You're absolutely right, Peter about Alsgaard being a "do your own thing"
skier. He admitted that when we saw him here in the Twin Cities last fall.
In fact he said that the Norwegian coaches were quite upset with him, not
following their regime. It will be interesting to see how he does as a
coach.

Greg Fangel

wrote in message
...
I enjoy your needling a bit Gene, but maybe don't entirely agree.
We've been talking at times about "new skate technique", without
it ever being all that precisely defined. Also the technique tape
from the Trondheim WC's from 7 years ago (not terribly new!) have
sometimes come up in these conversations. But the phrase you use,
namely, "new Norwegian skating technique" I don't recall, but maybe
others have used it (Have I???) Anyway it will be fun to see how
the Norwegians do in the skate races next year. My very indirect
impression about Alsgaard is that he's a really "do your own thing"
kind of guy, not the typical coach's personality.

The actual skate results recently by the Norwegians are of course
way better than those of skiers coached by some of the names of
US coaches you've brought up, e.g. Marty Hall and Borowski, I suspect.
So are you judging the value of the technique on the basis of
the self-satisfaction it induces in skiers, rather than the actual
speed they get in races? The Norwegians are expressing a low level
of self-satisfaction, from that quote, but that's probably an
ominous sign for their competitors!

Best, Peter