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News 11/04/09 - Hinto Cup, Day 2 - Pello. We are currently awaiting the confirmation of the FIS points for today's races, once the points are published we will publish some more fantastic news on the progress of the British Nordic Ski Team. 10/04/09 – Hinto Cup, Day 1 – Tornio.
The first race at the Hinto cup has gone well for the British team with the highlight of day 1 being Alex Standen scoring his first sub 120 point result having earned 111.72 FIS points. This means that Alex is now qualified to race at World Cup and brings the number of qualified athletes up to 3. Alex also finished 12th in the Junior Category. Andrew Young showed after a difficult season full of illness and injury that he is still capable of great results scoring 96.59 points. This not only confirms his World Cup Qualification but also earned him the Gold for the Under 18 category. He dominated the age group and took home the victory with an impressive 23 second lead over 2nd place. Callum Smith set a new personal best result with 135.47 FIS point and finished 5th in the Under 18 Category. William Newman also set a new personal best of 156.12 FIS points and finished 11th in the Under 18 Category. Andrew Musgrave had to battle to secure bronze today against members of the Czech and Finnish Junior teams. It was a close fight which was taken all the way to the line and only 3.4 seconds separated the top 3 skiers. Simon Platt was 15th Junior and secured his best FIS points to date of 124.62, agonisingly close to the magic 120 points required for World Cup. Fiona Hughes returned to form and finished 7th Junior and secured her best ever FIS points of 129.14. This is the closest a British Woman has got to the 120 point World Cup qualification and if she had been able to ski 8 seconds quicker would have secured World Cup Qualification. Sarah Young appeared to be a little off form on the first day of racing but still managed to secure 11th Junior and 170.26 points, but quite the usual high standard in skate races we have come accustomed to. Also in action today representing the British Nordic Development Squad was Katy Homyer finishing 15th and a highly respectable 21% off the winner’s time. Team coach Al Dargie said “I am delighted today at the performances, Alex and a couple of others have clearly shown on several occasions that they are close to qualifying for World Cup. It is great news that this has now been achieved by Alex, who had a frustrating mid season with illness. The two podiums from the two Andrews were also good to see and to see Andrew Young coming back to the form we know he is capable of is a relief. Fiona in the women’s race did really well and has shown that the attention to technical training is really paying off.” 04/04/09 – Musgrave strikes gold in Sweden and Personal Bests for Standen and Platt. This weekend saw the British Team competing in a warm up race for the Hinto Cup next weekend and despite the last minute nature of the race earned some of the best FIS points ever! The team made a last minute decision to race at Pitea, Sweden and only got confirmation of entry for the race on the Wednesday before the race. But despite the short notice and not having tapered training fully for the competition, came away with some fantastic results. Andrew Musgrave went on to dominate the Swedish Juniors coming home to win by 14 seconds in the 5km skate race. But equally as important as the gold were the points earned of just 46.07 being Britain’s lowest points ever. This will make a significant difference to the end of season international rankings which will be published at the end of April. Personal best results were also recorded by Alex Standen and Simon Platt with Alex missing World Cup qualification by only 9 seconds. Alex started at a good pace and at the half way point looked agonisingly close to gaining the required sub 120 points for World Cup qualification, however with about 1km to go he had a fall on a descent as he exited a chicane. Despite picking himself up quickly it was enough to deny him the required points, however he still set a personal best of 132.50 FIS points. Simon Platt also skied well but looked tired during the race and still managed to set a new personal best of 139.07 points. Also in action was Fiona Hughes who battled with tired legs to earn 192.82 FIS points. Team coach Al Dargie said “Today has seen some great results, however most of the team currently have heavy legs due to the training load in preparation for next weekend’s Hinto Cup competitions. So with a bit of luck and a larger recovery time, next weekend will go a little better than today. It was a shame that Alex had the fall on the descent, without it I am fairly sure he would have qualified for World Cup, but that is part of racing in this sport!” 22/03/09 – Musgrave finishes 63rd in final day of World Cup Finals. Despite murder mountain claiming a further 2 victims today Andrew Musgrave had a great performance to come home just outside the top 60. Today's hunting start race was always going to be a hard race after the first 3 days of the World Cup finals mini tour and the 5 trips that had already been taken over “Murder Mountain”. So the prospect of another 3 passes over the arduous climb was a bit daunting with tired legs. That said Andrew set about the task working hard in the pack that started 5 minutes after the tour leader. Andrew was caught a bit off guard when the pack split and he was caught in the second half of the pack. He tried hard to bridge the gap between packs but did not quite manage to close the gap in the first half of the race. In the second half of the race he settled back in to a pack and worked hard to keep as close as possible to the race leaders. Having started the race seeded in 70th position he climbed up the field to finish 63rd. In the overall tour standings he finished 71st, a good result especially as a 19 year old in his first year on the World Cup circuit. World Cup coach Al Dargie said “I am very happy with today’s result, Andrew managed to climb up the rankings that little bit more. In a way the only disappointment for the World Cup Finals was not being able to give Andrew the best possible skis in the double pursuit competition, with the tour format if one stage goes a little wrong then it is hard to work back from that. Today marks the end of Britain’s first year on the World Cup circuit for many years and I am very pleased with the progress made and the lessons learned.” Although the World Cup circuit has drawn to a close the British Team will be in action over the Easter weekend in the Arctic Circle competing in the Hinto Cup. A team of 10 athletes will race on 4 consecutive days at 4 different race tracks, it will be a busy long weekend for athletes and coaches! 21/03/09 – Murder Mountain slays another 2 victims! Two more skiers failed to complete the 3rd day of the mini tour World Cup Finals however Andrew Musgrave successfully completed the stage in difficult slow snow conditions. Today was a difficult day for Andrew Musgrave in the 20km double pursuit race, conditions were warm and the snow was in places spring like. This led to slow conditions for the whole field but was made worse for Andrew by a lack of suitable skis for the conditions and the glide wax not being quite right. Despite this he battled hard in the classic part of the race and came in to transition in 79th place, things got a little easier in the skate section of the race and he was able to pull back 7 places to finish in 72nd place. Despite the slow snow conditions the race pace was being kept really high due to a close battle for the overall World Cup title which will now be decided on the final day of racing tomorrow. In the overall competition Andrew slipped back 3 places to sit in 76th position ahead of tomorrows hunting start 15km skate race. The race jury for the competition has set a 5 minute threshold for the hunting start and anyone out with that time limit will now start as a mass start. So for the final race of the mini tour Andrew will start with 26 other skiers towards the back of the field. World Cup coach Al Dargie said “I am bit disappointed that we did not manage to give Andrew the best skis to race on today. It is hard when every other skier in the race has a minimum of 10 sets of skis to choose from and we have 5! The snow conditions today caused a lot of suction between the ski and snow and we did not have a suitable ski to use today. Andrew however did a great job of pushing hard to get back in to the field on the uphill sections.” 20/03/09 – Musgrave storms over Murder Mountain to best another best ever result. Andrew Musgrave skied a great race today to finish in 63rd position with yet again his best FIS points to date. Today was a bit of a step into the unknown with the 3.3km prologue race over “Murder Mountain” being a new event to the British Team. As always Andrew started at a fast pace and just below the summit of Murder Mountain was sitting in 34th position. However over the last 2km of the race slipped through the field to finish in 63rd place his highest finish in World Cup to date. Of equal significance is his best percentage of the winner in a time trial of just 6.8% earning his and Britain’s best ever FIS points of just 53.95 points. In the overall standings Murder Mountain did exactly what its name suggested and slashed the field from 95 after the opening sprint race down to 84 after today’s climb over the mountain. The reduction in numbers came from a mix of sprinters not bold enough to accept the challenge of the mountain and athletes not making the 20% cut off time that exists for the tour. Andrew has jumped up the tour standings from 83rd to 73rd overall and is now 1min 29secs off the tour leader John Kristian Dahl. Tomorrow will see in Andrew race in the 20km double pursuit, starting with 10km in classic technique then changing over to skate skis for a further 10km. It is going to be an interesting race with the competition for the overall world cup still very tight and 5 sets of bonus seconds available. The race has 4 intermediate sprints each one of them on the Murder Mountain so it will be interesting to see how the pace changes as the lead skiers battle it out for the bonus seconds. This could spread the field out or it might regroup in between each one, time will tell but hopefully Andrew will be in the mix towards the back of the pack. British World Cup Coach Al Dargie said “I’m really pleased with today, Andrew skied very well in a race which is hard to pace due to the long steep climb and a distance that we don’t normally race over. I’m not sure how tomorrow is going to pan out as I think it will be a very tactical race at the front end of the field and how that will affect the main pack is a bit unknown!” 18/03/09 – Day one of World Cup Finals in Stockholm. Andrew Musgrave has survived the first day of the mini tour end to the World Cup season finishing the opening sprint race in 83rd place. In the classic sprints around the Royal Palace in Stockholm Andrew put in a decent result to secure a start place for Friday’s prologue race in the mini tour that marks the end of the World Cup circuit for the season. Andrew skied well on the circuit of artificial snow in front of about 10,000 fans including the Swedish Royal Family. He finished 11.37% behind the winner, which although is not close to his best result from 2 weeks ago is still a good result in his weaker discipline. In the mini tour every athlete has to finish every stage to complete the tour and they also have to complete each stage in less than 20% behind the winner. One skier from Denmark finished outside the 20% cut off yesterday and has been removed from the tour. This is in addition to a skier from Germany who was disqualified for skating in the classic sprint race. So the 97 starters have been whittled down to 95 after just one day of racing however tomorrows “King of Murder Mountain” race may well put an end to some of the sprinters who did well in the first day of racing. In the mini tour there are various time bonuses available, the first of which were awarded to the first 30 finishers in the sprint completion. The time bonuses in yesterdays sprint race varied from 60 seconds for the winner to 1 second for the athlete who finished 30th. At the moment Andrew Musgrave is sitting 1min 14secs off the current tour leader. In tomorrow’s race bonuses of 15, 10 and 5 seconds will be awarded to 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions in the race.
The stages effectively make up a mini tour, the first stage tomorrow is in Stockholm at the Royal Palace, where the world’s elite will battle it out over a 1,090 meter sprint course. Stockholm is a 3 hour coach journey from the main race centre in Falun so it will be a long day with travel and the logistics of moving all of the equipment required. The city centre sprints will be spectacular with the athletes racing right next to the Royal Palace, could you imagine a ski race in the grounds of Buckingham palace? Following the first day of racing there is a rest day so the athletes can familiarise themselves with the courses for the next 3 days of racing. Stage 2 of the finals is a 3.3km skate prologue race held in time trial start format so 30 seconds between each competitor. Sound easy? I forgot to mention that the winner of this stage will earn the title “King of Mördarbacken” which translates to “King of Murder Mountain”. So although the start and finish are at the same height it has a hill with a vertical climb of 84 metres and then a very fast series of descents to the finish line. This should start to sort the men from the boys!! Stage 3 is a 20km Double Pursuit race so what is left of the 97 starters (organisers are expecting a few people to have dropped out already by now!!) will start head to head. Andrew came 12th in the 20km double pursuit at the World Junior Championships and went on to come 45th in the 30km at the World Senior Championships last month. So surely a 20km should be an easy race after the 30km at World Seniors? Um no, I again forgot to mention that the hill climb they do on Fridays prologue happens to also be part of this course. Not once, twice or three times but a rather cruel four times! Stage 4 for those left standing and probably after a couple of hours on the massage table trying to loosen off the legs is a “hunting” pursuit race over 15km. So add the times together for the last 3 stages and whoever has the lead starts 1st, second place starts with the respective time off the leader and so on. First person across the line wins the World Cup Finals, easy? Yeah except this time they have put “Murder Mountain” in the course 3 times! For those in the fight to win the overall World Cup competition for the season there are various bonus points to spice it all up a bit more! Of course all the action can as usual be watched on British Eurosport and I will try to give you an update on Andrew Musgrave’s progress through the finals each evening assuming we can fit it in between the usual training, waxing, testing and flurry of meetings that we need to be at!
12/03/09 - British Cross Country Ski Championships 2009 After a long stint at Ruhpholding, the British and Army Cross Country Ski Championships were transferred to Obertilliach. Austria standing at an altitude of around 1500 mtrs. Two and half metres of snow and relatively high humidity ensured these championships were going to be a challenge to the wax technicians and to the fitness of the athletes. The absence of the best of the cross country skiers, who were on duty for the World Junior Championships or preparing for the World Senior Championships, meant that the biathletes had a chance to take most of the honours in all the races in the programme. This proved this to be the case. Kevin Kane took the senior men’s 15km classic race and Alanda Scott won the ladies 10km classic race. The mens double pursuit was won by Andrew Liebner from Alaska with the first British finisher being Carl Kelly and in the womens Olwen Thorn. A full table of results can be found on the British Biathlon Union web site by clicking here. Seasoned skier Alan Eason who managed to gain a third place in the is now turning his attention to long distance races. Nordic Director, George Gabriel, is considering the feasibility of establishing a Marathon Cup (European standard) team and would welcome comments from anyone. You can contact George by email at: info@snowsportgb.com
Today in Andrews preferred discipline, he has establish his best and Britain’s best FIS points to date of just 61.63. He started at the usual high tempo and at the first split marker on the course had the early lead, which was held for the first half of the race. When he settled in to his rhythm he still set a quick pace but slipped through the field in the second half of the race. At the 10km marker he was sitting in 70th position but managed to raise his game over the final 5km loop to pull back 5 positions. The points from today’s race show how good Andrew is in the skate discipline but he also finished just 7.7% behind the winner. One notable result of the day has to be Petr Sedov of Russia, who is the reigning World Junior Champion finishing 10th in today’s race making him one of if not the highest junior finisher in World Cup history. World Cup Coach Al Dargie said “Today is another strong performance from Andrew although he felt like his legs did not have as much power as usual throughout the race. The course at Lahti is a tough course with lots of steep up hills and relatively few flat sections so for a skier of Andrews age to do such a good percentage behind the winner is great. We now have a week and a half of recovery training before the World Cup Finals in Stockholm and Falun which will be the last 4 World Cup Races of the season.”
With just 6 World Cup competitions left for Andrew Musgrave this season he looks to be finishing on a high as the gap between him and the winner keeps closing. Today Andrew started hard with his usual high tempo and powerful technique leaving the stadium at a blistering pace, stormed over the first main hill. On the back side of the stadium the snow was a little chopped up and slowed his powerful technique slightly. Andrew tucked tightly on the last descent in to the stadium and kicked hard to maintain his speed across the stadium floor. Although his finish position is not quite as high as his best, the gap between him and the winner was the closest percentage he has ever been and has secured him Britain’s lowest ever sprint points of 78.33 World Cup Coach Al Dargie said “Today’s performance shows the form that Andrew is on coming in to the final phase of racing at the end of a very long season. The sprint result is great but we are both excited about tomorrows 15km skate time trial race. This will actually be Andrews first skate distance World Cup, with skate being his favourite discipline it will be interesting to see how he gets on.” The final phase of the season will see Andrew racing at the World Cup in Lahti and then the World Cup finals in Stockholm and Falun Sweden. After that he will travel to the Arctic circle in Finland to train with 3 other members of the British team in preparation for a larger training and racing camp over Easter.
The last couple of weeks have been pretty unlucky for Andrew Young who had targeted peaking at the European Youth Olympics (EYO) last week. After a successful holding camp before the EYO Andrew looked on good form capable of top ten performances, however developed a heavy cold and chest infection which required antibiotics to clear. This meant that he missed every race at EYO something he had been training for 2 years towards. He then travelled to join the rest of the British Team for the World Championships and looked as though he was over the illness and ready to race. Everything was set for him to have a good sprint time trial, the clock counted down to his start and as he left the start gate the cameraman accidentally lowered a boom with a camera in to his path. There was nowhere for Andrew to go and he clattered in to the camera sending it flying and him crashing to the ground. Picking himself up he skied on to finish the race but knew full well that his race was over. Despite this he managed a decent enough result and without the fall and the subsequent heartless race would have placed in the top 70 of the field. Andrew Musgrave was Britain’s best performer today finishing in a respectable 65th, Simon Platt then finished in 95th, Andrew Young in 98th and Alex Standen in 103rd. Also in action today were the British girls with Sarah Young coming home in 81st followed by Fiona Hughes in 86th. Team Leader Al Dargie said “Today is a day I think I would rather forget! I feel so bad for what happened to Andrew today, but unfortunately once it had happened there was nothing that could be done about it. We have received apologies from the Technical Delegate, the race Jury, the Chief of Course and will tomorrow receive a written apology from the head of Czech TV. None of this however can give Andrew his race back, he will now have to wait another 2 years for his next chance at the World Championships. He must be credited for the professional way he handled the incident, I don’t think I have ever heard a 16 year old be quite so philosophical.” Today was the last day that Great Britain will have individual competitors racing at the World Championships, tomorrow however sees national pride on the line with the Team Sprint Relays. Fiona Hughes and Sarah Young will team up in the semi final of the Team Sprint, but will have a challenge to complete the course without being lapped by the lead pack. Andrew Musgrave and Simon Platt represent GB in the men’s race, this shows the form that Simon is now finding towards the end of the season. The team also hope to enter a team for the men’s relay on Friday if everyone is fit and healthy. 22/02/09 – Musgrave smashes his way to 45th in the World. Andrew Musgrave has just finished in the best position for a British Cross Country in many, many years at the World Championships in Liberec, Czech!
Today 18 year old Andrew Musgrave had the race of his life to finish the 30km Double Pursuit race in 45th position. What makes this even more impressive is the fact that it was his first ever 30km race having only raced a maximum of 20km before today. Today he skied like the wind and finished in a personal best of just 5.5% behind the winner. Cross Country skiing is a sport that demands years of patience to fully develop the cardiovascular capacity of athletes meaning they will not peak till they are nearly 30 years of age. To have achieved a finish position and percentage from the winner like this at 18 is incredible Andrew was also the youngest skier to finish the race today.
The pace quickened among the group in the last 2km of the race and with tired legs Andrew could not quite manage to hang on to Ben Sim. He kept pushing hard until the finish and came home in 45th a result that is earning a huge amount of praise from the biggest ski nations in the world. British Team Leader, Al Dargie said “Today is yet another historic moment in our sport and words can not really describe the level of this performance today. This has just put Andrew a couple of years ahead of his performance pathway to be a World Champion in the future. My entire team (made up almost entirely of athletes) did really well putting the support that was needed behind Andrew today from testing glide wax, grip wax, videoing for future use and covering the whole course with radios so the right tactical advice was put across to Andrew. I am very proud of everyone today.” Roy Young, Head Coach said “it was a fantastic performance that surpassed even our expectations of Andrew, every time we worried that he might be flagging a bit he picked it up a gear and worked incredibly hard to work his way to the next skier. He even managed to beat the reigning World Under 23 Champion in todays race.”
Conditions today in Liberec were harsh with 30 to 40mph winds destroying the tracks during the races, skiers had to fight incredibly hard to stay skiing at a good pace with all the wind blown snow filling in the classic spur. Today Fiona Hughes went out seeded 7th in the race and battled hard to ensure that she earned one of the coveted start positions in the Time Trial. Early splits showed that she was in 11th position a little off the pace, struggling to find the fastest snow on a very slow day, so she pushed on and clawed her way up the field to finish in 7th. Simon Platt unfortunately failed to make the top ten required to start the men’s Time Trial on Friday however came home in 17th position missing the cut off by just 34 seconds. A great achievement for someone who has missed over 2 months of training this year through a broken bone in his hand. Even more importantly than that he earned his lowest FIS point to date of 145 which is only 25 points away from World Cup Qualification. Alex Standen did not race today as he was ill with a cold. British Coach Al Dargie said “today was a bitter day on the course and I could not feel happier for both Fiona and Simon they though hard in probably the worst conditions I have ever seen a ski race held. Their performances are notable personal and national achievements so a good day all round. We now have a busy evening ahead with the official opening ceremony and trying to fit in as much rest as possible for Fiona before her 10km Time Trial tomorrow, hopefully the weather will be a little kinder to us in the morning!”
Callum Smith (16) has today beaten the previous best performance of Andrew Musgrave who finished 47th at the Youth Olympics 2 years ago to come home in 28th place. Andrew Young Britain’s highest ranked youth skier was not racing today due to illness but despite this the British team managed to put in fantastic performances. William Newman (16) had a great race to finish in 57th, again close to Musgrave’s previous best from 2 years ago. Also in action today were the British girls Deborah May and Lauren Spencer who finished 60th and 63rd respectively with reasonable performances. Callum Smith also earned around 170 FIS points which will be his best points to date and if he carries on the way he is going it will only be a matter of time before he qualifies for World Cup. William Newman also scored best ever points of around 210 demonstrating the improvements made over the summer. Roy Young, Lead coach to the Youth Olympic Team said “Today saw fantastic performances for the boys raising the high standard already set 2 years ago. It shows that we have clear potential in our current crop of youths and with the right support can be developed to at least the level of our current lead skier Andrew Musgrave.” More information can be found on the British Olympic Association website by clicking here. 17/02/09 – British Juniors ready to make history at the World Senior Championships. Tomorrow marks the opening of the World Championships in Liberec Czech Republic with a team of 6 athletes representing Great Britain. For the last 2 World Championships Great Britain was represented by Alan Eason as an unsupported individual he had to wax his own skis, represent himself at all the various meetings and still try to prepare himself to race at the highest level in the world. Not an easy task I can assure you! This is the first World Championships in many years (at least 14 years) that we have a team representing Great Britain. Now we have 4 men and 2 women along with a coach and a second coach joining the team for the last few days. Also worth noting is the fact that the entire team this year are all Juniors and will be racing alongside the best senior skiers in the world. Britain has also not had a female skier at the World Championships for at least the last 16 years. The official team for Great Britain is
The first day of racing is tomorrow with qualification races for the 10km (ladies) and 15km (mens) time trials. Fiona Hughes, Alex Standen and Simon Platt will all be battling it out with over 70 other skiers to try and get in to the top 10 finish slots to gain entry to the following days races. Andrew Musgrave is pre qualified due to his world ranking for the main time trial, Andrew Young is currently racing at the Youth Olympics in Poland and will join the team latter in the championships, Sarah Young will also be joining the team for the later races due to academic commitments. The qualification race is a new addition to the championships this year and is designed to reduce the size of the field in the main race. Allegedly this is partly to do with the television viewing time, however most of the athletes competing tomorrow for slots are not actually interested in being seen on TV they just want the right to compete at the World Championships. This could be achieved by the TV coverage starting after the first batch of skiers has already started. Although the team is having its best season ever, this World Championship is about goal setting and bench marking to see exactly where we fit in the World Championships. From this realistic and measurable targets will be set for our performances at the Winter Olympics next season and the next World Championships in Oslo in 2011. Obviously some of the team are capable of great performances with top 60 finishes not to be ruled out from the youngest team at the championships however some team members are here to set personal targets to work forward from over the next 2 years. British Team leader Al Dargie said on the eve of the championships “Having a large team here is great, but this Championship is really a learning experience for us. Everyone on the team is looking forward to the challenge of the biggest competition in their lives so far, only the Olympics are bigger than this. The qualification race tomorrow is an interesting race, which I personally question the need for and view it as unfair, especially for the 10 women who do manage to qualify as they then have the main race just 24 hours later with no rest day before. We will do our best and if the team ski as they are capable of we should see one or more making it through to the main time trials.” 16/02/09 – Not 1, Not 2 but 7 video’s uploaded!!! Last week saw a bit of time to catch up and start editing some of the many hours of video footage from the season. You can now see the results on the video page, the videos where first shown to the athletes the night before our holding camp split to go to the Youth Olympics in Poland and the World Championships in Czech. Action starts in the Youth Olympics tomorrow with Classic Time Trials and at the World Championships on Wednesday with qualification races for the Time Trials.
Andrew Musgrave entered the Pursuit race with the aim of pushing hard in the classic leg and hoping to catch some positions in the skate leg of the race after the changeover. Ranked 14th, Andrew was seeded on the second row of the grid. He was caught slightly unawares by the start gun, but managed to hold his position in the lead pack for the first two laps of the race. Petr Sedov of Russia started to stretch the lead pack which then split in to 3 separate packs. Coming in to transition the Russian was in a pack of 3 and had a lead of 27 seconds over Andrew who was now sitting in 16th place. Despite a sluggish change over to skate skis Andrew left the change over area just 20 metres behind a pack of athletes and over the next 10km managed to work his way past 4 more athletes. At one point he had managed to work up to 11th place and looked like threatening for a top 10 place however he had to make do with 12th at the end of the race. Also in the Men’s race Simon Platt was unfortunately withdrawn from the race as he was about to be lapped by the lead pack and finished in 72nd position from 82 starters. Simon found the classic section of the race hard and came in to transition in 75th position, however was working his way back up through the field on the skate section of the race when the lead Russian came past. At the time he was lapped he was skiing at about 21% behind the winner an improvement of 5% from last season but not quite at his potential.
In the Ladies pursuit race Fiona Hughes was the best of the British skiers coming home in 47th place from 67 competitors. She started off hard in her preferred classic discipline and came in to the transition sitting in 44th place. With a quick transition she headed out onto the course for the skate leg of the race and continued to push hard, slipping through the field slightly to finish 47th. At the equivalent race at last year’s World Junior Championships Fiona finished in 71st position and 22% off the winner; today saw the finish position drastically reduced and the percentage slashed to 13% behind the winner. Sarah Young was the second British female home finishing in 50th place and 14.7% behind, again a significant improvement on last year’s result. Ingrid Leask was the last Brit home finishing in 61st place, which is a good result at her first ever World Junior Championships. British Team Leader Al Dargie said “Managing to get Andrew seeded 14th in the race today is a real achievement and shows the form he has shown this season. For him to have been able to build on that ranking to finish 12th is great although I think we would both like to crack the top 10 marker soon. The girls are continuing to show huge improvements in form and the personal bests today are great. I’m a little disappointed for Simon who has had a couple of small bugs in the last couple of weeks and I know he is capable of skiing at about 16% behind the winner.” The team will next be in action on Thursday in the skate Time Trial competitions where we will start the 3 ladies and 4 of the men.
With Britain’s best sprinter Andrew Musgrave being rested for the Pursuit and Time Trial races later in the week Andrew Young led the way for British competitors in his first ever World Junior Championship competition. Andrew showed maturity far beyond his age to storm in to the top half of the field finishing just 6.1% off the winner and gained his best ever sprint points of 108.27 points. The upper age for the Junior category is 20 years; Andrew is currently only 16 years of age and this clearly shows that he has the potential to be the world’s best in this category in future years. In the Junior Men’s race the rest of the British skiers finished in a small group with just 0.5 seconds separating them. Simon Spencer was first home in 74th with a personal best 15.5% behind the winner gaining his best Sprint FIS points of 221.81. Alex Standen was next home in 75th position with good points but not where he would like to be positioned. Al Duncan who has struggled with illness and injuries over the summer put in a reasonable performance to come home in 76th position. In the Junior Ladies race Britain was represented by Sarah Young and Ingrid Leask. Ingrid is a new skier to the British Team with dual citizenship between America and Britain. Sarah was first home finishing 55th and 13.4% behind the winner. This represents an improvement of 2% from her performances at last year’s World Junior Championships. Ingrid came home in a respectable 64th position for her first time in a Team GB race suit. Al Dargie Team Coach said “It has been great to get the racing underway at the World Junior Champs. Andrew Young’s performance is fantastic and shows what he is capable of in future years. Next year we will target getting Andrew in to the finals. It is great to see a bigger team this season and with the inclusion of Ingrid as a new team member, the Team continues to grow in size and ambition. We now have a day off preparing for the pursuit race and an awful lot of waxing to sort and test, so early nights for all with some fairly big smiles on our faces!”
With one week and a day till the Start of the World Junior Championships the British team took a cautious approach to today’s race. Two athletes were not back to full health after colds and one athlete was rested in preparation for the sprints at World Juniors. So only 3 athletes started the final warm up race at Zignau/Trun, Switzerland, in the Women’s race Sarah Young had a good first lap however suffered an asthma attack and was withdrawn from the race. Fiona Hughes started strongly in the Women’s race and picked up a few places within a couple of hundred metres from the start. She continued to push hard on the classic leg and came in to transition after 5km in 16th position overall. Her change to skate skis went well and she went out just behind a small pack, kicking hard she managed to get back in to a group. The group then split and she managed to catch a couple of places up having to work hard to the finish line to fend off a late surge from a skier behind. Fiona finished 14th in the senior field and more impressively was third in the junior age group which she still has another year in. Her FIS points were her best to date in a pursuit race of 164.51 and her percent off the senior winner was an impressive 10.05%
Team Coach Al Dargie said “Our main aim for the current race period is the World Junior Championships in just over a week so I would rather be over cautious with racing athletes who are not quite on their best form. Hence we only had 2 people finishing the race today however the results that Fiona and Andrew achieved today put a big smile on our faces. We will now pack up and head to the venue for the World Junior Championships and are eagerly waiting the start of the races there.
In today’s Skate Time Trial competitions the British Team have again built upon their performances from yesterday. Andrew Musgrave, who was rested yesterday, put in a strong performance to finish second, losing the gold by just 2 seconds. As usual Andrew started his Skate race at high tempo and dominated the first two thirds of the race holding a comfortable race lead. However in the last 2 kilometres of the race he faded slightly just losing the lead and coming home in 2nd place. Simon Platt came 28th, a respectable 16% off the winner after being ill with a heavy coldfor the last week. Simon Spencer finished 37th which was 21% off the winner.
Sarah Young had a fantastic race to finish 12th just 8.7% off the senior Women’s winner and more importantly smashing her best FIS points to date by gaining 132.79 points. This is just 12.79 points outside World Cup Qualification which is the closest Britain has been to having a female qualify for World Cup. The day was complicated by a 5 degree temperature change in the forecasted weather meaning all the skis had to be redone just before the start of the race! Team Coach, Al Dargie said, “Today was a bit frustrating. We know that Andrew is capable of winning this level of race but it just did not quite come together on the day. We will work hard for the next week and a bit to find those extra couple of seconds. I am really pleased for the Girls today.They both had good results but Sarah has shown that in a skate race she is just outside World Cup Qualification and with a bit more hard work hopefully we will have a female athlete qualify this season. Both the Simons did well today whilst recovering from illness, so fingers crossed for the next week and a bit!” The last race before the World Junior Championships will be the Pursuit race on Saturday.
Today the British Team kicked off their last set of warm-up races before the World Junior Championships in France with Sprint races at the Swiss National Championships. In the build-up to the World Junior Championships, Britain’s best male sprinter Andrew Musgrave was rested after having raced in over 16 competitions in the last 8 weeks. However Alex Standen and Simon Spencer raced well to finish 13th and 15th in the Junior category, qualifying for the quarter finals of the Sprints. Despite their best efforts they were both knocked out at the quarter finals against a very strong field of Swiss Junior Sprinters. The light today shone on the British girls who, despite having disappointing qualification races due to difficult waxing conditions, qualified for the finals and went on to climb through the rankings. Sarah Young qualified in 11th place and in her first quarter final went through to the semi finals by beating Caroline Drolet from Canada. In her semi final Sarah struggled to hold the pace and did not qualify for the final but in the B Final had a great finish to come back from 3rd to finish 2nd in the B Final leaving her placed 6th overall.
Team Coach, Al Dargie, commented on the day, “We got the waxing a bit wrong for the girls’ qualification races but managed to get it spot on for the finals. Sarah and Fiona put in really big performances for the finals and achieved great results.For Fiona to have reached the final was somewhat of a surprise to me! The next week and a half before the World Junior Champs have to be taken very carefully to ensure our Team is on their best performance for the highlight of our season. Hence we rested Andrew Musgrave today after his hectic race schedule and Simon Platt following an illness earlier in the week.” The Team will be in action again tomorrow in the Time Trial and on Saturday for the Pursuit race at the Swiss National Championships. Following this the Team will move to Praz de Lys in France, the venue for the World Junior Championships for the final acclimatisation before the highlight of the Junior Team’s Season. 21/01/09 - Apologies over Website Updates! At last the site has started to be updated again, many apologies for how long this has taken! Computers! There is a backlog of articles which I will try my best to get up before the races at World Junior Championships in a week and a half. 12/01/09 – Goodbye Norway - GB Team sad to leave their winter training base at Sjusjoen, near Lillehammer. This season has seen the British Team base a Coach and several athletes in Norway for nearly 3 months. Today unfortunately marks the end of that time as the Team head to Central Europe for the next phase of the winter, with the build up to the World Junior Championships in France. The Team would like to thank the following for making their time in Norway so special....
World Cup and Junior Team Coach Al Dargie said on departure “Norway is the home of Nordic skiing and we have been shown incredible hospitality this season. There are a huge number of people who have made our time on snow so productive and enjoyable. The encouragement and respect that the Norwegians give us for trying to achieve what we are doing is hugely satisfying. We will miss Sjusjoen and Norway but I am sure we will be back soon to train hard and make more friends.”
Per Nymoen the Cross Country Director for Norway said “The improvement in your athletes in the last 2 years is incredible. You have gone from having athletes racing in single year age categories and coming at the back end of the field to double year age categories and your female athletes coming in the top half of the field, not to mention podium positions for Andrew Musgrave, which surprised me!”
29/11/08 - Musgrave finishes 79th in first sprint World Cup. Andrew Musgrave has just finished 20.1 seconds off the winner in today’s 1.4km classic sprint race. Having not done a sprint race in almost a year Andrew finished 79th out of 84 finishers. He finished only 11.3% off the winners time, gaining Britain’s best ever sprint points of 135.32. This is a good start to our first World Cup weekend in 14 years and we hope to build upon this in the other Pre Christmas World Cups. It also gives a good warm up for tomorrows 15km Classic race which is definitely his favoured distance. We will now take a little time out to watch the sprint finals before starting to sort skis for tomorrow and the usual round of meetings and briefings. Roy Young, Head Coach of the British Nordic Team said “It was good to get the world cup season under way today. There’s been a lot of effort from all our supporters getting here today. Andrew has raced hard here and will have learnt a lot. We know we will get better in sprints as we move on. Now we have to concentrate on Andrew’s strength in the 15km classic tomorrow." 28/11/08 - Musgrave all set for Britain’s first World Cup in 14 years. Andrew Musgrave has had a good build up to the first World Cup in Kuusamo, Finland. He will start both the Sprint and 15km World Cups.
This Saturday will see Andrew race in the Sprint race over a 1.4km course in classic technique. This is a real step into the unknown as Andrew has actually only ever done 1 sprint race at international level before. He has tended to focus on medium distance races to date, so the sprints will be all about gaining experience. Only the final of the sprint will be televised on Eurosport and it is unlikely that Andrew will qualify for the finals as only the top 30 from about 100 starters qualify. On Sunday we will see Andrew racing in the 15km race in classic technique, in which we are more hopeful of a good performance. There will be about 100 starters of which Andrew will almost certainly be the youngest starter. If everything comes together on the day a position in the top 80 would be a good result and a top 70 would be fantastic. This race will be covered live by Eurosport and coverage should start at 11:45hrs although sometimes the start time can vary a bit depending on the other live events being shown. The scale of Nordic World Cup skiing is huge with massive European and North American television viewing figures. The World Cups in Finland this weekend are the Nordic Opening for all disciplines, which includes Cross Country, Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined. The organisers here are running a very slick operation with fantastic facilities and great snow conditions. It’s quite a challenge for the organisers with 8 World Cup events and 320 athletes from 26 nations. The stadium is in good condition and the last bits of television infrastructure are now being finalised!
World Cup Coach Al Dargie says “The excitement and nerves are starting to build before the races this weekend. Andrew is in good condition and other than a minor back problem a week ago is in great shape for the weekend. The sprints on Saturday will be interesting as we really don’t know how well Andrew can do, however Sunday's 15km race is really something to look forward to. It is great that this weekend we will be joined by Head Coach, Roy Young to help support. Unfortunately for the rest of the season we will only be able to afford one Coach.” If you want to send messages of support to the team please email info@britnordicteam.co.uk if you are in Britain you can watch the race live on Eurosport. See the results on the FIS website www.fis-ski.com and check www.britnordicteam.co.uk for more information on our performances the evening after the race. 28/11/08 News From The Wax Room! Just back in the Wax Room after a hectic afternoon, I thought I would take 5 mins to fill you in on what we have been up to today! So the day starts with a morning run at 7am followed by breakfast near our accommodation, then Andrew and I head to the bus for the race venue which is 15 mins away. Arrive at race area and Andrew has to go and have a photo shoot for FIS to get his display pic sorted out for the start of the race. I have to chase FIS officials to get our training bibs to allow us to ski on the courses in the official training sessions. Following this we meet up at our wax room which we share with the Belarusians. Next Job is ski testing; all skis are prepared with the same wax to see which stone grind is fastest. It is bucketing down with snow so not much difference in them today. The probable set of race skis is selected and grip wax applied then more testing and checking of the course. We return from testing at 12:15 to be told Doping Control need to see us in 15 mins, only problem is the Doping Control office is not signed! Found it and Andrew then has to give a blood sample for a pre-start test, he passes, which is no surprise really! At this particular World Cup every athlete is having pre-start blood tests and some are being selected at random for urine tests as well. After this Andrew heads off back to our accommodation to chill out for the afternoon. I return to the wax room, which happens to have a wireless connection. Most of the afternoon was spent doing updates to the websites and gathering information on weather forecasts and probable wax combinations. At 17:00hrs its off to the Team Captains’ meeting where the draw for start numbers takes place and then courses are described and arguments normally occur as to why the big nations are not allowed every member of their support staff on the course! We normally stay out of this! Andrew has then come back through to the race office for a briefing on the new WADA regulations. Interesting stuff, although it will soon become an administrative nightmare tracking his whereabouts on the system. I then go through the plan for tomorrow with Andrew, give him his race number and send him back off on the bus again. Tomorrow Andrew will start as number 83 out of 86 starters. His late start position is because he has not done any FIS sprint races in the last two years. His start time is at 11:20 which is 9:40 back in Britain. 20/11/08 – Video page has now been updated with 2 new videos. The first is from our AGM in the spring and is an overview of the season. The second is Andrew Musgrave’s interview on Swedish Television after winning the race at Bruksvallarna.
Just 12 days before Andrew Musgrave will start his first world cup competition he has shown that he is on the best form possible. Andrew started the 15km skate race at a blistering pace and no one from the Swedish Junior team could come close to matching his tempo, power and technique. He finished almost a clear minute ahead of second place skier Maciei Starega from the Polish Junior Team. To put this into perspective Andrew finished 6.8% behind the Swedish world cup team skier Anders Sodergren who has 13 world cup podiums, including 2 victories to his name. This will also be Andrew's best FIS points by far when they are calculated by FIS in the next week. Also setting Personal bests in the Skate race were Alex Standen and Simon Platt. Alex finished 16th in age group and 15.5% off the senior winner, Simon finished 38th in age group and 26.77% from the senior winner.
In the Female competition Sarah Young and Fiona Hughes also had great races setting personal bests behind such a world class field. Sarah finished 9th and Fiona finished 13th in the junior category with similar percent from the winners as yesterdays competition. Team coach Al Dargie said "Today is yet another milestone day for British Nordic skiing and gives us a pleasant confidence boost before the world cup in Kuusamo, Finland in 2 weeks time. The team has shown that the work and attention to detail over the summer training season has more than paid off. Hopefully if we can sustain these performances throughout the season we will have another fantastic season. SnowsportGB Nordic Head coach Roy Young said "Sensational! There has been fantastic effort put into getting ready for the season by the skiers here and those back in the UK training this morning. The skiers have shown they can take on the best with confidence. Time for a smile and then back to working for the next race."
The womens competition was won by Justyna Kowalczyk (POL) who finished 3rd in the World Cup last season, also amongst the top 3 finishers was Charlotte Kalla (SWE) who won last seaons Tour de Ski. Fiona skied a fantastic race finishing 17.2% off Kowalczyk and Sarah finished a little further back at 18.4% behind the Polish winner. This means that the girls will both secure their best FIS points to date when the results are loaded on to the FIS database. In their age category Fiona finished 9th and Sarah 12th which is a considerable achievement in a dominant Nordic skiing nation like Sweden. In the Mens race the field was just as competitive however the British Mens team did not perform to their best because of changing wax conditions. With a large senior mens field the tracks had transformed considerably by the time the British Juniors raced around the circuit. The condition change caught the team out and the men struggled for grip for a large amount of the classic race. Despite the difficult conditions Alex Standen and Simon Platt have both scored their best FIS points to date, with Andrew Musgrave also showing he still is the lead British skier. In age group Andrew finished 8th, Alex 20th and Simon 35th a good start to the season but tomorrows Skate race looks like even more is possible. Team coach Al Dargie said “The girls performances today really show what they are capable of on the world stage and they will gain good FIS points from this competition. Womens races are far harder to gain good points in because the field of top racers is smaller but when you race the best we can clearly gain good points. I was a bit disappointed with the mens race, we got caught out by the changing conditions and not having the support staff to monitor enough of the course. But the guys still showed they are on great form with many more races to come this season.” 12/11/08 - British Nordic Ski Team Confirm Pre Christmas World Cups and Race Program Attendance. The British Nordic Ski Team is confident of some good results in their early season race program this year, after a good solid summer of training, some early snow time at the Torsby Snow tunnel in Sweden. There are now 6 athletes in full time training, in Scandinavia, Central Europe and America. Read the full article here… (1Mb, PDF file) 10/11/08 – The team is now on snow and have finally got internet and website access sorted for the winter. There will be several updates posted over the next couple of weeks, sorry for the delay!
This October saw the British Nordic Ski Team train for 2 weeks in the Fortum Snow Tunnel, Torsby. This is the earliest in a season that the team has ever been on snow and was the first visit by the British Nordic Ski Team to the tunnel. The first week saw almost the full World Cup, Senior, Junior and Youth team present. After a long drive from Britain for some of the athletes and one coach in the new team minibus, the team was raring to get on snow for the first time since March or April. The tunnel is used by many teams and clubs ranging from national teams to local clubs with the weekends completely packed with barely enough room to ski at some points. It was great to see so many skiers after a summer of skiing in Britain with our usual training groups and a few club skiers. We did quite a few hard sessions with some high intensity workouts which were good to do on snow for the first time this season. At the end of the first week we had a team time trial which was a 5+5km pursuit, our first on snow this season. The time trial was dominated by our World Cup skiers but there were good performances from the whole team. The team shows good form and ensures there is much optimism for the upcoming season which holds many major championships and new challenges. There was a great atmosphere at the camp with the usual team banter and jokes as well as a group outing to the local bowling alley in the second week which is the main attraction other than the snow tunnel in Torsby! It was obvious that the team does not often go bowling with requests to put up the lane barriers. However, the locals really showed us up as they continuously scored strikes. It was a great first camp of the winter season with good technical progress made throughout the two weeks with the help of coaches Al Dargie and Roy Young as well as the use of the team’s new video analysis software.
September saw the British Team return to the British Olympic Medical Institute (OMI) in North London for the second batch of testing this season. The OMI provides valuable support to the team with their knowledge of elite performance and their facilities, along with the sport-specific knowledge they are now building up.
After the fun team sprints the team were allowed to make an attempt on the 1 lap track record which was held by Ivan Gorbenko. This time the battle between the two Andrews went the opposite way from the earlier race, with Andrew Young setting a new course record and beating Musgrave by 4 seconds. Fiona Hughes also set a Female course record. 04/08/08 - Pamela Stevenson of Elite Sports Analysis has started a new working relationship with
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British Nordic Ski Team, 18 Railway Terrace, Aviemore, PH22 1SA T: +44 (0) 7775707033 E: info@britnordicteam.co.uk |
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17/03/09 – World Cup Season Drawing to a close.
17/03/09 - British Team in the Test Lab, Lillehammer University College. 
The British national team in cross-country ski-ing, is in hard training in Sjusjøen. In connection with their stay, they are having their fitness tested in the newly opened Test Lab at Lillehammer College. – “I'm impressed with the facilities,” says their coach, Al Dargie.
In all, there are about ten national team athletes in the British team. They are mainly from Scotland and northern England. “We have only around 20 days with snow, so at home we mainly use roller-skis," says Alex Standen, who comes from Scotland. He began to ski at home as a 10-year-old boy. “Otherwise, we have to go where the snow is, in order to train.”
08/03/09 – Musgrave sets new lowest FIS points for Great Britain.
24/02/09 – 1 Year of hard work, 650 hours of training, thousands of pounds for training on snow all wasted by a camera man!
Andrew stuck on the back of the lead pack for the first half of the classic leg and managed to pick a few good skiers to ski in a pack with for the second half of the classic leg. Coming in to Transition Andrew was sitting in 50th position, transition to skate skis was a little slow losing a few seconds to the skiers that he had come in to transition with. He set out hard on the skate leg and managed to catch back up to the skiers he had come in with. Andrew then worked well with Ben Sim of Australia and skiers from the French, Canadian and Japanese teams during the skate leg. As a group they managed to pick off some more skiers in front of them and climb up through the rankings a little.
17/02/09 – Smith raises the bar at the European Youth Olympics. Callum Smith has set a new British best ever performance in Cross Country skiing at the European Youth Olympics by finishing 28th in the 7.5km Classic Time Trial.
03/02/09 – PB’s all round as Musgrave storms to 12th in the World.
24/01/09 – Musgrave and Hughes both podium in final warm up race for World Junior Championships.
In the junior men’s race a pack of 4 formed early in the race with Andrew Musgrave right amongst the action. Andrew waited patiently in the pack and did some of the work at the front of the pack. This continued for the first 7.5km in to the change over area and a clean change meant the group left as a pack again. For the first 2 laps Andrew was comfortable in the pack and he occasionally kicked to start to separate the pack. It became confusing at times as the junior pack caught and went on to pass the U18 race leaders which had started after the junior race. On the last lap the pace quickened and Musgrave and a member of the Swiss National Team pulled away a lead. Musgrave kicked hard twice on the final climbs but could not quite manage to pull away from the Swiss Skier. They entered the final bend with just a couple of metres between them however 
Andrew could not quite match the turn of speed the Swiss skier had and finished in second place just a couple of metres and 1.4 seconds off the winner.
22/01/09 – Musgrave Misses Gold by 2 Seconds!
The Team decided to race the Girls and Alex Standen up an age category in the senior field mainly to gain better FIS points in the hope of World Cup Qualification. Alex had a disappointing race with 2 heavy falls in the hard conditions losing valuable time. Despite this he earned his second best FIS points to date of 158.58 showing his form is close to the magical 120 FIS points required for World Cup Qualification. Fiona Hughes also had her second best FIS points of 165.03, not bad with tired legs from yesterday’s spint races.
21/01/09 - GB Girls Lightning Quick in Swiss National Championship Sprints.
The surprise of the day had to come in the form of Fiona Hughes who stormed to 8th in the qualification and then built still further in the finals. In her quarter final she battled hard and came in to the finishing straight with a convincing lead over 3rd place to get into the semi finals. Despite having the 1st, 4th and 5th fastest qualifiers in her semi final she battled hard on the uphill sections and had to work all the way to the finish line to earn a slot in her first ever sprint final. In the final she pushed hard but the other girls, who are all on the Swiss National Team, stretched out a lead she could not pull back after the effort put in during the semi finals. Finishing 4th is a great achievement for Fiona who is normally a distance specialist and has until today never qualified for the finals of sprint races.
Andrew’s summer training could not have gone much better with no injuries or illness. He has handled the increased training load well. Testing at the Olympic Medical Institute earlier in the year has shown that there have been significant improvements in fitness. Technique training has also come on a great deal with the team now using video analysis software to assist in the refinement of technique. Andrew has also had a couple of good warm up races in Norway and Sweden where he has raced against several World Cup skiers and put together good performances. 
Whatever of the results this weekend the fact that we have qualified and are starting at World Cup competitions is a real achievement for the British Nordic Ski Team. It was 14 years ago when Britain last skied at World Cup level, the Nordic team then had a budget of £90,000 now we receive less than £1000 a year from our national governing body. The team used to have a full time paid Nordic Director along with Coaches and a Team Manager provided through the British military. Occasionally foreign Coaches were brought. Now our Nordic Director does as much as he can on a voluntary basis, the Head Coach and Team Manager do the majority of their work on a voluntary basis and the small amount of paid coaching is paid by the athletes and their families. That said the increased performances are starting to generate some sport grant funding, which we hope we can build upon.
I meanwhile grab some takeaway food and head to the wax room to work on the skis for tomorrow. I take a few minutes break when I hear the fireworks to mark the opening of the competitions. Roy Young is arriving shortly so when he arrives I will pop up to meet him at Accreditation before finishing in the Wax Room and heading home on the last bus at 22:45. Tomorrow will see us start at about 6am checking the weather and grabbing a hearty breakfast. I will head in to the Wax Room at about 7.30am assuming the weather has not changed significantly and Roy will head in with Andrew about an hour later. Busy times!
16/11/08 - Musgrave dominates Swedish Junior team.
15/11/08 - British Girls shine in season opener.
26/10/08 British Team Train on Snow in Fortum Snow Tunnel, Torsby.
The snow tunnel provides great facilities with 1.3km of well groomed tracks and a six lane indoor biathlon range. Outside there are also good rollerski facilities with 5km of challenging tracks which were a welcome change from the tracks we use back home in the UK. The training camp was a tough one with coaches Roy Young and Al Dargie on hand to make sure we were training hard and to give us very valuable technical feedback. For the first time we had a member of staff from the Highland Institute of Sport, Catriona Walker, at the training camp in support of our two World Cup skiers Andrew Musgrave and Andrew Young. Catriona was there to carry out lactate testing and other physiological testing for the two Andrews, gathering data that can hopefully be used in the future for the whole team.
30/09/08 – Olympic Medical Institute Testing and London Sprint Rollerski Races. Several members of the British Nordic Junior, Senior and World Cup teams have spent a long weekend in London undergoing physiological testing and racing at one of the final races of the London Rollerski Series.
On Thursday 25th September the athletes had their lactate and VO2max levels measured by Dr Stewart Laing of the OMI on a running treadmill in order to help accurately set their training zones. Compared with their performances in the same tests earlier in the season, all the athletes showed considerable improvements, a clear sign of the commitment that the athletes have shown towards their training programs. Andrew Young had a similar test carried out on a static bike due to a shin injury, where he clearly showed his power output is far beyond his age and sporting background. Not only do the results show significant improvement from earlier in the season but they also clearly show the physiologically elite level of the team in comparison to other sports.
On the Friday and Saturday the team enjoyed training in the hot and sunny weather of the south of England. The two days of training were carried out in Greenwich Park and at Hillingdon Cycle Circuit, Hayes where the team underwent specific technique training. The sunny weather continued on the Sunday where London Region Nordic Ski Club played host to the 4th race in the London Roller Ski Series with sprint competitions at the Hillingdon Cycle Circuit. Before the matched team sprints, a one lap classic time trial was held over the 1.5km circuit on skis matched for speed. In the female category Fiona Hughes won the time trial by 21 seconds from Rachel Buttery of the RAF. In the men’s competition the 3 team members who raced took the top 3 places. With Andrew Musgrave finishing 19 seconds in front of 4th placed Russian born skier Ivan Gorbenko. The battle that has been ongoing between Andrew Musgrave and Andrew Young for supremacy in the rollerski races continued with Musgrave beating Young by just 1 second. Alex Standen was the third team member in the trio scraping in just 1 second in front of Ivan.
Unfortunately Simon Platt who was training with the team was unable to race because of a broken scaphoid which he sustained at a training camp earlier in the season. The good news is that Simon has now had an operation to pin the bone in his hand back together and should be able to train with poles again in about a month’s time.