March 10, 2011   – I Was MIA as I was at the Birkie for a bit of racing fun myself. Two years in a row doing a one week road trip with friends, taking off from the Gatineau Loppet to Cable, Wisconsin. Kind of came back in the middle of the Nordic Worlds and decided to just watch every morning. Here are some random thoughts.

First off I wasn’t surprised by the medal won by Devon [Kershaw] and Alex [Harvey]. I expected a medal, it was just a matter of what color. These two are a dynamic team and should be able to do this for a number of more years. Why? They do both techniques well, they can sprint and do distances well and they are both now good at race tactics. I hope they don’t get bored and start fooling around with the line-up like the Norwegians did. The only reason would be if Devon can bring more speed to the table, but I have a feeling Alex has the better top end in both techniques. Bravo to you guys for the excellent all around effort.

Now for the Norwegians and their odd ball line-up of running Northug 1st andHattestad 2nd – we can only surmise the rational for doing this. My thinking is that the other teams supposedly would put their weakest skier first and that Northug was to dominate the heats and kill these guys off and then Hattestad could coast to the win. Well the Finns were having none of that from the get-go and because the first skier would be the 2nd worst skier in each National Team there wasn’t much difference between the #1 and #2 skiers anyway. It almost looked like Northug was hanging on. The first leg each lap was 3-4 seconds faster than the 2nd lap – that’s  how fast they were going. You can say it back-fired for the Norwegians but I don’t think so, I feel Devon’s big improvement this year has been his ability to be thinking in races and make good tactical decisions. You could see this many times in the TdS.

Now for the debacle over Alex’s refusal to race the relay. It was a team decision that took place in a room somewhere and it didn’t sit very well with the team. In the future all of those feelings should stay in that room – the coach should deal with them when it comes to the press. A big mistake by all the big blabber mouths that took it out of the room. Like I said above, with the hundreds of press people prowling around the Norwegians you still don’t know what their strategy was for the team sprint – they kept it in the ROOM.

A lot of commentary on the crowds at Holmenkollen and rightfully so! It is an experience like none other in our sport. But, was it bigger and better than the Olympics in Lillehammer in ’94? I would call it a tie at best. There were  a lot of 100,000 days in Lillehammer, but those people made a huge effort to come by bus, car and train from a fair distances to be there. They didn’t have Oslo with it’s hundreds of thousands of spectators just at the bottom of the hill in walking distance. I wasn’t in both places, but I did see the show in Lillehammer and the organization to pull this off was truly impressive as it was on TV this year. A tie like I say.

How I saw the NA Teams doing:

The Americans were flat again, as they were in Vancouver, and they need to change up their program leading into the these big games. There is a 4-5 week break coming into the games from the last WC and the US skiers essentially are on their own for that period. They should get a week at home – get the laundry done, see the other half, and then back into a camp at altitude in the states or Europe – I would choose Europe as you get over the jet lag early and you have a huge race calendar to choose from. The way they have been doing it let’s them decompress too much back into a training fitness level. It’s still the racing season and you have to stay very near that level. Don’t let it get away. Also, the social angle at home is totally different from the social atmosphere in a training/competition camp. Yes, the break is fun, but you are professionals now and winter is competition time – summer is when you need to be home.

The Canadians on the other hand, were OK with their preparation only it wasn’t done as a team as much as it should have been. People were pretty spread out – not good. Also, some of the skiers were on dead-end missions, not being really ready to be at the Worlds. I’m sure they know who they are.

I thought it was cool that the Canadian Ladies 10km Classic was a tryout for the team sprint and it looks like it was the right two skiers as they placed 6th, one of the few highlights for the women. There is way more training and full time racing that needs to be done with the women’s program.

Short Summary of both teams:
– Sprints – both teams got beat up in the individual sprints – although Harvey 7th, Newell 10th and Valjas 15th is OK but it had the potential to be way better. NA girls – get a YUK!
– Pursuit – US 3 in top 30 – Canada another YUK!
– 10km C – US ladies again 3 in top 30 – Canada a real big YUK!!
– 15km CL – NA skiers – YUK and YUK!
– Team Sprint – NA ladies – 6th Can and 10th US – verrrry good – Men – Can GOLD – US 10th
– 30km – US 4 ladies 16th-25th cool – Can – collects anther YUK!
– 50km – CAN with Harvey 5th and Babs in 17th – very good – Hoffman’s 30th saves the US men from a YUK!

Both teams have talent, but it is very shallow right across the board – 3 years to Sochi and counting.

I here rumors about bringing another Norwegian coach to Canada! Not an additional coach, but one to replace one of the present coaches. Let’s be clear here, this has never worked and I’m talking all the way back to the 70s with a huge number of these guys having been here and really never leaving anything, but bad vibes. The only success this program has had is under the leadership of Canadian and American coaches over all those years. Don’t waste the discussion time, the money, or the effort to find this person. Of course this is coming from the athletes.

Holmenkollen looks magnificent on TV, the trail system is very modern and works well for the racing formats. It is definitely wide enough to provide fair races with all the mass starts for passing and numbers of people skiing side by side.They definitely did not spare the $$$ – just love it.

Good Luck to everyone at both National Championships!

Talk to you soon!
misterxc@aol.com