Newell third in Changchun ... anyone?

I've posted more a general thought under "Trond lays it out" but here I
would ask about what Andy's training regimen has been the past decade.
What struck me about his very encouraging results this year are that he
has (from a distance) showed pure (skiing alone) speed and an apparent
lack of stamina and ability to compete with others at the top. Has he
put in the hours that will allow him to go to the next level, or has he
more or less played out what one can do on an American style training
schedule? Of course, I wish him the best.

Gene


"Zach Caldwell" wrote:

Well, you guys might be a jaded bunch of almost enthusiastic but
dedicated masters skiers. And maybe Sprints aren't as cool as distance
races. I've generally tried to keep my posts on this website relevant
to my profession so this is off-topic for me. But I can tell you that
I was bouncing off the walls yesterday over Newell's podium!

Maybe the field was depleted and tired. Andy's had a long season too.
Maybe the race wasn't in Europe. Neither was our last podium finish in
1983 when my cousin Tim and Bill Koch were second and third behind
Gunde Svan (his first victory) in a World Cup in Anchorage. World
Championships are in Japan next year, but the medals will be metal.

More impressive is the sure and steady progress that Andy has made in
the last year. A year ago he had qualified for one, maybe two
quarterfinals in world cup races, and he'd never advanced past the
quarters. This year his qualifying positions in world cup events were
(in order), 8th, 3rd, 21st, 4th, 7th, 12th, 19th, 1st. Someplace in
the middle there was 2nd at the Olympics. His final finishes were
11th, 21st, 27th, 4th, 12th, 13th, 8th, 3rd and 16th at the Olympics.
He's clearly got work to do to become dominant in heats. But it's
just as clear that he's made tremendous progress, even just from the
start of this season.

Andy never once failed to qualify for the heats this season. He
finished the season ranked 8th on the sprint world cup list and 7th on
the sprint FIS points list. Look around guys - this kid is not just
potential. We've got a world class talent here and he's delivering
results consistently. I've been as jaded and cynical about US results
as anybody. But I think I'll allow myself a little bit of joy over
this one.

Z

Newell is 23. He made it to two World Cup sprint finals this season.
He beat Hetland and some of the best sprinters in the world in
Changchun after spending months away from home and traveling and racing
more than any of the Euros that he beat. Yes, he has more work to do
to win a final, but it seems like a reach to call those results a "lack
of stamina and ability." Almost insulting.

There is a lot to celebrate in North American skiing this year, and I
am excited that we seem to have a fleet of rising stars and not just
one hero any more. To those who don't want to celebrate, I guess we've
answered Cork's original question: if one looks hard enough there is a
dark cloud lurking behind every silver lining.

Oh, come on. This is the usual list of excuses about age, travel and
loneliness. But two of those will always be the case, and age and
experience in itelf won't take Andy to the next level. Ask Becky and
Sara and how they've overcome them - taking up the hours, building
stamina, learning how to race at the top, and learning to handle the
travel and time on the road. My qualified (and probably correct)
observation and question about Newell came from watching the race
videos and reading Andy's post-race comments, which pre-date the
current interview series with Trond Nystad on fasterskier.com. But, in
fact, it's a logical extension of the issue he raises in the second
interview: if you want to compete at the top level in your 20s, you
better have the miles in before then, the European kind of miles. If
you have information to add about Andy's training background, I'd be
glad to hear it.

Gene


"Nathan Schultz" wrote:

Newell is 23. He made it to two World Cup sprint finals this season.
He beat Hetland and some of the best sprinters in the world in
Changchun after spending months away from home and traveling and
racing more than any of the Euros that he beat. Yes, he has more
work to do to win a final, but it seems like a reach to call those
results a "lack of stamina and ability." Almost insulting.

There is a lot to celebrate in North American skiing this year, and I
am excited that we seem to have a fleet of rising stars and not just
one hero any more. To those who don't want to celebrate, I guess
we've answered Cork's original question: if one looks hard enough
there is a dark cloud lurking behind every silver lining.

Since about the Bjorn Dahlie era, I haven't followed international
racing, and I didn't really follow it very closely then. I don't have
cable TV, so I have to go search it out on the internet, or do a
workout with Tegeder. During the Olympics, the only races I saw were
some of the sprints and the 50 km race since those were on when I
happened to be watching. The same thing goes for cycling. I've probably
seen 3 stages of the Tour during the Lance years. I keep meaning to
purchase multiple DVDs of past years, but never get around to spending
the money.

I think the future of xc in Minnesota looks good. In spite of what the
oldtimers think is lousey snow, the high schoolers seem to be getting
faster, and there seems to be more kids involved. I hope that's
happening around the country. If it is, then there should be more
talent rising to the national level, and then to the international
level in the future. If you look at the US results 15 years ago, I
think the US has better skiers now (and a deeper field).

Jay Wenner

"Nathan Schultz" wrote:

Gene, I only mentioned that the travel because in an earlier post you
belittled his result by saying, "Wednesday he placed in a depleted and
mostly tired field." I did not say he could have won without travel;
it was you who implied his result was an anomaly because it was in
China.


Fair enough. Newell's had a wonderful "first" season and hopefully
it and the psychological impetus from standing on the podium will turn
out to be the breakthrough one. Zach put up a list of Andy's finishes
and others talk about the first podium in 20 years. From a statistical
standpoint, there are two false assumptions floating around. First,
it's been highly probable for a long time that sooner or later an
American would get to the podium in a WC race just by chance, given
enough repeats at it and a good day. In this case, it was a new
event, which probably upped the chances a lot. Second, there's a
tendency to see a single or series of great results and build them up
and project them into the future. Investors and sports fans do this all
the time, ignoring that lousy results are right behind, a concept
known as regression to the mean. The USST and some supporters have
been at least tacitly playing to this prejudice with discussions of Kris
Freeman and Carl Swenson for some time (there's also a false idea that
development is linear in play here). Third, Andy's former head coach
just said clearly implied that skiers without a certain level of
training in their upper adolescent years are fundamentally behind the
curve and will always be struggling from behind, so to speak. Thus,
getting a sense of where Andy's come from and where he might be going
seems, all and all, a pretty darn reasonable discussion point.

Gene

Gene wrote:

"American would get to the podium in a WC race just by chance..."

By chance? Like rolling the dice?

On another, but related topic. I look at what people say on this
newsgroup like we're talking over beers in a bar. It's just talk. Does
it really matter what people say? It seems the talk is for
entertainment, but it also seems like some alcohol might help the
attitude a little. Some people really take what we say (or don't say)
so damn serious.

I've had someone from this newgroup take stuff I've written and email
off to people with what seems like the intent to get people ****ed at
me. Then I get a phone call. "Well, did they email the whole thread?'"
"No." "Well, what I said was...."

I heard there was quite series of messages ripping on the USST and I
saw a series of messages ripping into Nathan and it reminds me of the
rec.cycling.racing group. It seems people will write things they'd
never say, and there's a lot of negative energy out there.

Jay Wenner

On 23 Mar 2006 05:14:38 -0800, "Bjorn A. Payne Diaz"
wrote:

Gene wrote:

"American would get to the podium in a WC race just by chance..."

By chance? Like rolling the dice?

On another, but related topic. I look at what people say on this
newsgroup like we're talking over beers in a bar. It's just talk. Does
it really matter what people say?


It seems the talk is for
entertainment, but it also seems like some alcohol might help the
attitude a little. Some people really take what we say (or don't say)
so damn serious.

I've had someone from this newgroup take stuff I've written and email
off to people with what seems like the intent to get people ****ed at
me. Then I get a phone call. "Well, did they email the whole thread?'"
"No." "Well, what I said was...."

I heard there was quite series of messages ripping on the USST and I
saw a series of messages ripping into Nathan and it reminds me of the
rec.cycling.racing group. It seems people will write things they'd
never say, and there's a lot of negative energy out there.

In the rec.bicycles.racing a few actual positive initiatives have come
of contacts made in the group. It's possible I think.

JFT

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Yeah, I wish it could go more like talk around beers. But, I dunno,
maybe it gets crazy when UofMich and MSU fans get together. Does
everyone get worked up? I like sports...from doing em...I end up not
being able to take sides too much. But I do like the home team. If the
USST starts winning more people might go outside and ditch the TVs. I'd
love to see more folks out on the trails. Some more USST success might
do it! So I'm rootin' for em. But I still like mulling over what's
going on. I've asked a few times here about US skier metrics. Few
replies. Maybe these are trade secrets. ---I'd say they might be---only
if they're not up to par. What are our team skiers hours like? It
didn't seem like a terrible question from Gene about that. Why not brag
em up. "All our kids are solidly above 700 hours---it's the younger
ones I'm worried about." --Whatever the case is, they should be up
front about it. Unless there's serious main team trouble---like, we
couldn't get anyone over 500 hrs this year! And I like winning at
anything and hearing about our side winning at anything. I would be
tickled to hear that Andy can do more dips than the Norwegian champ or
something. I sure hope Carl can beat em on mtbikes. But who knows? I
was impressed to read about some Euro dude's uphill doublepole
rollerskiing record. Hey, it's no WC but it's cool. What's a lot of
dips to do anyway? I could only ever do 25 in a row. What do US skiers
do? Euros? What about trail running. I consider this all open
discussion stuff. And I'm not ****ed at anyone. Now, I'm going to get
me an IPA! --JP