February 26, 2016 – Birkie Notes – I watched a fair amount of the web broadcast and it looks very unsupported dollar-wise, but even for its amateurish  presentation it was very exciting to watch. Who ever came up with the idea of sending the women out 20 minutes ahead of the men made for a very exciting finish area. BRILLIANT!!!

As the lag time at the finish was well timed. Enough minutes to give the women good finish line coverage and not so long before the men were there! (COOL). The announcers doing the broadcast during the race, [Peter] Graves and [Dennis] Kruse, did pretty well and had a fair sense of what was going on considering, I’m guessing there was not a lot of connected communications between the different locations at the start and finish and along the course.

There needs to be a big de-briefing and some fore-thought right away, as there is huge financial considerations for the future in the broadcast of some really exciting races and the commercialization of the venue and the race course.

Update terminology – I’m sure there is potential to enlarge the total racer numbers as 10,500 has been used for a number of years, and I think with all the other races and the growth of the JR. race on Friday a new total number is 12,000 and maybe higher – am I right!!!?

This is Not The Way To Do IT – This is not what you do when you are in this position in a mass start race – you just don’t do it – change lanes – if you do, you deserve what ever the outcome is – click here.

USA Blue Racing Suits (seems to be men only) – read a study a while ago about uniform colors and blue is slow – white is fast – of course white also stands out!

The US Girls – The US ladies went off to the WC in November with flat wallets and now are returning to the US with a load of Swiss francs – the leading lady being Jessie Diggins with a $30,000 (yes, $30,000 dollars) and at least four other ladies packing more loot then when the headed across the pond.

There is more to be made – 8 more races worth.

Nations Cup – There is a scoring system for ranking how the nations are standing—-men and women.
USA Men – 11th
USA Women – 4th
Overall – 6th

Can Men – 9th
Can Women – 16th
Overall – 10th

Still lots of work to be done by both teams.

Mt. Rundle Is a Storming – for those not in the know, Mt. Rundle is the mountain perched just above the Canadian Training Center and the administration offices of the Canadian Team in Canmore. Sort of looking down on the scene, and I’m led to believe there may be April storms a-brewing. It’s not wise to shake up any admin and/or technical offices half way through an Olympic cycle, so we’ll have to wait and see what the gods of skiing in Canada decide.

No matter what changes may unfold one can’t forget the skiers who often take some of the brunt, while trying to keep their focus on their main job – racing fast and having the results come out like they should.

Monsieur Lafontaine, the new ED of CCC, has a huge challenge ahead of him. Bon chance!!!

Winter –  Here in Eastern NA this year  and in Europe again this year, have been disastrously bad. Snow making has been the saviour of the WC these past two years in all of Europe – white ribbons of man made snow through the woods and pastures everywhere in all of the races.

In eastern NA the US has been a wipe out with about three snow-making centers hosting all the races – Craftsbury has to have hosted an easy 30 – and it’s still Feb with a daytime temperature, as I am writing this, of 46 degrees. Craftsbury has continually replenished there in close trails a number of times this winter, but their widow for making snow has been very small. Can they or are they willing to keep this up?

The racing has happened—but the sport of cross country skiing (the industry) has taken a huge growth hit. There is March left, and even if it was a banner month, the skis most likely have been put away. The 10 day forecast is for more of the same.YUK!!!!!

Can’t wait for next year!!!

Talk to you soon!