By Gavin Kentch
What does ski development look like in this sprawling country, anyway? Sometimes it looks very formal: We shall invite the best x athletes in age group y from region z to REG Camp at a given point in the summer, and they shall train together and do testing together and thereby get better at skiing. (I know that REG weeks actually have ample non-training fun stuff built into the schedule; I’m painting in broad strokes here to set up a point.)
Sometimes it looks rather more organic: Let’s have a low-key citizens race that is free to athletes under 18, but also let’s have this race occur in Anchorage in April, so roughly a third of the U.S. Ski Team will be there, including three of the six Americans who stood on an individual World Cup podium last season, and local kids will wait for the relay handoff alongside their World Cup heroes, and the next generation cannot help but get psyched for the future.
And sometimes it looks like a cooking contest. Here’s USST Development Coach Greta Anderson’s handwritten notes introducing the Bend Final Night Cooking Contest Showdown from the recent NTG (National Training Group) camp in Oregon, which brought together this country’s top development athletes from just below the level of the U.S. Ski Team.
This will not show up in anyone’s training log for the week, but it is incredibly important. So much of high-end athletic performance, in my somewhat informed lay opinion, is vibes, and the vibes with this team are so good right now. The odds of someone who was in Bend this past week medaling in international competition within the next few years seem high; when that happens we will celebrate that person, and duly praise all the training they have put in to get to that point.
But if you can’t get to the top without putting in the hours, you also can’t get to the top if you’re not happy on race day, and happy with yourself and with the people around you and in a position to do well when the gun goes off. And cooking contests, or one-ski relay races, or volleyball matches, or all the attendant “other” stuff that doesn’t get logged, could be the integral part of team building that helps you get there.
(I swear I wrote the above paragraph before I came across the below post from Steve Magness, an author and coach I think very highly of… but also any time I’m on the same page as Steve Magness I feel like I’m doing something right, so here you go. Also, everyone go read Do Hard Things now.)
In that spirit, please enjoy some photos from the recent NTG spring training camp in Bend. All photos are courtesy of Greta Anderson, save for the NNF camp wrap-up video at the end, which comes to you via the creative stylings of Joe Graziadei, Grey Barbier, and Henry Magill. Sure Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club has had a full 100 Olympians come through its doors over the past century, but imho its athletes’ video-editing skills deserve some plaudits as well (also shoutout to Graziadei of Green Mountain Valley School).
The YouTube auteurs were among the eight women and nine men present at this year’s camp. Female athletes in Bend last week were Maeve Ingelfinger, Neve Gerard, Niki Johnson, Britta Johnson, Lena Poduska, Natalie Nicholas, Evie Walton, and Fran Tucker. Male athletes at the camp were Joe Grazaidei, Aidan Jacobus, Miles Miner, Elias Soule, Henry Magill, Grey Barbier, Dane Karch, Anders Linseisen, and Will Bentley. American athletes who would like to join them next year should consult this criteria document against their birth year, and get to work training.
Coaches for this year’s camp were Anderson of the national team, Quinn Lehmkuhl of Tahoe Endurance, Reitler Hodgert of Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation (MBSEF), and Lydia Youkey of MBSEF.
Anyway, the national team is trickling into Bend as we speak. Here’s what recent conditions there look like, and here’s a taste of what the last team training at Mt. Bachelor did with them. Click on any photo to enlarge and bring up a slideshow.
And now let’s hear from the youths. And from Fetty Wap.
You’re reading this on Nordic Insights, one man’s labor of love dedicated to publicizing American nordic skiing. Last season’s GoFundMe is literally the only reason why I turned a profit in year one of Nordic Insights, and in turn the only reason why there is a year two of Nordic Insights for you to be reading now: I was okay with working for very little money to get this love letter to American cross-country skiing off the ground, but I didn’t want to lose money for the privilege of doing so. If you would like to support what remains a brutally shoestring operation, this season’s GoFundMe may be found here. Thank you for your consideration, and, especially, for reading.
