Nordic Nation – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode, we talk with Alayna Sonnesyn (SMS T2), who is coming off of her fourth consecutive victory at the American Birkebeiner in Hayward, Wisconsin. But the path between these victories, especially over the last two seasons, has not been smooth or direct. 

Alayna has had standout results on the SuperTour, but that has not directly translated into consistent results on the World Cup, leaving her navigating the tricky waters of being what is often dubbed a “bubble athlete”. Last season, her reach goal was to make the Beijing Olympic Team, which would require putting all of her eggs into whichever race-pathway-basket was most likely to get her there. Ultimately, she was not named to the team, and a positive COVID test shortly thereafter rubbed salt in the wound. She also ended the season one FIS point shy of making the objective criteria for National Team selection in 2022.
 

Alayna has been open about all of these setbacks both on social media and her blog - in particular, how difficult they can be to process in the moment. However, on paper, she has translated this journey into a career-best season. She’s cracked into the heats of two World Cup freestyle sprints, finished 26th in a 20k skate in Davos, and clocked the 5th fastest time of day in the same event during Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, GER. She even beat SMS T2 teammate Jessie Diggins on a downhill segment.  

Alayna talks through these experiences, where she’s at now, and of course, the Birkie during this episode. We also chat about her new podcast project, Extra Blue – which is well worth a listen – and who her dream guest and conversation would be. The answer is surprising.

Just a heads up – we did have a few connection issues which caused a few audio bumps. Thanks for listening!

In this episode, we chat with Hailey Swirbul, who took an alternate path to the World Cup this season, prioritizing her own mental health and aiming to rediscover her love for cross-country skiing along the way. Listen in to hear her discuss the challenges she's faced in transitioning into a professional athlete, along with how the Olympic experience contrasted the Olympic fantasy. She also discusses difference in summer training this year, highlights from domestic racing in period one and two, including a sweep of US Nationals in Houghton, and more. Thanks for listening. 

In this episode, we’ve got Chad Salmela and Kikkan Randall on to discuss the experience of calling the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games, live from a booth in Stamford, CT. The duo worked as cross country analysts, alongside long-time NBC play-by-play announcer Steve Schlanger. While Chad is a veteran in the role, this was Kikkan’s first Olympics inside the booth. 

During this conversation, Kikkan and Chad field a variety of questions on their experience – everything from staying fresh while calling races in the middle of the night for two weeks straight, to maintaining professional composure while watching your former teammates and long-time friends win Olympic medals - or come up short - and even, why are you suddenly pronouncing the Norwegian distance champion’s name “You-haug”? 

Full of insights and laughs, this conversation was a treat, and it’s clear that both Chad and Kikkan are deeply invested in growing and serving the cross country ski community in the US.

Thanks for listening, and thanks to this week’s podcast sponsors Boulder Nordic Sport and New Moon Ski & Bike. 

Back in the spring of 2013, NCAA champion Joanne Reid was at the proverbial fork in the road: pursue academics after graduating with an Applied Mathematics degree from the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU) or compete as an elite-level nordic skier? Reid was coming off a collegiate season where she won the 15-kilometer freestyle and helped the CU Buffs win outright at NCAA Skiing Championships.

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Joanne Reid celebrates her win in the 15 k freestyle at 2013 NCAA Skiing Championships at the Rikert Nordic Center in Ripton, Vt. (Photo: flyingpointroad.com)

It turns out, Reid, who turns 25 on Wednesday, is near completion for a master’s in engineering. And as it turns out, she also pursued skiing as a biathlete at the highest level.

Last season was Reid’s first shot at a full World Cup biathlon schedule. And on the first World Cup weekend, she placed 29th in the individual 15 k individual in Östersund, Sweden, helping her earn an US Biathlon A-team nomination for this season.

In this episode, we’ll hear Reid explain why she chose biathlon over straight-up cross-country skiing (one hint: there’s no kick wax), and why she’s willing to forgo the doctorate for the time being. Reid appears to be a mover and shaker: when not based at the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center, this desert lover doesn’t shy away from high temps, cacti or sweeping sandstone vistas. For the time being, Reid, who grew up in Houghton, Mich., and Palo Alto, Calif., lives and trains in western Colorado’s mesa country. From the sound of it, she says the desert is set up quite nicely for target practice.

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US Biathlon A-team member Joanne Reid during target practice — desert style — in western Colorado. (Courtesy photo)

And a heads up for those listening on headphones, due to a small technical error the audio sounds best on a speaker.

(To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.)

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Reid and one of her three canine training partners. Reid will spend much of the summer training in western Colorado. (Courtesy photo)

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Reid getting some air with her guitar. (Courtesy photo)

Have a podcast idea? Please email nordicnation@fasterskier.com.

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This Nordic Nation episode has some old and new content. From the start until just after 33 minutes in, our interview with Kris Freeman, of Team Freebird and Ski & Snowboard Club Vail, was conducted last August. The after part, from 33 minutes on — that’s all new. It’s from an interview with Freeman last Wednesday, June 14.

Here’s what we wrote about Freeman when we originally posted his audio interview:

“Few athletes remain at the top end of endurance for five years, let alone a single decade. New Hampshire native Kris Freeman, at 36, has been chasing fast times and fast skiers around cross-country ski loops for 16 years as a professional.

For much of that time, Freeman was a staple on the men’s US Ski Team (USST). He posted the best results for a US skier in over two decades when he was fourth twice, in 2003 and 2009, at World Championships. (Both results were in the 15 k classic.)

Type 1 Diabetes is not something one associates with four-time Olympians. Yet Freeman has dispelled the physiological odds of a diabetes diagnosis at the age of 20. Flagged for blood sugar anomalies as a U.S. Ski Team Development skier during a routine blood test, Freeman and his tight-knit cadre of coaches and endocrinologists have been managing his disease ever since.”

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Kris Freeman (Team Freebird) out on course during the men’s SuperTour 10 k classic individual start in February 2016 in Craftsbuty, Vermont. (Photo: John Lazenby/Lazenbyphoto.com)

None of that has changed. At the end of this May, Freemen penned an op-ed for FasterSkier, in which he expressed his thoughts about the USST team-nomination process. In addition, since the 2017/2018 USST national-team announcement, U.S. Cross-Country Ski Team’s Head Coach Chris Grover spoke to FasterSkier and later wrote a blog post about this year’s nominations. The U.S. Ski & Snowboard Association also recently published its selection criteria for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

Always a straight talker, our new interview with Freeman gets his take on the Olympic selection criteria and the response he received for his op-ed.

(To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.)

Have a podcast idea? Please email nordicnation@fasterskier.com.

 

 

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Nordic Nation heads north and more than a few time zones away for this episode. On May 22, we spoke with Swedish ski star Charlotte Kalla. The five-time Olympic medalist will turn 30 on July 22. She remains a motivated athlete willing to work hard to improve as she turns an eye toward the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.

Her resume is long. In what seems like a different era, 2006 and 2007, Kalla hauled in a bronze, a silver and three golds during her two appearances at Junior World Championships. And more than a decade ago, in 2006, Kalla began her World Cup career. Between 2009 and 2017, she’s earned 12 World Championship medals to go along with those five Olympic medals. It’s quite the curriculum vitae.

Kalla’s performances also trend towards the dramatic. She bested the field to win the 10-kilometer skate at 2015 World Championships at home in Falun, Sweden and came from behind as the anchor leg at the 2014 Sochi Games to secure an unlikely gold for Sweden. During an era when the Norwegian national team has remained a consistent podium lock, Kalla is an omnipresent spoiler for Sweden’s neighbor to the west. Think of her as a 10 k skate specialist? She earned two bronze medals this year in the 10 k classic and 15 k skiathlon at 2017 World Championships in Lahti, Finland. 

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Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla racing to a third in the women’s 10-kilometer freestyle race at last season’s World Cup in Ulricehamn, Sweden. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

Give the interview a listen and you’ll hear Kalla describe those races, her decision to train separate from the Swedish national team, and recovering from an uneasy start to the 2016/2017 season. Additionally, she talks about how male and female athletes are treated differently at the highest level of her sport, and her admiration for the Norwegian and U.S. women’s teams.

“I think it’s really fun to see and meet the American girls and think of what a journey they have been going through,” Kalla says. “It’s so amazing to see what position they have today in the women’s World Cup. [They have] so many good athletes and really nice attitude and very welcoming to other nations, and the way they develop sports, it’s really impressive.”

(To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.)

Have a podcast idea? Please email nordicnation@fasterskier.com.

 

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BEND, Ore. — At 35 years old, U.S. Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey is the consummate veteran: he’s been racing on the World Cup since 2002. And this past winter on one day in mid-February, Bailey was perfect. On Feb. 16, he won the 20-kilometer individual race at the 2017 International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Championships Hochfilzen, Austria.

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Lowell Bailey celebrates after crossing the line to win gold in the 20 k individual at IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: Glen Crawford)

Ten days ago, FasterSkier sat down with Bailey in Bend. The US Biathlon team was in town for an on-snow camp up at Mt. Bachelor. Bailey, of Lake Placid, N.Y., is a biathlon lifer,  a husband and a dad. He plans on racing one more season through the 2018 Winter Olympics and them moving with his family to Bozeman, Mont.

And yeah, if you heard rumors of Bailey pursuing a career as a bison rancher, you’ll hear Bailey set the record straight when it comes to his post-World Cup career. 

Bailey = renaissance man.

He’s clearly a world’s best biathlete. He’s also a musician. As a bit of a bonus, Bailey allowed us to include one of his songs in the podcast titled Shores of Horicon. Here are Bailey’s notes on the song and the album.

“It’s the title track of my solo album, ‘Songs of Logging’ (2005),” Bailey wrote. “This album was a historical theme album dealing with the history of logging/forestry in the Adirondack Park region of upstate NY.  This particular song deals with the history revolving around the Battle of Lake George during the French and Indian War (1755).  In that battle, Sir William Johnson, fighting on behalf of the British, fought in alliance with more than 200 Mohawk warriors led by Chief Hendrick Thianoga (various spellings).  Hendrick died in what was one of the bloodiest battles of the war. William Johnson was one of the first landholders in the region and one of the first white settlers to become friendly with members of the Iroquois people.”

Listen to more of Bailey’s music here.

(To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.)

Have a podcast idea? Please email nordicnation@fasterskier.com.

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May 1 marks the symbolic start of the annual training cycle for many year-round nordic skiers. With that in mind, we recently spoke with Stephen Seiler. A Texas native, Seiler, 51, is a professor of sports science at the University of Adger in Kristiansand, Norway.

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Stephen Seiler, a professor at the University of Adger in Kristiansand, Norway, specializes in exercise science. (Photo: uia.no)

Seiler has researched, written and spoken extensively about physiological adaptations as it relates to endurance athletes. Seiler’s mantra — the 80/20 Rule — the easy to hard intensity ratio when it comes to training sessions, has been well publicized. Seiler believes easy days should be truly easy, meaning walking the hills may be mandatory. If the easy days are easy, then the hard days are hard. He espouses a fidelity to training models with little, if any, in-between efforts; that means no middle-of-the-road intensity. And his observations come straight from Norway.

“… They know what gets you on the podium,” he said of the Norwegians’ tried-and-tested training principles. “And they know that there are no shortcuts. They don’t fall for the latest trend, the latest trick because they know how you get there. The magic is there is no magic in Norway.”

But we’ll let Seiler speak for himself.

Here’s a link to the video referenced several times in the podcast.

(To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.)

Have a podcast idea? Please email nordicnation@fasterskier.com.

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We are nearing the end of the Winter Olympic quadrennial as we run up to the 2018 Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. With that marquee event on the horizon, a few things are certain: athletes will attempt to peak for specific events, nordic sports will garner more mainstream media coverage and funding for national teams will get a bit more scrutiny. With that in mind, in this podcast episode, we have Canada’s Tom Hall as a guest. If you’re into elite canoe and kayak, Hall may be a familiar name: he’s a 2008 bronze medalist from the Beijing Olympics in sprint canoeing and represented Canada internationally for twenty years — he retired from competitive sports in 2012. Today, Hall is a journalist and editor as well as the interim executive director for for a Canadian athlete advocacy organization called AthletesCAN.

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Tom Hall is a journalist/editor and Interim Executive Director of AthletesCAN. Hall earned a bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games in canoe sprinting. (Photo: Greg Redman)

Hall’s work has been featured in a Canadian publication called The Walrus. What caught our attention here at FasterSkier was an article Hall penned about Canada’s sports funding program Own The Podium, titled ‘The Wrong Track’. It’s a good read and poses the basic question about how taxpayer money should be spent when it comes to sport. Whatever side of the issue you come down on, Hall’s points are food for thought.

Here’s a breakdown from Own The Podium (OTP), (Link to the full OTP Winter Historical Comparison) that reflects a winter historical comparison of OTP funding for cross-country skiing during the last three Olympic quadrennials.

Sport Vancouver Quadrennial Sochi Quadrennial PyeongChang Quadrennial (amount for first 3 years of quad) Cross-Country Skiing $4,714,855 $5,066,890 $2,355,500

 

(To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.)

Have a podcast idea? Please email nordicnation@fasterskier.com.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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In this episode of Nordic Nation, we feature U.S. Ski Team physician Dr. Larry Gaul. We caught up with Gaul back in late January while he was in Utah for U23/Junior World Championships.

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U.S. Ski Team Doctor Larry Gaul with Liz Stephen (l) and then-USSA Communications Director Margo Christiansen (r) at 2013 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Sarah Brunson/U.S. Ski Team)

Gaul has a long history working with the U.S. Ski Team’s cross-country athletes as the chief medical officer at the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Association (USSA). And on the international side of things, Gaul serves on the International Ski Federation’s (FIS) Medical Committee. It was part of his FIS duties that brought him to this year’s U23/Junior Worlds at Soldier Hollow near Midway, Utah, where he served as the FIS medical supervisor during the weeklong competition.

Listen up to hear about Gaul’s role with the U.S. team and FIS.

Here’s a link to the FIS Medical Guide

(To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.)

Have a podcast idea? Please email nordicnation@fasterskier.com.

 

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