The Victorian Crew at Royal Gorge
The Victorian Junior Squad sent a team of eight athletes to Royal Gorge this summer under the guidance of coaches J-C Legras and Ronice Goebel. Australian Junior Team members Aislinn Kildea and Robert Jones supplied this report for the XC Files in mid-January.
Flights are fun aren't they? Yes there is nothing like flying 15 hours to America on a plane packed full of people, then waiting in Los Angeles for 8 hours before another flight to Reno, and then arrived at the terminal to see the Nevada tradition of pokies in the airport. But it was all worth it to see the Hollywood sign out side of our plane windows when we were landing in LA. When we landed we were picked up by our fantastic coach's sister and her husband Joe, who luckily had a massive truck which easily fit all of our skis and all our bags. After being picked up we went back to JC's sisters place about 35 miles south in Carson City. We spent 3 nights in Carson City to get used to the altitude, experiencing there the great traditions of America such as Starbucks and their traditional meal of Mexican food. When in Carson City we started our training with morning runs and a hike in the near-by hills in the desert, which was kind of surreal with snow all around.
After 3 days in Carson City it was time to get on snow. The drive up to Royal Gorge was interesting and very scenic with JC's sister Michelle wanting to take the scenic route, thus adding several hours to the journey, all for the better though. When we started to get closer to a destination the snow started to fall, and once we arrived, there were a few inches fresh that had already fallen. The next morning we were all excited for the morning run… not, but we pressed on, although the pain. The first days skiing left good impressions with nice sunny cold days.
THE TRAINING HAD BEGUN!
Only a few days later was our first race, a 5km night race, affectionately known as a sprint. I mean, 5km is NOT a sprint… but oh well. We all got dressed up… well Paul [Paul Kovacs] did… by wearing his dads old "onesie" and the Australian flag as his super-hero cape. We all seemed to race well considering we had only a few days on snow, with little fitness training and still the excess weight put on by the Christmas binge, let alone half the team being sick. Our best result was Robert coming 6th behind the genetic mutants, as JC had put it, with JC only a few seconds behind, and Paul in 9th.
The next day it snowed, and did not stop until 10 feet later. We all thought that it would be fun, but then the power went out. And then it was far from fun. We couldn't ski, we couldn't cook, and we couldn't go to Truckee so we COULD NOT have fun. When the snow stopped it was back into the training, mostly classic as the trails were so soft. We trained for a while, had the usual types of training, you know all the fun stuff such as LSD, technique, intervals and pick ups.
The next race was a high school race a week later. This was the equivalent of out state Interschools. They really take there Interschools seriously. All the teams had all fancy suits, with coaches making loud noises. The races were a 4.5km skate on a reasonably flat course. With the Californian interschool rules we had to start 2 or 3 minutes behind everyone because of crappy liability laws. So all of us spent the race overtaking kids in snazzy race suits on a chopped up course. With much carnage at the bottom corner. We never found out our results because our results were never posted with the rest of the races.
And then back to fun fun training, seriously, it is fun, sorry that it might sound sarcastic, but it really is fun!
A few of us got to train with the local ski club's competition team, who ski at a high standard. This was a good experience to see how other people train and to look at different techniques. After this day we were starting to die, so we had a few rest days to try and recuperate. This plan didn't really work as well as we wanted as the first day back training Robert pinched a nerve in his shoulder and Immy [Imogen Blanche] fell down some stairs. Both required a trip to the hospital, some super heavy pain killers and in Robert's case a sling to support his shoulder, making everyone think that the JC had been beating us all up.
Our third race was another night race at Tahoe Donner, but skate this time. We had some pretty good results with Blair Hume in 2nd and P.K .7 of a second behind in 3rd. Robert had to sit this race out because of his shoulder injury. But it was a very enjoyable race.
Well that's the trip so far. Our accommodation is really comfortable and Royal Gorge being very inviting with the staff, which includes five Australians including Jules and Blair from our beloved Windy Corner at Falls Creek. The trails at Royal Gorge are amazing with not many people, perfect views and really good weather. There's only a week left in this country with a few big races coming up. Hopefully we will get some good results, even without our pride and joy Robert who may be ruled out of the races with a bunged up shoulder.
Robert Jones and Aislinn Kildea