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NZ Wrap-Up
NZ Wrap-up…
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\r\nTeam Today
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\r\nAfter a long trip and too much time in airplanes/airports, the team arrived home from New Zealand on Friday and early Saturday after a successful on-snow training camp.
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\r\nMost of the athletes have headed to their homes for a couple weeks of relaxed, on-their-own training. The NZ camp, as usual, had a heavy emphasis on volume as well as intensity training, and for most of the athletes and coaches this will be rewarded with a week or so of very easy training.
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\r\n“This was our best camp yet” said coach Pete Vordenberg. New Zealand is currently experiencing one of its best winters on record, and the team took full advantage of the incredibly good snow conditions and race opportunities. Athletes, on a whole, stayed relatively healthy and lost much less training time to illness and fatigue than in the past.
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\r\nThe staff split many of the coaching duties much more so than in the past. Athletes benefited from more personalized attention throughout the camp from individual coaches which made managing technique and training load more efficient in many ways. In talking of the success of this camp, Vordenberg said “I think the main reason is because we divided up our coaching duties better than ever, so that we could pay specific attention to each athlete more often. Even though I worked primarily with the women I felt like I spent good time with almost everyone and that great progress was made”.
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With our summer camp over, focus is renewed on Pete's biceps...
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\r\nTrond Nystad worked primarily with the men’s distance team, new coach Vidar Lofshus worked with the sprinters, and Vordenberg, as mentioned, worked mainly with the women.
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\r\n“On the women’s front, I am extremely happy with the camp. We had a few tough days but that is because our expectations are high. The biggest improvement we made was raising the level of focus of each session. When that happens big improvement can be made. If the athletes can maintain that focus through the fall, every session, we’ll be flying this winter” said Vordenberg.
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\r\nOn the men’s side, things are equally upbeat midway through the preparation season. “We made some huge strides in the right direction in New Zealand. Everyone trained extremely well, but what I am most pleased with is the improvements seen in technique and focus. The team has become even more focused on solving tasks every time they are training. Every session is done with extreme focus on the purpose of the session. This tells me that we are dealing with a very confident crew that is going to be very impressive this winter” said head coach Trond Nystad.
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\r\nThe wax tech crew had good conditions for testing skis and grinds. Summer testing is an imperative part of the equipment puzzle, and the wax team had an excellent opportunity to test several new grinds against many of the older standbys. Head wax tech Chris Hall was joined in New Zealand by Nordic combined coach Bard Elden, and both spent about ten days testing. Athletes did not have their new equipment as of the New Zealand camp, so time spent testing was done so on older equipment, separating the good from the not so good. The tech crew will be traveling to ski factories and selecting equipment over the course of the next month. Keep checking into Team Today for more wax/grind/ski info from Chris Hall.
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\r\nNot all was hard work down under for the skiers. The team spent some relaxing time on a couple of the south island’s finer golf courses, (check out Arrowtown Golf Course if you’re in the area!) as well as enjoying the ski-town atmosphere of Wanaka. If you find yourself on New Zealand’s south island and want an adrenaline rush, check out Nordic Helicopters (0800-Nordic). These guys were a great sponsor of the Merino Muster and provided a few of the athletes and coaches with one crazy ride through the river valleys and over the ridges of the Pisa Range. We’d be remiss if we also didn’t thank the crew at the Snow Farm, and the entire Lee family, for another great August of skiing. These folks are a huge part of making this trip happen for us every year, and the job they do is outstanding.
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Written By: petevDate Posted: 8/31/2004Number of Views: 281
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