Sadie Bjornsen © Angus Cockney

March 20, 2016 (Canmore, Alta.) – SkiTrax spoke with American Sadie Bjornsen on the final rest day of Ski Tour of Canada in Canmore. Bjornsen at the time was 11th overall in the overall women’s Tour standings with two races remaining. The day after this interview she placed 17th in the 10km freestyle race, and on the final 10km Classic pursuit stage, she was 11th. Bjornsen finished the Tour in 11th and was 14th overall in the final World Cup standings – the second-best American to teammate Jessie Diggins in both rankings.

Bjornsen © Angus Cockney

What are you hoping for in the last two races?
SB: I think it would be amazing to be top ten but that’s going to have include near-perfect races. I was in 9th before the races yesterday.

Tell us about your race yesterday (15km Skiathlon).
SB: It was really good the first lap of the classic, but then I struggled to get kick on the second and lost the group. The thing about racing at altitude is that over the course of one kilometre, you can lose so much time, ginormous amounts of time. I think I lost 30 seconds going over one hill. Then I stayed pretty much the same amount back from the group after that. It would have been fun to try to switch into skate gear with them. Skating for whatever reason has been going really well for me.

Sadie Bjornsen (USA) © Nordic Focus

Classic has been my forte in the past, but I’ve really struggled with skis this year. I just haven’t been as rock solid in my classic as I would have liked. For sure the fitness has been there, so it’s been an issue of figuring out the perfect wax to speed ratio, and figuring out the perfect technique for that. I’m confident that I can still be one of the best classic skiers, but I just have to figure out a few things before then.

How does Canmore and the rest of the Canadian Tour  courses compare to what you’re used to…?
SB: I was just talking to Rosie [Brennan] that I’m rooming with. We were like, wow, I am so much more tired than I was at the Tour de Ski. I love the Tour format of racing. I love just getting to try again and again because I’m just stubborn. I get frustrated if something doesn’t go well, it doesn’t beat me down, I’m ready to go the next day. This is why I love the Tour format.

Like in the Tour de Ski, in Oberstdorf, I fell in the classic. And then we had really poor wax the next day in the mass start, so that was two Classic races that went poorly and I was like, okay, I’m ready to go now. [Bjornsen placed 9th overall in the next race at Val di Fiemme.]

But here, I think we’re just so tired from the long season. Things were going really well, and then I hit Canmore and everything started hurting a lot more. It’s like we’ve all hit a new level of tiredness, you can see, it’s everybody in the group is just hanging on for dear life right now. I think the combination of altitude and the way the ski course are designed… they’re just so challenging.

Sadie Bjornsen (USA) © Angus Cockney

Watching on television, you’re all going up so fast and it doesn’t look like they’re that bad, but in reality, they’re really hard ?
SB: And that sprint course was outrageous. I’ve never done a sprint course that hard before in my life. It’s hard. I think it’s kind of fun and funny at the same time. Everyone is just exhausted. We’re just putting our heads down. Now it’s just a measure of who’s got the toughest brain. We are so fatigued, muscularly and physically. It’s just a matter of brain power now.

Is that an advantage for you?
SB: I would like to think so! But you know, I feel a lot better today than I did the last two days. In the Tour de Ski I always hated the breaks because I just wanted to keep going. But in general I think we’re all so tired right now. We actually need the breaks. Otherwise we’re going to be crawling to the finish line on the last day. That’ll look funny on TV.

So you’re going to school in Alaska?
SB: Yes, I just graduated from my undergraduate in the spring. I did a double major in accounting and business. Then I started my Master’s degree in the fall, which is another huge challenge because I have to be so focused all the time. I come off the course, and I’m studying until 10pm at night. Then I wake up in the morning, study, then go on the course. Especially during this tour, it’s been so hard. It requires so much focus, just on the ski course, and not to be able to turn that off when I go home. You can’t even stop for a second, you just go straight to studying.

Fastest qualifier Sadie Bjornsen wearing bib #1 © Reese Brown

So what are you studying now and how do you balance everything?
SB: Business. I’m doing my MBA. I don’t really know what I’m going to do with it. I’ve always enjoyed the management side of business. I have my undergrad in accounting, so I’m super interested in it. I just love the combination of school and skiing. Because when you’re out of skiing, you have school to think about, and when you’re out of school, you have skiing to think about. For me it’s always raised the level for both things.

Between December and mid-January off, for example, because that’s when school’s off I sometimes feel that I’m thinking too much about skiing. I just love to have that focus on the ski side. That’s maybe a lesson I’ll have for my whole life, how to structure my days, my focus and energy. One day, when I’m in the business world, I hope I’m ready and prepared for it because of what I’m doing right now.

The progress in both complement each other. I feel like I really broke through in sprinting this year. I used to qualify really well but I’d come to the heats and I would never move on. And I couldn’t figure out why because I felt that I was fast enough but this year I feel like I’ve finally broken through to advance into the semi-finals and I almost feel like it was a matter of just having the confidence and the belief that you belong.

Sadie Bjornsen QC Finals 3.4.16-4273-X3.4.2

And it’s the same thing as in school. I just started a Master’s program and it’s way harder than the undergraduate programme. And everyone’s been working and they’ve had jobs for a while and they’re way older than me. I show up in class and I’m the person no one is sitting beside. It’s so intimidating to say the first word. I realized that it’s the exact same thing, that I just need to stand up and say what I thought. And after I said the first comment in class, I was, like, ‘Ok I’ve got this. I’m smart enough to be here.’ It’s the exact same thing as standing at the start line of a ski race. Just telling yourself that you belong there. It’s really interesting and fun to be able to connect the two.

I imagine it is interesting to see the momentum between the two. So is your season done after these races?
SB: We have to go back to SuperTour finals and distance nationals. We have a 30km classic, 10km skate, a relay and a sprint. For those of us who have done two Tours, it has been the largest season by far. One more push at the end. Fortunately, at that point, it’s just for fun, to be present in the US ski community.

Sadie Bjornsen © Angus Cockney

So how does the Ski Tour Canada compare to the Tour de Ski?
SB: I would say that all the races are more challenging here. The distances have been longer, and the sprint distances have been way longer. In the Tour de Ski we sometimes have prologues or 5km but we’re doing 10k and 15km. I would say it’s been much more challenging. We do have two more rest days, but we travelled much greater distances in between, so I would say that’s necessary. Simply because of where it’s placed in the season, at the end, too, I think it’s much more challenging.

When I was looking at it the beginning of the season, I thought the Ski Tour was going to be easier because there’s not a hill climb at the end. But since coming to Canmore, almost every race has a hill climb because the courses are so steep. The last four races of the Ski Tour Canada are hill climbs!

Good luck with the rest of the Tour and your season.
SB: Thanks