February 26, 2010 (Whistler, BC) – We caught up with two of Team USA’s
“Oh that was just incredible! Holy cow – yeah, that was just awesome! You know, that was totally inspiring, I knew she could do that, and that’s what we were all hoping for,” said Caitlin Compton, who anchored the squad. Randall tagged off to Holly Brooks in fourth place, who took on the second classic leg. Brooks has been having a rough Games, and was unable to carry the momentum to the first freestyle skier, Morgan Arritola for the third leg of the relay. Compton skied the final skate portion. Brooks and Compton spoke to us about the race and the future of the U.S. XC Team program.
Brooks was obviously frustrated and disappointed with herself, not only with her relay performance, but with all of her competitions so far in Whistler. “You know, I felt a little pressure going into that, but I don’t know. I know that I can ski a lot faster than I’m skiing right now and it’s just frustrating.” She expressed concern that some health problems she faced over the summer may be affecting her again. “My legs just started to burn, and that’s what kind of started to happen to me in the Pursuit too, and I’m not really quite sure why.”
Brooks had a very large fan club on hand to support her with a big “Go Holly!” banner, American flags, and enthusiastic cheers. Although it meant a lot to Brooks, it made having a less-than-stellar Games even tougher to take: “That’s the other thing. I have a tonne of friends here and my family and a bunch of people came down from Alaska, and people that I coach, so it’s hard, because you want to ski really well, not only for yourself and your team mates, but for all the people that made the long trip to come down here.” But despite it all, Brooks remained positive: “It’s still cool, the Olympics. It’s still great to be here.”
“It was really fun out there,” said Compton about the relay. “I think that’s definitely one of the best events because we all come together. -I think seeing Kikkan [Randall] up there in front – she’s been the one who’s been leading us all the way, and it’s showing where she’s headed, and for sure the rest of us girls have been pretty vocal, especially at this Olympics, in saying that we want to be right up there with her, and so I think this entire couple of weeks has really brought us to that realization that we can be there. I think the relay is a good indicator in the sense that we’re striving for that.”
Compton felt she fared better in the race than her ailing team mate, but she still faced some challenges, especially with the tricky snow conditions. “It went okay. I felt pretty good out there today, but I don’t know, I struggled to find the speed in the snow for the glide. It felt just like one of those wet sloppy days. It felt like the body wanted to move faster than the snow was letting it. Kind of a weird feeling out there,” she said.
Compton didn’t mind the sleety weather – a huge change from last week: “Weather-wise, I think it doesn’t even matter to me, competing or even training in whatever comes. Of course sunshine’s good for the spectators, so my family was happy, but you know, they’ve got to get tough too,” she said laughingly.
At the suggestion that Saturday’s 30k race – the last race of the Games for the women – might see a whole spectrum of weather, Compton welcomed the idea: “That would be pretty fun, that would keep people on their toes. That would keep the wax techs on their toes, which is always good too. Obviously that’s totally possible. As you’ve seen over the last couple of days the weather’s changed pretty significantly between each leg almost of the race at some point. I definitely noticed it was trying to snow out there for one of the legs, then it was raining, so the whole 30k could be pretty exciting to watch the changing of the people who nail each weather condition wax.”