December 03, 2010 – It sure was a cold one in Kuusamo, Finland last weekend. Some teams stayed an extra few days there before moving to Dusseldorf, Germany where the temps will be considerably warmer. It’s great to have the season underway.

Kuusamo is located above the Arctic Circle, in a mountainous, rolling area with tough ski trails and a ski jump prone to turbulent winds, all set a stones throw from a huge Finnish lake that makes the cold even colder – replete with high humidity. The kind of wind that goes right through you. It marked the only time this season that all of the Nordic disciplines were together until the VM in Oslo in February.

This marked another event within an event called the Ruka Triple, including three days of tough XC racing on a course with grueling terrain.

Following three days of racing the winners of the Ruka Triple were Russian Alexander Legkov and Norwegian dynamo Marit Bjoergen. The US Team notched some strong performances with Kris Freeman and Kikkan Randall. Freeman skiing to a seventh place finish in the 10km classic was a fine way to start the season. The Canadians, too, with the likes of Devon Kershaw, 10th in the mini-tour and Alex Harvey picked up steam at the Finnish events, as well.

Swedish women’s sprint ace Hanna Falk took a nasty fall on the tracks at Kuusamo last Sunday hurt her shoulder and was forced to drop out. Despite this mild injury she is expected to be at the start line for the Dusseldorf sprints, where she won the individual title last year.

Anchorage’s Lars Flora and Holly Brooks won overall honors at the recent USSA SuperTour opener in West Yellowstone, MT and in doing so were selected to be part of the USA squad during Period 2 in the world cup calendar held from Jan.15-Feb 6. They’ll race in Estonia, Russia and the Czech Republic.

Former US Olympian John Aalberg, who served as chief for the cross-country events in Vancouver and Salt Lake City, served as FIS TD at Kuusamo for XC. He is currently working on the Nordic Worlds in Oslo in February. I’m thrilled as I found out I will be going today. More news on that a bit later on.

In ski jumping competitions it was all about Austria. They copped the team event and then went one-two in the night time individual large hill jump with Andreas Kofler winning the comp with leaps of 145.5 and 143.5, while teammate Thomas Morgenstern was a strong second. Olympic champion Simon Ammann was third.

Tough news for Austria, too…as they learned that David Zauner had ruptured his ACL on his left knee. It is not known at the moment what will happen here or if he will have surgery.

Finnish jumping star, the truculent bad-boy of the team, Harri Olli was suspended at Kuusamo , and will miss one world cup at least, for making an obscene hand gesture to the live TV cameras on his home snow. He wasn’t indicating that he was number one, either. He has so much talent but these kinds of problems have become ongoing. Today we have just learned that Olli’s personal coach won’t continue to coach him. Trainer Kimmo Kykkaenen told Finnish network TV YLE that, “…as a coach I cannot change the character of a jumper, he has to overcome his personal problems.”

In other ski jumping action, we hear that Dimiri Vassiliev will return to action at the COC in Rovaniemi on Dec 7 and 8th. You might recall the Russian jumper tore his ACL only a day or two before he was to compete in the Vancouver Olympics..

In Nordic combined action veteran Felix Gottwald (AUT) took an impressive win over Norway’s Mikko Kokslien, who scored his best finish ever, while Jason Lamy-Chappuis took the bronze. Gottwald, no spring chicken in the Nordic scene at 34 years old, but still winning. This is his 22nd world cup career victory. Great

It was a tough start for the USA Nordic Combined squad. While young Bryan Fletcher skied to a career best in one event placing 18th, Billy Demong continued to have some problems with his jumping. In one event Demong started 3 minutes 19 seconds back in 38th place before starting his XC race – he ended that day in 36th, with Taylor Fletcher finishing in 39th. It’s still early for the US guys and when they are at full strength they’re not to be taken lightly.

Next up for the cross-country troops is World Cup #3 and the return to the magical city of Dusseldorf, along the banks of the Rhine River, for night time sprints, which are always packed with enthusiastic revelers.

The US Ski team trained in Kuusamo for several days and plan to start five athletes in Dusseldorf including [Kikkan] Randall, [Andy] Newell, [Chris] Cook, [Simi] Hamilton and [Torin] Koos. If all four men are healthy they will have two men’s sprint teams. Coach [Chris] Grover plans no women’s squad for the team event. Ida Sargent who showed great poise at her first-ever world cup is returning to the Dartmouth Ski Team later this week in Hanover, NH.

Randall will do the individual sprints and then head directly to Davos, Switzerland for the fourth Cuppie race of the season. Early weather predictions for Dusseldorf call for temps below freezing and there’s a new addition to the sprint track this year; a small loop around the Burgplatz. The men’s course will now be at 1,790 meters, which could well be the longest track on the circuit now.

Kikkan told us she loves it there. “It’s always such a fun atmosphere in Dusseldorf with all the fans packed around…and the Rhine river right there. Last year they had 15 Santas on jet-skis go by!” She also said that “skate sprints are my favorite events and I had some back luck there last year, getting knocked down just out of the start. I have some unfinished business there.”

We received an email from Canadian coach Justin Wadsworth saying that the sprinters from his team will stay in Kuusamo and head to “Ddorf” on Thursday night. They’ll plan to bring Dasha [Gaiazova], Chandra [Crawford], Stef [Kukn], Lenny [Valjas], Brent [MacMurtry] and Phil [Widmer] to Germany. Devon [Kershaw] and George [Gray] are in Livingo, Italy training and getting ready for Davos. Ivan [Babikov] returned home to train as did Alex [Harvey], to return to school and complete some exams. “In Davos we’ll race Devon, Ivan, George and Brent in the distance race, and Dasha and Chandra for the women. We have a healthy, hungry crew ready for more racing.”

Off to D-Lightful Dusseldorf.

Women’s start list HERE.
Men’s start list HERE.

Dusseldorf XC Video HERE.
Live Cam HERE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE8r5LSQNqE&feature=player_embedded