February 6, 2009 – The past few weeks have been fascinating above all else. With lots of travel and work, including the pre-Games at the Whistler World Cups, it’s been a chance to restock those Hilton Honors points and the frequent flyer miles. Here’s what I have been thinking about lately.

Andy Newell’s fifth place finish in Rybinsk, Russia put him into an elite category of possible medalists at Liberec. Solid finishes too for Torin Koos and Kikkan Randall there… but too bad the bitter cold resulted in the cancellation of day three in Rybinsk.

How about Dartmouth ending up with two straight carnival wins on the EISA circuit? And some dandy finishes for Liz Stephen and Morgan Arritola nailing 4th and 5th respectively at the U23 Nordic Championships in France – plus one of our favourites, Alex Harvey who skied to a fourth place finish in the men’s 30km pursuit race at those same championships. Great news for the USA’s Freeman brothers as well going 1-2 at the Craftsbury Marathon last week, with more than 600 starters.

And what’s up with Austrian flyboy, Gregor Schlierenzauer hitting the zenith of this year’s fitness by winning the last four world cups? On the flip side what’s happened to early season world cup leader Simon Ammann? Kudos to Nick Fairall from Andover, New Hampshire, a member of the Project X jumping program for winning his first FIS Cup jumping event this week in Eisenertz, Austria, while Park City’s Anders Johnson was a fine fifth place. Now they spend a week at Strbkse Pleso in Slovakia for another Continental Cup and get ready for the worlds.

Liberec Nordic Worlds
Liberec is on the horizon and the sound track of the Liberec World Championships, provided by Deep Purple, at the opening ceremonies, should rock the house. I’m thinking that Liberec’s new snowmaking systems, which resemble aircraft engines, will be churning out massive amounts of snow from 28 new snow cannons. Amazingly, when the cannons are going full tilt it takes 500 litres of water per minute to make one cubic metre of snow. Following little snow for last year’s test event, most of it painstakingly trucked in, they want to assure all that there will be plenty of snow.

I’m also thinking about last week’s great SuperTour #8 at Telemark, Wisconsin. It sure evoked many memories for me working with the late great Tony Wise, who created the first “unofficial world cup” in xc skiing, the first indoor start and finish, and the American Birkebeiner. Wise, a native of Wisconsin and a Harvard MBA, was one of the sport’s most innovative thinkers and promoters. Back in the day, if you weren’t out skiing, the lobby bar was the place to hang and talk over the latest Marty Hall column. Sadly, Linda Johnson our good friend there and later with the US Ski Team, passed away over the Christmas holidays, and we all miss her.

Nordic Legend Daehlie
Speaking of Telemark and the Birkie this season, there’s a wonderful chance to meet and greet 8-time Olympic gold medalist, Norwegian legend Bjorn Daehlie. A benefit dinner will be held at Telemark, where Daehlie will speak, with all proceeds going to fight MS, a cause close to him. I last saw Daehlie in 2002 at Salt Lake, where he ribbed me about his first world cup win at Mountain Dell on the way up to Park City. “All you did was talk about Gunde Svan, Gunde Svan ” he said with a huge smile, after that race we would soon come to know the depth of Daehlie’s talent.

That’s it for now, I’ve gotta warm up the car, I’m off to the SuperTour in Stowe.

Onward.