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#1
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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 |
#2
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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 |
#3
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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 |
#4
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#5
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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. |
#6
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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 |
#7
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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 |
#8
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"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 |
#9
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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 |
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