in design: while the classical technique course consists of long, straight ups and down, the free technique course is more twisty and turny, with quite challenging downhills. Most of the competition trails are already finished, while work continues to shape the spectator areas, ski test areas and warm-up loops. The first competitions will include Canadian national events, with the FIS World Cup races following in the 2008/2009 season.
“All in all, we will have 14 km of competition trails at the Nordic Venue. If needed, we could combine the Cross-Country and Biathlon courses into a single 12.5-km loop,” said John Aalberg, Director, Nordic Sport at VANOC, the Vancouver Organizing Committee. “We are really pleased with the way the new courses combine the traditional Cross-Country feeling of ‘skiing in the woods’ with the sport’s modern aspects, such as 9-meter-wide trails and spectator friendliness.”
Source: FIS
Includes contributions by VANOC
Filed under: Cool Stuff
The IOC members today approved, at the 119th Session in Guatemala City, the project that foresees the first editions for the Youth Olympic Summer Games in 2010 and for the Youth Olympic Winter Games in 2012. “This is an historic moment for the Olympic Movement. We owe this to the youth of the world”, declared IOC President Rogge after the decision by his 111 fellow members.
According to Rogge, the Youth Olympic Games, which will take place every second year, are the flagship of the IOC’s strategy outlined for young people, which includes other initiatives, such as an educational project on Olympic values, a dedicated web site for youngsters and a campaign highlighting the Olympic values to young people.
The Youth Olympic Games aim
* to bring together talented athletes from around the world to participate in high-level competitions;
* to run, alongside the sports element of the event, education programmes on; Olympic values, on the benefits of sport for a healthy lifestyle, the social values sport can deliver and on the dangers of doping and of training to excess and/or of inactivity.
* to use the latest communications channels to promote Olympic values and the spirit and essence embodied in the Youth Olympic Games.
Around 3,200 athletes for Summer Games and 1,000 athletes for Winter Games
The Youth Olympic Games – age group 14 to 18 – will bring together approximately 3,200 athletes and 800 officials for the Summer Games and 1,000 athletes and 580 officials for the Winter Games. The sports
programme will encompass all sports on the programme of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games and the 2012 Summer Games with a limited number of disciplines and events. Proposals from Sports Federations to integrate
youth-driven disciplines that are not part of the Olympic Games may be accepted.
Filed under: Jumping
LAKE PLACID , N.Y. – (July 3rd) Today marked the first leg of the Art Devlin Cup, given annually to the jumper who dominates three events – Chevrolet Summer Ski Jump, Flaming Leaves in October and Masters Ski Jump in January.
Anders Johnson and sister Alissa, both of Park City, Utah, won their respective divisions Tuesday at the Chevrolet 90 Meter Summer Ski Jump in Lake Placid. Second place in the men’s division went to Chris Lamb of Andover , N.H. Lamb jumped 90.5 and 84.5 meters and totaled 212.5 points. Evan Bliss of Lake Placid finished third with jumps of 88.5 and 81 meters for 204.5 points.
Alissa Johnson was followed by Jessica Jerome, also of Park City , who wound up second among the women after jumping 86 and 81 meters and accumulating 196 points. Nina Lussi of Lake Placid took third. Lussi scored 174 points on jumps of 79 and 77 meters.
Peter Frenette of Saranac Lake , N.Y. launched to the head of the junior class, jumping 93 and 90 meters and gaining 223.5 points. Nick Schott of Black Earth, Wisc. was next after jumping 83 and 80 meters. Schott had 181.5 points. Third place was taken by Zach Daniels of Loudon , N.H. with 153.5 points. Daniels jumped 77.5 and 73 meters.
LAKE PLACID , N.Y. – (July 4th) The New York Ski Educational Foundation hosted a 90 meter event. The Tri Lake jumperes were again strong with podium finishes from Peter Frenette and Nina Lussi in their respective classes. Frenette repeated his first place showing from Tuesday with jumps of 97.0 and 98.0. Frenette had 250.5 points. Third place in the Women’s division again went to Lussi with 100 points. Lussi had jumps of 67.o and 57.5 meters.
