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-   -   Who's More Dissapointing, the U S or Norway? (http://www.skibanter.com/showthread.php?t=12590)

[email protected] February 19th 06 05:15 PM

Who's More Dissapointing, the U S or Norway?
 
Who's more disaspointing in the cross country ski scene, the U S or
Norway? While the U S cross country ski team is having a rotten Winter
Olympics, I'd say the Norwegian lack of gold and off the podium in the
Men's relay would be even worse. I mean, they were expected to take a
bunch of Gold Medals. Right? For the U S, Kris Freeman has been
mediaocre at best by his standards. The rest of the team has been way
back in the 50s for results. However, Norway is/was the big favorite
for total medals. I''m sure they'll be calling for a new coach... My
vote is for Inge Braaten and Thomas Alsgaard... Of course, they'll have
to steal them away from the Swedes who got the bronze medal in the
relay...

J Tegeder
"Keep training, lycra never lies!" JT


sknyski February 19th 06 06:32 PM

What was expected of the US team anyway? If the games were 2 years ago
following the VdF Worlds, then we could have expected perhaps a top 10
finish or so. I don't follow the World Cup scene that closely, but
over the past 2 years I don't think we've done much. So expectations
shouldn't have been too high.....just my opinion.

bt


[email protected] February 19th 06 10:00 PM

Yes, for instance, have team members been showing time trials in
training that were best-ever/podium material? Is anyone's numbers way
up in whatever metric they're looking at? I wonder what a good hopeful
indicator is anyway, other than great recent WC results. Like "I'm
reliably lots faster in training these days---enough to finally put me
over the top. My peaking is going great." ---JP


Andrew Lee February 20th 06 09:33 AM

wrote in message:
Who's more disaspointing in the cross country ski scene, the U S or
Norway? While the U S cross country ski team is having a rotten Winter
Olympics, I'd say the Norwegian lack of gold and off the podium in the
Men's relay would be even worse. I mean, they were expected to take a
bunch of Gold Medals. Right? For the U S, Kris Freeman has been
mediaocre at best by his standards. The rest of the team has been way
back in the 50s for results. However, Norway is/was the big favorite
for total medals. I''m sure they'll be calling for a new coach...


I'm sure that there must be some questioning of how the coaches did the team
selection for Norway, leaving their hottest skier (Northug) off the team.

As an American, there's no reason for me to be Norway-centric (except that I
have some Norwegian friends), so I did enjoy watching Italy win this time
just as much as I enjoyed watching the previous four men's Olympic relays.



Andrew Lee February 20th 06 09:46 AM

Interesting that Bjørn Dæhlie predicted that Norway would have a tough time
in Turin

From http://www.fasterskier.com/print.php?id=2989 :
Olympic Champion and national hero Bjorn Dahlie didn't want to comment on
the selection, but said that Petter Northug is at a perfect age to get
international matching like the Olympics. He said however that he is not
impressed with how Norwegian skiers are performing in skating and believes
that they need to take care of those with talents in skating. Dahlie also
predicts that Norwegian skiers will have tough time in Torino.




cpella February 20th 06 03:04 PM

Based on recent results, I think the US team is right where they should
be expected to be. Perhaps the expectations were inflated to raise
interest? I know for our Canadian men's team they set their
expectations more realistically ... to improve on 13th at the last
Olympics and finish ahead of the Americans, which they did. I think it
is a self-defeating game to raise unrealistic expectations. Is it
because it is in the American psyche to only want to support a team
that they think can win? The obsession with medals is a form of
insanity anyhow. Somebody could have the race of their life and come in
6th, but get ignored in all the noise.
I met a skier from Trondheim at the Keski on Saturday. He told me that
the ski technician for Estonia is a Norwegian who left the team because
of internal politics. Now that is a soap opera. Norway getting shut out
in the 15K classic would be like Canada losing to Switzerland in
hockey... hmmm.

Chris


Gene Goldenfeld February 20th 06 06:15 PM

I was thinking last night how much the U.S. cross-country team seems
like the Chicago (baseball) Cubs (for non-North Americans, the Cubs
and their fans almost invariably start talking about next year
somewhere just past midway through the season). It would be a breath of
fresh air to hear a U.S. skier (or team coach) say that I (we) aimed at
coming in 10th or 30th or 45th and failed (or succeeded); or that I
came in only 30 seconds off the podium but that "only" is another whole
level of training/skiing to be reached, which I'm now going to take
such and such steps to achieve. Such an approach would still leave room
for better performances and faster development, while keeping goals
realistic, achievable and attitudes pointed in the right direction.

Gene


"cpella" wrote:

Based on recent results, I think the US team is right where they
should be expected to be. Perhaps the expectations were inflated to
raise interest? I know for our Canadian men's team they set their
expectations more realistically ... to improve on 13th at the last
Olympics and finish ahead of the Americans, which they did. I think it
is a self-defeating game to raise unrealistic expectations. Is it
because it is in the American psyche to only want to support a team
that they think can win? The obsession with medals is a form of
insanity anyhow. Somebody could have the race of their life and come
in 6th, but get ignored in all the noise.
I met a skier from Trondheim at the Keski on Saturday. He told me that
the ski technician for Estonia is a Norwegian who left the team
because of internal politics. Now that is a soap opera. Norway
getting shut out in the 15K classic would be like Canada losing to
Switzerland in hockey... hmmm.

Chris


Mysjkin February 27th 06 01:48 AM

"Street riots and flag burning over Norway's poor Torino Olympic
performance!"

Well not quite.
http://mysjkin.blogspot.com/2006/02/...ning-over.html

Mysjkin
http://mysjkin.blogspot.com


Bjorn A. Payne Diaz February 28th 06 01:34 PM

I don't see why the US results have to be disappointing. XC skiing is a
much bigger sport in Europe and it seems they have a bigger support
base for the athletes. So, it seems they should produce some faster
athletes. What's wrong with our skiers going over and simply racing a
good race (for them)? Being proud of a 35th or whatever. That's what
all the weekend warriors do.

I really hate how the media jumps all over the US alpine skiers for not
winning medals. Big deal. Why not report about how they do in the next
world cup race? and how things are going on the overall world cup?

As for Norway, they have some good skiers. I can understand them being
upset with racing poorly, having poor skis, etc, but that's racing.
Without the bad races you dont' appreciate the good ones.

Jay Wenner


[email protected] February 28th 06 04:47 PM

You guy's, flame me all you want, but KR had the best American
individual result since Kochie. What? It doesn't count because she's
from Alaska...or is it that sprint races aren't a 'true' event? or
maybe you guys are sexist?



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