December 08, 2010 (Dusseldorf, Germany) – Len Valjas from Toronto has become one of the best sprinters in Canada over the past two seasons winning the 1.2km freestyle sprint race at the Canadian XC Championships last year in Whitehorse, Yukon. At 6 foot 5 inches he is certainly the tallest sprinter (likely distance) as well.

Valjas started his xc ski career with Team Hardwood in Barrie and is still a member of the team. His rise to the top really took off with a full time commitment to the sport when he became a member of the NTDC in Thunder Bay, ON. After one year in Thunder Bay he moved to the Pierre Harvey training center in Mont-Ste-Anne, QC, where he has been training for the past two years.

He debuted at the FIS World Cup in Kuusamo, Finland, went on to the sprints in Dusseldorf, Germany, and will ski in the team sprints in Davos, Switerland this coming weekend before returning home for final preparations for the U23 World Championship trials in Thunder Bay from January 6-9. Valjas has finished in the top 10 at the U23 Worlds in each of the past two years. We caught up with him after the Dusseldorf sprints – here are his comments on the WCup scene and his racing….

Kuusamo
Kuusamo was so great! It showed me that I have what it takes to compete with these guys. Unfortunately I got a sore throat the day after the sprint and was not able to race the two distance races. I would have liked to race the whole mini-tour, but getting healthy for Dusseldorf was the smarter choice.

Dusseldorf
I felt like I was in great shape for Dusseldorf, but I had a few things not go my way last weekend. First off, our travel day to Dusseldorf was awful. We left Kuusamo on Thursday (Dec. 2) morning hoping to make it to Dusseldorf by the afternoon. That was not the case. Our flight was cancelled from Helsinki to Copenhagen so we were forced to spend the night in Helsinki. The next morning we flew to Copenhagen to find out that our next flight was cancelled as well. I spent the day wandering around Copenhagen waiting for my evening flight. Finally, our team made it to Dusseldorf late Friday (Dec. 3) night. Unfortunately they lost all of our duffel bags and two ski bags which had all of our poles and training skis. Luckily we all had packed our skate boots in our carry on bags, so we didn’t lose them.

For Saturday’s sprint race I was unable to find ski poles long enough for me. I usually ski with 177.5cm poles but 172cm was the longest pole that we could find. It felt like I was skiing with my classic poles, not ideal for such a flat and fast sprint course.

I really think I would have qualified if the poles were my only problem… but I lost all of my asthma medication as well as it was lost along with my duffel bag. In the warm up I could feel that my asthma was going to be bad. Frantically I asked everyone I knew to see if I could borrow a puffer but no luck. I started the sprint conservatively and skied a great first lap. The second lap was far worse. My breathing was constricted and I was not able to get enough air to ski as fast as normal. I skied the last half of the race stuck in what felt like zone 3 – I just couldn’t breathe normally. Pretty frustrating since I felt really good all week leading into the race. The course was perfect for me and I can’t wait until Dusseldorf next year without equipment problems.

I loved the whole atmosphere in Dusseldorf, even though it was raining, there were fans all over the course cheering. I love the city sprints, the technical courses make for lots of crashes… anything can happen. They’re really fun to race in.

I really like racing at the World Cup and hopefully I can race fast in Davos and have the chance to race more WC’s this year! I will compete in the Davos sprint race and then head back to Canada for the Nordic World Championships trials as well as the U23 trials.