HUNTLY NORDIC SKI CLUB
NEWSLETTER No. 9
FEBRUARY 2002
OLYMPIC EDITION
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HUNTLY NORDIC SKI CLUB NEWSLETTER No. 9 FEBRUARY 2002 OLYMPIC EDITION |
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Editorial
After such a promising start to the season we have had to cancel all the planned Clashindarroch races due no or insufficient snow. The count stands at 25 skiable days in the Clash so far, which actually is not too bad and there is still plenty of the season left, so don’t get too despondent. Chris Barton is being a bit premature by putting his skis away and getting out the golf clubs – the snow will return. There is snow on the high tops, but all the wild weather of the past couple of weeks has probably made ski touring not the most pleasant of experiences. With the lack of low level snow maybe now is the time to venture to the downhill centres and perfect those telemark turns.
What we have got at the moment are the Winter Olympics to keep us occupied. In amongst all the ice dance and crazy people hurtling down slopes on trays the BBC should show us a bit of nordic skiing (or possibly not – see below). The races should be a bit more exciting on television with the introduction of mass starts and head to head sprint races; but I bet they won’t be as thrilling as Roy’s Skier Skate Cross.
The skiing authorities have been trying to make cross-country skiing more appealing to spectators in recent years. There has been a steady decline in popularity since its heydays in the 1970’s. I have just finished reading the book Long Distance A Year of Living Strenuously by Bill McKibben who, in his late thirties, decided to spend a year putting in the same volume of training as an Olympic cross country skier. He wanted to find out how far he could push his untrained body, and as it turned out, also his mind. I’m not mentioning this book for all his thought-provoking philosophical ideas, although they are well worth reading and I highly recommend the book; it is his comments on the decline and current state of nordic skiing that I want to mention. In the 1970’s - early 80’s over 2.1 million pairs of nordic skis were sold annually, by the end of the 1990’s this was down to around 1 million pairs. Cross country skiing expanded during 1970’s on the fitness bandwagon of marathon running etc, especially in the USA, where McKibben’s comments are most concerned. The reasons for the decline are not clear, global warming does not help, but also the sport has to compete with the basically gravity propelled winter sports. The media, and in consequence the public, think these are more exciting – more chances of crashes. Even ice-skating has the chance of a spectacular fall. McKibben believes the media, and public, cannot appreciate the endurance and technical skills of the cross-country skier. Of course in the above I have tried, probably not very successfully, to summarise what Bill McKibben devoted a couple of chapters to. In the absence of skiing I thought I would try to promote some discussion.
This longer than usual editorial is the result of limited news. It is times like this that your editor is even more desperate than usual for articles, news, comments and photos to include. I know some of you have been away skiing this winter.
Peter Thorn
Junior Development Squad.
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Under the capable guidance of Roy, Sandy, Jayne and Lester the Junior Development Squad continues to be very popular. As the overall standards of the squad improve we are again fortunate to have the specialist coaching skills of Arthur Stewart & Bob Lacy. The parent helpers, who have been playing a far more active role, have particularly impressed Roy. With no snow for the last couple of sessions we have still managed to have good turnout at the Ski Centre where good use was made of the Lottery Grant roller skis. In the pouring rain of the last weekend the kids displayed a remarkable resilience and toughness, I do not think some of them even noticed the rain. The final event was something else! ROY’s ROLLER-TRACK SKI DUATHLON You can count on Roy to come up with some chaotic event. How Bob’s car escaped the need for a re-spray after this lot hurtled past I don’t know. |
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Tension mounts at the start.... |
They’re off |
Is Roy helping or is he pushing? You just can never tell with the man |
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GB Training Camp at Lofer. Five of our juniors went to the GB Junior Cross Country Ski Squad camp at the British Olympic training facility at Lofer in Austria. Ian Fairweather, Olwen Thorn, Posy & Andrew Musgrave and Sarah Young rubbed shoulders with some of our Olympic hopefuls. I am reliably informed that downhill skiers have huge muscles and are monsters in the weights room. They all made it out to Lofer despite weather delays to flights and, in one case, a lost passport (I’ll mention no names Ian). None of them wanted to come home because the skiing was so good. Olwen was elected captain of the squad, which has earned her the new nickname "Captain Snowplough". Nordic ski racers do not snowplough down hills, well sometime ago Olwen made the mistake of doing this in front of her coach Bob Lacy. Bob isn’t the kid of guy who lets you forget this kind of thing. However I believe snowploughs, bum arrests, grasping branches etc are legitimate methods of descending hills. PT |
Braemar Telefest – 8-10th March.
Several of the older Squad members will be heading off the Telemark Festival at Glenshee over the weekend 8-10th March. It might be well worthwhile for those of you interested in Telemark or mountain touring to participate in the event. Roy has been to previous Telefests & is probably the best person to question about it.
Email Roy: tout.tele@cwcom.net
Or tel: 01466 793347
Lowlanders 2002.
Olwen and Posy were joined by Emily Skitmore in representing Great Britain at the Lowlanders Championships 2002 at La Féclaz, France at the end of January. This trio even managed to get their picture in the Press & Journal, which is good publicity for our sport. There was plenty of snow but temperatures were very warm, making waxing extremely tricky, very Scottish conditions. The opening 5Km classic (10km for Olwen) was particularly tough. The girls all ended up with a great haul of medals: Posy 4 gold’s, Emily 4 silvers, Olwen 2 silvers & 1 bronze. Possibly the best performance was Posy making the final of the ladies sprints, which was open to all age groups. It sounded like Posy and Olwen had a great tussle in one of the sprint semi-finals with Olwen losing the racing line and ending up on ice while Posy nipped through on her inside.
Emily & Posy The Lowlanders GB Team Olwen
Winter Olympics.
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The BBC’s opening coverage of the cross-country skiing at Salt Lake has not been too promising. They devoted less than 30 seconds to the men’s 30km and ladies 15km mass start, freestyle races. Stefani Belmondo’s win in the ladies race obviously was not exciting enough despite her breaking a pole and needing a sprint finish to take gold by less than two seconds. The programme did have interview with Matthew Pinsent where he owned up to doing some cross-country skiing at Lofer in Austria. He is a big guy to nordic ski but I expect he would have a phenomenal double pole. Unfortunately Gillian Sowden did not manage to get a place on the GB Olympic Biathlon Team. In fact I do not think any ladies were eventually selected, I’m not sure why. An interesting snippet is that a Hugh Pritchard has become the first non-military person to make the men’s biathlon team. |
The fast & furious mass start of the ladies 15km Freestyle race, Soldier’s Hollow. |
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Visit the following excellent websites for all the news & results from Salt Lake: http://news.bbc.co.uk/winterolympics - as usually a very good BBC site. Complain if you don’t like how the Beeb cover the games. www.saltlake2002.com – the official site of the games. Lots of information on the various sports including profiles of the athletes such as the 43-year Thai cross-country skier. Maybe I’m not too old to make the Olympics. |
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PT
Clashindarroch Ski Trails / Forest Enterprise.
The aftermath of the recent storms has left a lot of windblown trees on the trails. As a result Forest Enterprise temporarily closed some of the lower trails (Grotto/Secret Passage/Sheepfolds). It may take them a couple of weeks before they can clear these trails as over 15k Tonnes of timber was felled in the North-east’s forest. Elsewhere the Gartly Moor Trails are only open to the public at weekends until the end of March to allow forestry operations.
Sandy & I have been busy over the past few weeks preparing & updating risk assessments & operating procedures for the snowmobile & ski events. These are now required in our increasingly bureaucratic world. Fortunately the new District Forester, Ewan Reid, has a very sensible approach to these matters & has been most helpful in getting the necessary paperwork in place. As it turns out the whole exercise was probably worthwhile as it helped identify & solve some potential problems.
Huntly Nordic & Outdoor Centre’s 10th Anniversary.
The Ski Centre will celebrate its 10th anniversary on Thurs 28th March. There were a lot of people who thought / hoped that the Centre wouldn’t last 10 months. The fact that it has is a credit to its staff through the years & everyone who has given up so much time in making the place work. I don’t think that anything special has been arranged so far but I think it should be commemorated in some way.
New Members.
I would like to welcome to following to the Club:-
Eric & Carol Robertson: Carol got roped into registering competitors at one of our races but even this hasn’t put her off joining. Eric know me from our caving days at university, & he still wants to go skiing with me!?
Gareth Smith, Judy Patterson & their boys Callum & Euan: are enthusiastic new comers to the sport. Callum belongs to the Junior Development Squad.
Victoria Moore & Robert Farrell: extend the reach of the Club to the coast by Banff.
Miriam Bunyan: has joined the increasing band of skiers in the Insch-Kennethmont area.
Final Bits & Pieces
Sun 17th Mar – Back-up race date
Thurs 28th Mar – Full Moon Stomp / HNOC 10th Anniversary
Sun 31st Mar – Mountain Tour
Sat 27th Apr – Full Moon Stomp
Don’t hesitate in contacting me if you want to know more about any Club activity.
Correspondence to: Peter Thorn
West Craigton Cottage
Kennethmont
Huntly Tel: 01464 831429
Aberdeenshire AB54 4QP. Email: peter@thornp.freeserve.co.uk
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