Green Racing Project Blog

Biathlon World Championships Sprint 2012

A beautiful day in Bavaria!

Behind the scenes: what the team wax cabins and changing areas look like from the outside...

... And from the inside. With about 20 staff and athletes sharing this room, it can get a little crowded.

Race day surprise! I failed equipment control on the first attempt today for too light of a trigger weight on my rifle. (The humidity and warm weather caused it to change slightly since I last used it for the relay a couple days ago.) While Coach Armin (left) quickly fixed the trigger, I took the opportunity to take a couple pictures. Coach Jonne (right) reassured me that I'd still have plenty of time to zero afterwards.

Range officials and coaches preparing for race start.

The post-race exodus of 30,000 fans as seen from a hill on course. Thanks to all the spectators who stayed until the very end of the race!

The past couple weeks have been a whirlwind of racing and travelling.  From Russia we flew to Germany, drove to Austria for a few days of training, drove to Czech Republic for a weekend of races, drove to Poland for three more days of racing and then drove back across Czech Republic, Austria, and Germany to Davos, Switzerland where we are currently calling home.  There is a weekend off from World Cup racing so we have a week and a half training camp in Davos and time to settle, unpack, fight off the stomach bugs that have been plaguing or team, and maybe even do some laundry.  Looking back I realized since the Muonio races way back in the beginning of November, I have only had one weekend without a race and that was Christmas!  The alpine sunshine is going  to be just the ticket to recharge the batteries and get fired up for the last month of racing!  Here are some pictures from the last couple weeks.

Nove Mesto, Czech Republic is the site of next year's Biathlon World Championships and was a great venue, one of my favorites this year. The trails were super fun with some big hills and fast twisty downhills. I'm always surprised with how poorly many of the World Cup women ski downhills and there were some sketchy descents in the mass start races and snow plows and non-snow plowers converged.

Parts of the Czech Republic reminded me a lot of Vermont with big fields and rolling hills.

I was pleasantly surprised with the Scandinavianesque ski trails which linked all the towns in the region. It wasn't something that I expected to find in Eastern Europe. Hopefully next time I'll have a few more days to explore the double classic tracks snaking through the woods.

The first day of racing in Czech was a 15km mass start and it was a pretty tough day for the team. We were all feeling worked over after the hard day of racing but we have an awesome atmosphere on our team right now and we were easily able to put that race behind us and get fired up for RELAY DAY! Glitter, face paint, knee high striped socks, and lots of energy for Sunday's race!

Relays are the most fun races but I also get incredibly nervous for them! All my butterflies came out with a vengeance as I tried to focus on skiing a smart race. Here I am skiing with Germany and Sweden. Andy Newell photo

Holly skied a really strong scramble leg and tagged off to me for the second lap. I skied with a pack for the first lap of the race and then moved up a few places on the second lap trying to gain every second I could before tagging Liz. Pete Vordenberg/NNF photo

Liz and Jessie both hammered out awesome skate legs. We all got lots of TV time thanks to our socks!

Jessie skied the whole race with Charlotte Kalla, the Olympic champion from Sweden. There was a very exciting sprint finish for fourth place but after the photo analysis we ended up in 5th place. If you take out Norway's second team which was also on the podium, that would have been a sprint finish for third! Watch out Sochi!

We were ecstatic finishing area and were way more excite than the winning teams. Vibeke Skofterud who skied on Norway's winning team even asked if she could take a picture of us while we were celebrating.

The next stop was Szklarzka Poreba, Poland.

Kowalczyk is queen in Poland. They didn't even televise the men's sprint heats preferring instead to do a race analysis of Kowalczyk's sprint during that time. The cheering was insane from the very enthusiastic fans, some of which even hiked 10km up a twisty, snowy mountain road from the town to the race venue.ng 10

The stadium and finishing area

The first day was a skate sprint. The snow was super squirrelly and slippery and trying to stay on my feet was enough of a challenge so I failed to qualify for the heats. The fast snow made for an exciting day of racing though. Kikkan fell in the final, was off the back of the heat, but caught back up and still ended up on the podium! So impressive!

The President of the Polish Radio was amazed by her "bravery" and gave her this giant rock to show his admiration for getting back up and keeping going. It weighs close to 50lbs and is going to be lots of fun for her to bring home to Alaska

The next day was a 10km classic and rain, snow and zero degree weather made for super tricky waxing conditions and a lot of herringboning at the end of the race. It was a good day for me though and I scored my first World Cup distance points. Vordenberg/NNF photo

The last day of racing in Poland was the World Uphill Trophy. I was feeling pretty tired from the day before so I skipped racing but still skied to the top to cheer on the team. It was an insane race up an alpine area with 500 meters of elevation gain. The trail was so steep that I was considering even doing some side stepping to make it to the top. Mother Nature didn't make it any easier with huge snowdrifts, wind, snow, and all the other elements. The conditions were so crazy on top that I accidentally skied off the course without realizing it.

Liz was the first to the top but the race was up and down so she lost a few places with her tuck snowplow. Andy and Tad both really went for it on the downhill and made up a lot of time until they each had to dig themselves out of the fences. I was very impressed with all of them though in this insane race!

And now we are in Davos with lots of sun, snow, and stinky cheese. I wish I could send some of this snow to Craftsbury! Andy Newell photo

So…once again I’m finding time to write about Craftsbury only when I’m not in Craftsbury…right now I’m in the Calgary Airport, en route to Canmore for some more IBU cup racing!

But luckily for all of you blog-readers, I spent perhaps too much time when I was home for a week documenting the life of Mo, our celebrity “pet” ruffed grouse!   But first things first–I want to take this opportunity to officially correct my previous determination of Mo’s gender.  Our best guess is now that Mo is in fact a male grouse, though he has yet to get puffed up into full male display form.  Maybe thats for lack of a lady grouse in the vicinity, time of year, etc.  But thanks to Rick Halling for his advice about Mo’s gender.

Make sure to scroll down to the videos!  They’re the best part!

Mo modeling his best angle. Mo can look very slender if he wants to, or he can puff up his feathers and look very fat.

First, let me tell you how Mo seems to spend his day–I suppose he must to some foraging for food at some point, but when we’re around, he generally likes to be as close to us as possible.  If we’re in the living room, he sits at the living room window looking in on us, occasionally pecking at the window.  If we’re in the dining room, he sits at that window.

Often, I’ll walk out the door to go skiing to find Mo sitting right by the door, as if he knew I was about to come out.  Then he scurries up next to me, and follows me over to the trail, where I put my skis on and he pokes around.  Once or twice he’s actually tried to scurry along while I ski, but I’m too fast for him!

Maria and Mo waxing. Mo did his best to help Maria, Brian and I wax our skis.

Mo tried to perch on my poles, but they weren't grippy enough, and he kept sliding off.

Mo and Bryan demonstrate Mo’s fearlessness (video)

Mo eats bread crumbs. I’m a nerd. (video)

Also, by the way, the skiing in Craftsbury for the last week was unreal!  We actually had about 7 bluebird days in a row, the grooming was superb, and the snow was FAST.  The rest of NE may be having a terrible snow winter, but Craftsbury has somehow avoided it!

Crust skiing in early February!

Since leaving the Midwest, things have really changed for the GRP boys. Now I am not saying I don’t miss the land of hot dish, the Packers, “ho-dee-doh” and “you bet your bippy”, but the west has a slightly different flavor. Our first weekend of racing, west of the Rockies brought us to Ketchum, home of elk, bluebird skies, about 6 feet of beautiful, perfect, fluffy powder, the best burrito I have ever had and the Boulder Mountain Tour.

Sun Valley Sunshine

After arriving in Sun Valley, we went for the first ski of the year consisting of entirely natural snow. What a nice change! Skiing for 10, 20, 30+ Km without crossing your tracks of making a loop was pretty sweet! The snow was basically perfect everyday, as was the weather, consistently 30 degrees and bluebird, EVERY-SINGLE-DAY.

A taste of that western climate and trails

For those of you in the east unfamiliar with phenomenon, we occasionally will experience this in March or April for a few awesome days. Out here the Sun Gods have really been following us and it is NICE. But as a die-hard easterner, I still maintain that I would definitly, eventually, most-likely get sick of perfect weather every day, at least I think that I would….

Immediately after the sprint in Moscow we had to race back to the hotel, shower, pack, eat dinner and then we climbed on a bus with the Norwegian team to drove to Rybinsk, Russia.  We didn’t leave until after 8pm and I had heard rumors that it was going to be an eight hour drive  but I hoped this wasn’t true.  The traffic was horrendous and it took a couple hours just to get out of Moscow.  For about an hour we were leap frogging with an ambulance who was stuck a couple lanes over.  Hopefully whoever was in it wasn’t too seriously injured.  When we finally got out of the city limits, the quality of the roads deteriorated quickly and those of us in the back of the bus were getting launched out of our seats.  The bathroom on the bus was out of commission and so we would periodically stop and the entire bus would get out and take a pee break together on the side of the road.  I was able to sleep a bit but woke up at one point and looked out the window to see the bus driver and two other guys peering over a map that was laid out on the hood of a random car.  We promptly made a U-turn once we were started moving again and the Russian travel adventures continued.  We finally mad it to our cabin at 4am and a bed has never felt any sweeter.

The next morning we woke up and bundled heavily for the walk to breakfast.  Brrrr….. it was even colder here than in Moscow.  Breakfast was an experience in itself.  The buffet included two kinds of rice pudding, hot dogs, baked cottage cheese, pickled fish and vegetables, gum drops, cheese cubes, strawberry and kiwi yogurt that tasted more like pudding, dried fruit infused with neon dye, white bread, raisin sauce, and some other interesting items.  It was quite the spread!

Rybinsk itself was on a river and it was really pretty but too cold to spend much time outside.  The temperatures were getting as low as -27 or -28C  at night and barely warming up during the day.  It warmed up just enough on the race days to peak above the legal limit of -20C but with the windchill it was definitely below that.  Saturday was a 10/15km mass start and Sunday was a 15km skiathlon.  I was only racing the skiathlon on Sunday which turned out to be the warmer day of the weekend.  It was all relative though and I still had to wear a lot of wool layers under my suit to stay warm.

Skiathlons (7.5km classic then exchange your skis and poles for skate equipment and race 7.5km skate) are not very common in the US so I was excited to get the chance to do one.  It was a very competitive field and I was seeded 51 out of 53 which meant I had a lot of room for improvement but not much room to move down.  Like every other mass start race on the World Cup, the top women went for it from the gun and the pace was fast.  Crazy fast!  Being at the back made for a lot of yo-yoing and I found myself sprinting and then stopping as the pack compressed on transitions and then spread out again.  It was quite a ride and I was trying to hang on. The course was a 2.5km lap which we would be d0ing six times.  When I came through the lap the first time the coaches were holding a feed of warm Gatorade.  Normally after having been taught well at Dartmouth, I wouldn’t take a feed in a 15km but the coaches had suggested it for this race in the cold.  Plus it looked so good in front of me so I gulped the sweet drink down.  Big mistake I found out very quickly as my stomach cramped and I forced myself to continue skiing and not lose too much contact.  This was looking to be a long race!  But then towards the end of the classic leg my stomach started feeling better and my body was also warming up to the race.  I started catching ladies that had started a bit too fast.  Normally I would be the on dying, especially skating at the end of a long race but this was really fun!  I continued to feel better and better and by my last lap I felt great so it was a nice way to finish the race.   I crossed the line in 37th which had beat my bib number and tied my best World Cup distance race so I was psyched!  Being able to put on my down coat and sip some warm sweet tea was also a really nice feeling.

The next morning we were bused to Yaroslavl where we flew on a charter flight back to Munich.  Yaroslavl is the airport where the plane crashed last summer on take off and an entire Russian hockey team was killed.  I found out right before our flight that we would be the first non-military flight to take off at that airport since that tragedy so we were all a little nervous as we taxied on the very snowy runway.  It didn’t help when the captain used the intercom to inform everyone to return to their assigned seats even though the plane was quite empty as the plane had been balanced specifically for a safe takeoff.  We held hands has the plane picked up speed and then raised into the air.  It was a successful takeoff though, and we were soon cruising high above snowy Russia en route to more familiar lands.

A map of Western Russia to locate Rybinsk. After the long and twisty bus ride I was a bit confused as to where I was.

A chilly morning in Rybinsk

Our service team did a great job preparing fast skis despite the cold, squeaky snow

Jessie, Sadie, Holly, and I in front of our warm and cozy cabin.

A big stadium was necessary for the mass start races and exchange zone

Lots of people came out for the races despite the chilly temperatures. There were campfires trail side helping the spectators stay warm and I even saw one Russian warming a bottle of vodka over the open flame in good to help ease the chill. There was also a market behind the stadium with little shops, hot food, and even reindeer rides.

We were not quite as hearty as the Russian fans and chose to stay inside and watch the men's on TV before our own race.

Finish!

A chilly but happy women's team

I’m finally starting to feel comfortable on the World Cup.  Each weekend of course still brings new venues, twists, adventures, curve balls, mistakes, stories, and all the other surprises that makes this lifestyle fun and exciting, but I have found a sense of place on the road and developed a vague idea of what might come next.  But Moscow?  Russia?  Ummm…. this one really through me for a loop and I had no idea what to expect.  So like any knowledgeable college student, I did some last minute cramming with a quick Wikipedia search, learned a few fun facts about the city, and made a quick mental list of sights to visit over the next couple days.  Then I boarded our flight from Munich and landed in the Russian capitol three hours later.

Welcome to Russia. Luckily we had a shuttle bus waiting to transport our team and the Australian team to our hotels. We walked outside and were blasted with a wall of freezing cold air and cigarette smoke.

The beginning of the drive was not too scenic. While wee slowly inched a long through the traffic, the pollution effects of being Europe's most populous city with over 11 million inhabitants was clearly visible.

High rise apartment buildings in various states of derelict were the norm.

Juxtaposed against the communist remains were more classic examples of Russian architecture.

Just when we thought we were in the Russian ghetto driving through a maze of blown out looking buildings, there would be a church or another building like this one giving a reminder to the long and colorful history of Mother Russia.

Moscow leads the world with the most billionaires but the inequalities of wealth were quite visible. Luxury car dealerships sat next to flea markets. Bright lights and new sky scrapers were being constructed next to buildings like this.

Finally over two hours later, after passing countless flower shops (seems to be a popular item even in the dead of winter), and after the novelty of the game "guess what that sign says" wore off, we arrived at our hotel. Mikey Sinnott described it well as Vegas in Fairbanks. The Hotel Korston had a casino, night club, strip club, bars, restaurants (including one shaped as a boat and in the middle of a pool with fish), a shop selling jewelry, Russian nesting dolls, fur, and small appliances, a casino, and metal detectors at all the outside doors.

This was the view out our hotel window so I was very excited to explore the city the next morning.

Unfortunately the next day brought sub zero foggy, smoggy, freezing weather.

The stadium where we would be racing as well as some of Moscow's skyline was still somewhat visible.

With temperatures hovering around -10F, we really bundled for a exploration jog around the city.

I was amazed with the number of people that were outside in the cold temperatures. Fur and heels were the fashion of choice but I chose my Ibex woolies and breathing mask instead.

I really wanted to see the Red Square and St. Basil's Cathedral among other famous city landmarks but the Russian subway was quite confusing. I needed Pepa to help me translate the signs like this one. We didn't have a lot of time and nobody was feeling particularly adventurous so we skipped the Moscow subway for this trip. Two days, with one and half of them devoted to ski racing was not enough time to see all of Moscow.

After lunch we boarded the shuttle to the venue and got stuck in a few more traffic jams. It took 20-50 minutes to drive to the venue depending on the time of day and how many times the bus driver got lost. We later realized that it was a 10 minute walk so if you were brave enough to weather the cold windy weather that was a much better option.

The race course was in a park next to the Luzhniki Stadium infamous for the Luzhniki Disaster where 66 people were trampled at the end of a soccer match.

Like the previous two city sprints which I've raced, this one was also very flat. There were two short steep bumps constructed but otherwise the course lacked undulation. It was almost 1500 meters for women and men and with the cold slow snow, it was shaping up to be a longer sprint course than normal. I had fun skiing around it with the team though on Wednesday's course preview and did a few faster laps to get an idea of the pacing.

Later this winter there is going to be an alpine World Cup slalom in this park and they are in the process of constructing a mountain out of scaffolding for the event.

I was wishing that we could climb part of this mountain to add some uphill into the course.

Looking down at the stadium from the scaffolding mountain

The temperatures were below the legal limit of -4F on the training day so we did a lot of bundling but luckily they were forecasted to be a few degrees warmer on race day.

The crowds of spectators were smaller than normal at city sprints, likely due to the bitter cold but the stadium was still busy and exciting on race morning with all the athletes, techs, and coaches warming up.

I had struggled in city sprints this year so I didn't have a lot of confidence going into the qualifier but I was still hoping to crack the top 30 on a good day. I focused on pacing the long course well and skiing smoothly and was excited to finish 26th, my best qualifying result yet. Jessie Diggins surprised us all by winning the qualifier and with Kikkan in 7th we were really excited to have 3 American women in the heats.

I was in the third quarterfinal. Jessie and Kikkan were in the first and second heats and both advanced to the semifinals. It was exciting to watch them ski so well and so I was fired up while waiting to start my heat. Justyna Kowalczyk was in my heat so I guessed it was going to be fast. My plan was to ski controlled and toward the front and go for it in the finishing lanes.

I skied in 4th for most of the race but was able to move up at the end and crossed the line in 3rd very close behind 2nd place. I was really pleased with this result and even more excited when one of the coaches told me I was likely going to be a lucky loser and advance to the semis. With only two heats to go, mine was the fastest by far. I ran around nervously for a few minutes until I heard the confirmation that I had made the semifinals!

Jessie, Kikkan, and I were all in the first semifinal. I was in the outside lane so I jumped in behind Jessie while Kikkan skied up the outside. I would have loved to get a picture of us as the Americans led the heat and skied in first, second, and third! It was awesome! A Russian tried to cut in on one corner but I gave her an elbow and held my position. I was in the draft and it felt very relaxed. Climbing over the final bridge, I got a little tangled and lost momentum. I tried to get going again. My legs were feeling much less snappy and as the pace quickened I faded to the back of our heat. Jessie won the heat and advanced to the finals so the excitement continued.

I finished 12th for the day which I was a personal best result for me so I was incredibly happy. Sharing the day with very fast teammates made it even better. Jessie finished 6th and Kikkan was 7th. Three US women was a huge day for the team! A big thanks to the coaches and techs! Even the freezing cold was feeling borderline pleasant as we cooled down and packed to leave Moscow.

For the last week, I’ve been in Slovakia for the U-26 european championships.  I had no idea what to expect of Slovakia, but it turned out to be a pretty cool place.  I also didn’t really know what to expect of the racing, and I was feeling pretty apprehensive about the shooting, but that also turned out to be a good experience.

When we drove to Slovakia, it was dark out and we got lost and I had no idea what sort of place we were in, besides the fact that there was a lot of snow and the hotel seemed nice.

The next morning we woke up to bright blue skies, and it was quite hilly–mountainous even.  If the alps remind me more of the mountains in the western U.S., the mountains of our part of Slovakia were actually a lot more like the mountains of Vermont or New Hampshire.  There were lots of little villages tucked into narrow valleys with steep hardwood hillsides on either side, and bigger whiter-looking mountains in the distance.  One difference from Vermont is that all the hillsides in Slovakia have the patchy look of clear-cut logging  in every stage of regrowth.  They also tend to look a bit hazy–the air quality was “clearly” not that good.  I think it must be a combination of lots of wood-smoke from homes, as well as whatever was coming from the big smokestacks at the factories in the bigger towns.  The houses were a colorful combination of wood and brightly painted concrete or stucco.

The roads are narrow, and when they go through towns they’re especially narrow.  The venue was about half an hour’s drive from our hotel, and at least half of that was on a narrow back road that was covered in a bumpy, rutted layer of solid ice that made driving interesting.  The venue was at the end of the road up a valley  lined with little villages.  The town of Osrblie seems to have very little besides some houses and a biathlon venue.  But the venue was great–a world-cup level course and range, which meant that there were some BIG hills out there, but the skiing was awesome.

The night before the first races, there was an opening ceremonies in the nearby city, with an athlete parade.

There was also a full band that played outside in the -15 C weather. And there were speeches in Slovakian and some awesome fireworks!

I had three races– a 7.5 k sprint, a 10 k pursuit, and a 15 k individual.  I went into the sprint race feeling nervous, mostly because I had had a run of races with really bad shooting.  I knew that I couldn’t afford to shoot badly in this field.  But most of all, I knew that it would be way more fun if I shot better.  The course had two really steep big hills on it, and but then at least a kilometer t of easier terrain coming into the range.  This was good for me–I could take it a little easier into the range without losing too much time.  I tried to think about that, and just focus on taking good shots and I ended up with 3 misses.  3/10 isn’t that good for this level of biathlon, but for me it was a big improvement!

Local craftspeople and vendors peddled their goods at a little outdoor market at the venue. There were also some really cool singing and dancing performances in traditional Slovakia garb, though I couldn't take any pictures because they were always happening right before the races to keep the crowd entertained.

The next day in the pursuit I was feeling just a bit more confident, but not much.  But when I came in to the first shooting, I missed 4 out of 5!  As I was skiing away afterwards, I glanced at the wind flags–and immediately felt very stupid.  I had zeroed for no wind–that meant that if there was wind when I came in to the range, I had to take corrections on my sights.  Checking the wind flags as you ski in the the range is a very important part of biathlon.  And I had totally forgotten to do it.  Sure enough, all my shots had been blown to the right, because I hadn’t corrected for the wind.  I felt stupid, but I also felt a little relieved–at least there was hope that I would hit more on the next shooting!  Meanwhile, I had lost about 10 spots during my 4 laps around the penalty loop.  At the next shooting, I took corrections and then hit all my targets!  Skiing right by the penalty loop is a pretty awesome feeling.  Now I was working my way back up through the girls who had passed me before.  It was fun to be able to pass people and have people to ski with.  In the end, I worked my way up to 33rd, the same spot that I started in.

The course was on a big open hillside overlooking the town of Osrblie. We had beautiful sunny, cold weather all week.

Despite having 7 misses total, the pursuit  had given me confidence in my shooting ability–I had been able to take control of the situation and recover after missing 4/5.  I knew that I still had a lot to learn about shooting, but I went into the individual race feeling confident that I could hit most of the targets. And sure enough, I hit 4 out of 20!  Once again, that wasn’t all that great for the field, but for me it was awesome!  And it was good enough for 26th place.  I was psyched!  I was exhausted from the big hills, but I wanted to keep doing more races, because I felt like I was feeling more and more comfortable in each race.  Biathlon is fun!

The U.S. cheering squad up on top of one of the big hills.

Mark Johnson cheers on Casey Smith as he races to 15th in the Junior pursuit.