 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dear All,
Today saw the running of the 5km/10km classic in very trying conditions.
After heavy rain for the previous two days, and the temperature hovering
around 0C - +1C, conditons were certainly wet and slow, with waxing
being
extremely difficult.
It is days like today, that you really appreciate someone like Alfred
(Freddy-
our Italian wax technician). He certainly had all conditions
covered and was
well prepared for even the slightest changes in air or snow temperature.
Another advantage was the small size of our team and the ability of
Alfred to
be able to focus on individual preferences, something which the larger
teams
with their team of perhaps 5-8 wax technicians would not have had the
luxury
to do. Interestingly a number of the teams (ie the Italian
and Austrian
women) raced on chemical skis and had much trouble getting grip.
Camille was a little more anxious this morning prior to her race.
She had not
had a good night's sleep and perhaps was dwelling on the race a little
too
much. Once she arrived at the waxhut we were informed that she
was to have a
hemoglobin test (ie a standard test for EPO doping) along with skiers
from
Japan, Canada, Belarus, and Hungary. It was decided that while
we went for
the blood test, Ben would assist Alfred in testing waxes, as he had
previously
decided not to race today. After a clear blood test, Camille
then had the
opportunity to prepare for her race.
Alfred decided to wax for grip out of the track on the uphills and for
no grip
on the flats and downhill, so Camille could double pole. As the
tracks were
so icy this was wise decision and we all feel worked very well
for Camille.
Camille's double pole looked very strong and she was one of the only
skiers to
remain in striding and not convert to herringbone up the steep hills.
In
terms of placings, Camille skied well to place 72/75 in a time of 16:16,
placing in front of US skier Tessa Benoit in a time of 16:42 and again
only 14
seconds off 71st place. A very solid performance. The winner
of the female's
race was the technically strong Bente Martinsen of Norway in a time
of 12:49,
followed by Olga Danilova of Russia in 13:02 and Katerina Neumannova
of Czech
in 13:07. The winner of the first women's race Stephania Belmondo
finished in
8th place in a time of 13:33, but we all feel this will put her in
a promising
position or tommorrow's pursuit start.
For the men's race the conditions deteriorated severely and we all came
back
to the pension for lunch and decided viewing on Eurosport was a much
wiser
move! Pete Moysey from NZ was the first skier to start, so conditions
would
have been hard going for him until he was passed, but he did manage
to get
quite a bit of TV time prior to his start. Phillip Boit from
Kenya also
received much TV coverage, more as a "novelty" which must be very wearing
on
him. The men's race was extremely exciting with the winner changing
many
times. Fortunately though the Aussie Favourite Mika Myllylae
of Finland
managed to pull out a big finish to win the gold in a time of 24:19,
followed
by an extremely excited Alois Stadlober of Austria in a time of 24:34,
and
then Norway's Odd-Bjorn Hjelmeset in a time of 24:37. And for
the Olympic
champion - a 5th place for Bjoern Daehlie in a time of 24:45, but the
Norwegians had certainly not got the wax 100% as many Norges were slipping
and
struggling up the steeper hills. The best placed Italian was
Fulvio Valbusa
in 10th place - but tommorrow we are hoping they can improve for the
pursuit.
Alessandro Vanoi, the Italian coach told us at the team captains meeting
this
afternoon that "the team had to improve, there was no other choice!"
We hope
for all their sakes that they can do it! A real success story
was the 27th
place achieved by Canadian Donald Farley - a great result for Canada
and
should have him sitting nicely for the pursuit. Hopefully he
can keep his
good form and come up with some bigger successes!
The other big news of the day was that we decided to move out of our
wax hut
after having to protect our skis, wax, running shoes, clothes etc from
one of
the Armenian coaches. We were less fortunate with our ski ties
and a ski hat
that ended up in his bag, but life was just becoming too difficult
when you
come in from testing skis and he is going through your wax box!
We have made
an official "can we please get another wax hut!" coment to the organisers,
but
will have to wait and see. The coach is unbelievable, he constantly
returns
to the wax hut with armfuls of equipment he has picked up from "somewhere"
-
we decided that although Armenian may not have much wax, we Australians
don't
have much wax either and while their supply was growing ours was quickly
dwindling!
Tommorrow Camile will not race - we all decided that she needs to rest
and
prepare for the 30km race on Saturday. But our hot predictions
for the race
are:
Mens: (not neccessarily in this order but top 4)
Mika Myllylae
Alois Stadlober
Bjorn Daehlie
Alexej Prokurorov
(But Ben thinks that Alsgaard (currently 14th) will do something......hmmm)
(Pip thinks that Alsgaard is ugly and can't do anything)
Womens: (a little less decisive!)
Bente Martinsen
Swetlana Nagejkina
Stephania Belmondo
Katerina Neumannova
Ben has been quite diligent in his bookeeping, ensuring we all place
bets
prior to each race.
Hopefully we are not just sleep deprived and may come up with some prediction
success! The weather promises to remain disgusting, but possibly
we are
heading for some sun (a far distance 3.5 week old memory!) perhaps
on
Thursday. Ahhhh, only 2 more days to wait...............(Tim
doesn't mind a
bit more snow before returning to too much sun).
Hope all is well in Australia - although no Aussies compete for a few
days we
will continue to get results to you.
Regards
Pip and Tim
Dear All,
Apologies for not getting a report to you sooner - this is the first
free
moment to actually sit down ad put some thoughts together. Hopefully
if you
were really anxious to know the results you would have looked on the
net. And
just on that note - the official FIS internet service (which
we assume has
results) is: www.sportresult.com/fis.
[Actually the world championship
site seems quickest for results]
Yesterday proved to be a very promising start for the Australian team
with Ben
Derrick competing in the 30km skate and Camille Melvey in the 15km
skate. The
snow persisted and made skiing slow for the morning men's race, with
temperatures climbing to the positives for the females race in the
arfternoon,
making the track somewhat faster. Fortunately our wax technician
had his
finger on the pulse and produced great skis, instilling confidence
in all and
proving that he really is a waxing guru.
Ben was the 6th starter in the 30km, and found course conditions incredibly
tough for the 1st 10km lap. He skied away from many of the other
skiers in
his group and did not have many opportunities to ski with any packs.
In fact
he only skied with a US and Russian skier once for a few metres over
the
entire course. From our 2 vantage points Ben skied incredibly
well - had good
tempo and strength on the uphills, used his techniques well and looked
well in
control of his race. We were able to provide 2 drink stations
and 2 splits
stations for each lap at vastly different parts of the track, and also
get a
good idea of how well he was skiing. In the overall placings
Ben finished a
very creditable 61st out of 78 finishers in a time of 1:27:32 and was
well in
front of skiers from Japan, Lithuania,Germany, Canada, Denmark, Belgium,
Korea, Macadonia, Greece, Hungary, Armania and of course New Zealand!
Overall, the winner of the mens 30km was the Aussie Favourite(after
BD of
course) Mika Myllylae from Finland in a time of 1:15:26, followed by
Thomas
Alsgaard in 1:16:01, Bjoern Daehlie in 1:16:08(both from Norway) and
then
Fulvio Valbusa from Italy in 1:16:35.
The womens 15km race began at 1pm and involved a 10km lap followed by
a 5km
lap. Camille was 18th to start and skied with the skiers around
her including
Nina Kempell from the USA. Again skis were running extremely
fast and Camille
skied with a strong and powerful technique, and was particularly impressive
on
the uphills and the technical downhills. One point Camille made
was that she
felt she needed to be able to produce more speed (ie turn her legs
over
quicker) as she said at times she as struggling to keep up with her
skis (they
were that fast!). But a good start, with a placing of 57th/59
in a time of
49:11, but only 3 seconds behind Canadian Nancy Dassie, 15 sec off
place no.
55 and less than 30 seconds behind 54th place of Jennifer Douglas of
the USA
and 53rd place of Beckie Scott of Canada. So close! But
certainly such close
results should boost her confidence and help her now focus on the upcoming
races.
Unfortunately the pace of the womens race was incredible, with Italy's
Stephania Belmondo winning in a time of 38:49, followed by Estonia's
Kristina
Smigun in 39:19 and Austria's Maria Theurl in 39:43 (a great result
for
Austria). The results are indicative of the type of course it
was - big
climbs which suited the slighter girls who had explosive tempos raher
than
girls who have more pure strength.
The interesting conclusion we all came to was the winners of yesterday,
Mika
and Stephania were both in camp with the Aussies prior to the World
Championships, so we wouldn't be surprised if Australia is invited
to some
more pre worlds training camps in the future as we all obviously had
a very
positive effect on the Finns and Italians!!!! From now on named
"The Aussie
Effect".
Today is a recovery day - Alfred is back in the wax hut, which is probably
a
good place to be considering it began raining (yep hard to believe)
last night
and has continued into today. We have lost probably about 10cm
or more of
snow, but there really is so much that is hasn't had any effect.
Hopefully
one day we will get some sunshine and be able to see the Dachstein
mountains
which have only revealed themselves once for a very short period of
time.
Oh and the opening ceremony was very spectacular - Camille did a fantastic
job
carrying the flag, even managed to get on Eurosport a few times!
She now has
celebrity status! The Viennesse Boys Choir was incredible, there
was dancing,
fire works, light shows, singing and all the athletes were presented
with a
bunch of snow roses (a nice touch!) and it as all over in an hour so
we were
back to our accomodation in time for dinner.
The next race is on Monday - the 5km and 10km classic, followed by the
10km
and 15km skate pursuit the following day. We will get an update
to you ASAP,
but please check the website if you can't wait for us!
Regards
Pip and Tim
Dear All,
Tonight welcomes the beginning of the Nordic World Championships in
Ramsau
Austria with the opening ceremony which promises to quote: "magically
transform Ramsau into a fairy tale land." (unquote) We hope it lives
up to all
it promises to be and we also hope we are able to see some of it through
the
raging blizzard we have been experiencing here for the last 3 days!
Camille
will carry the Australian flag for the opening, while Ben will have
this
honour for the closing ceremony. Works out very well when you
only have 2
athletes!
The weather in Ramsau has been less than promising over the last few
days. We
have once again experienced excessive snowstorms (as has all of Europe)
and
this has made skiing relatively difficult. The organising committee
are
working extremely hard to have track conditions perfect and we don't
envy
their roles. They are certainly all doing an exceptional job
under such
trying conditions. We receive weather forecasts 3 times a day
and so far they
are forecasting snow showers and some rain until Friday night - a bit
unfortunate when the 15/30km skate races are on Friday morning.
But as we
all know - you have to expect wintery weather when doing a winter sport!!!!!
The temperature tomorrow morning is forecast to be around -2C for Ben's
race
and to warm up to +1C for Camille's. Perhaps an advantage for
the Aussies -
warmer weather and a bit of rain!
We have secured an exceptional wax technician thanks to the help and
negotiating skills of Bob Cranage. He is Alfred Stauder, an Italian
who was
the wax technician for Stephanio Belmondo (Italy's No 1 skier) for
the past 3
years before family commitments became too great. He is very
professional,
helpful and friendly and has assured Ben and Camille of the fastest
skis he
can make. It is great to have this support and to release some
pressure (of
the waxing variety) from Tim and Pip. He knows his waxing very
well and we
are all happy to stand back, watch and learn.
Camille and Ben are both in very good form - they are healthy, eating
well,
recovering well and skiing well. Recent blood tests reveal they
are both in
great shape and are controlling their nerves well. Ben is quite
relaxed,
Camille a little more nervous, but both have it well under control
and
hopefully they can keep these psychological states going into the race
tomorrow. We think the camp in Italy has helped in boosting a
positive
psychological state - the Italian team and Myka Mullahae have been
openly
friendly to us all and it picks up everyones' self esteem. We
are staying
with the Korean team (their coach is the coach that was in Jindabyne
with a
Korean team last year) and Pete Moysey from NZ and Phillip Boit from
Kenya are
apparently staying here too, although they are yet to arrive.
We are a little
out of the centre of town and our accomodation and hosts are wonderful
and
very helpful, so we feel we are very fortunate.
Tomorrow Ben races at 9:30am and Camille at 1:00pm, so as soon as we
have
returned from the race area we will get a report to you to let you
know of the
successes.
Regards
Pip and Tim
XC is the official website of the Skiing Australia Cross Country Committee. It is produced with the assistance of the Australian Sports Commission, and the Kangaroo Hoppet. The editor can be contacted via hoppet@netc.net.au.