Nordic Nation

Back in January 2016, Tad Elliott emerged back onto the national championship scene with a win in the men’s 30-kilometer freestyle mass start at U.S. Nationals in Houghton, Mich. It had been some time since the skier originally from Durango, Colorado had felt unleashed from the grips of the energy-sapping Epstein-Barr virus.

Elliott went on to make the 2017 Nordic Ski World Championship team in Lahti, Finland. There, it was hard to miss his stunning effort firing up the first big climb out of the stadium as he skied the third leg of the U.S. men’s 4 x 10 k relay. Talk about lightness and upward momentum. In Lahti, he also notched a 27th in the men’s 50 k skate. He is a former member of the U.S. Ski Team and a three-time World Championship team member. (Let’s not forget this is a two-sport athlete. On two-wheels, Elliott crushed as an elite mountain biker. He won two U23 National Championship in mountain biking.)

Tad Elliott (bib 36) and Kyle Bratrud (bib 39) during the men’s 30-kilometer skiathlon at the 2017 Lahti World Championships. (Photo: Matt Whitcomb)

Known as one of the finest skate skiers of his generation, Elliott’s upward trajectory unraveled in 2013 as he began struggling with symptoms of the Epstein-Barr virus. The winner of multiple national championships, Elliott began literally walking towards a life and a career premised on rest and recovery with the occasional aerobic stimulus to gradually bring him back into form.

Tad Elliott racing the third leg of the U.S. men’s 4 x 10 k relay at the 2017 Nordic World Championships on Friday in Lahti, Finland. (Photo: John Lazenby/Lazenbyphoto.com)

In this episode of Nordic Nation, we tracked down the now thirty-year-old Elliott on October 9th, where he has begun undergraduate studies in sport physiology at the University of Northern Michigan. Elliott is also applying what he learned during his racing career as an assistant coach with the storied NMU program. He has also begun a side gig consulting athletes struggling with recovery and those wanting to develop sustainable training plans.

We have the go-ahead to post his email. You can reach out to him at [email protected] if you’ve got questions as it relates to his experience with overtraining and the rebound. And he drives an El Camino that we are informed is stored indoors somewhere back east.

(Elliott also works with Nordic Team Solutions.)

Tadd Elliott and his prized El Camino – part car/part truck. Pure class. The El Camino did not make the trip to NMU. (Photo: Tad Elliott Collection)

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FasterSkier caught up with former, yes former U.S. Ski Team member Andy Newell on October, 8 in Park City, Utah. Newell was in Utah assisting with the latest NEG camp and training with his old cohort when time permitted. No longer a staple of the national team, the 34-year-old Newell has partially turned over a new leaf. He’s still training as a professional skier, but he’s also the owner of a cross-country skiing business called Nordic team Solutions.

Andy Newell leads the double pole train at the Lake Placid REG camp as part of his coaching related startup -Nordic Team Solutions. (Photo: Bryan Fish)

Newell plans on racing several World Cups this season, and, if the gears are clicking, he hopes to qualify for the Seefeld, Austria World Championships. If that’s not enough for this athlete in transition, Newell intends to expand his nascent business. 

Newell’s business model is part web-based platform and part ski-boots on the ground business specializing in technique, training, and nutrition. We’re sure we missed something. But Newell covers it all in the podcast as he explains the niche he’s trying to fill.

Andy Newell (left) putting his Nordic Team Solutions to good use. (Photo: Bryan Fish)

(To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.)

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From 2011 to 2014, Sylvan Ellefson, based out of Edwards, Colorado, was on a roar. SuperTour wins, World Cup starts, and a 30-kilometer skate national championship in 2014. Now, at 31 years old, it seems the skier who began his ascent in the sport during high school would rather focus on being a husband, father, brother, and coach rather than draw attention to himself. Based as a business person in Colorado’s Vail Valley, Ellefson is giving back to the community that helped support his dreams. Along with his brother Kjell and friend John Cummins, the three have begun the Fjellbarn Fund. For those non-Norwegian speakers out there, Fjellbarn is Norwegian for “mountain child”.

Sylvan Ellefson giving his son Ryder some air time. (Photo: Kjell Ellefson)

The new nonprofit based near Vail is dedicated to helping athletes from families in need pursue their athletic dreams. 

Sylvan Ellefson on the World Cup. (Photo: Reese Hanneman)

Our conversation with Ellefson was recorded on Sept. 10. Along with learning about the inspiration for his nonprofit work, we’ll get some insight into how Ellefson’s ski career informs his coaching with the Ski & Snowboard Club Vail.

(To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.)

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In late August, U.S. Ski Team (USST) Head Coach Chris Grover broke his own news, releasing three new sets of criteria on behalf of U.S. Ski & Snowboard, the national governing body for cross-country skiing. The three separate documents discussed by Grover and linked in his blog disclosed the selection criteria for World Cup and World Cup Period 1 team selection,  2019 World Ski Championships (WSC) in Seefeld, Austria, and the 2019/2020 national team.

U.S. Ski Team Head Coach Chris Grover (front) with (from left to right) Simi Hamilton, Paddy Caldwell, Erik Bjornsen, and Ian Torchia on top of the Roc Cornafion above Villard-de-Lans, France, during a training camp this summer. (Photo: Chris Grover)

Grover and new USST development coach Gus Kaeding spoke with FasterSkier for its podcast on Sept. 11 to highlight some of the updated criteria and provide context for the modifications.

(A lightly edited conversation with Grover and Kaeding is available on the Nordic Nation podcast. Warning: you may want to time your listening for a 1.5-hour road trip or dish duty after a crowded dinner party. It’s a lengthy discussion.)

New U.S. Cross Country Development Coach Gus Kaeding. (Photo: Sarah Brunson/U.S. Ski & Snowboard)

World Cup Selection Criteria

Considering World Cup Period 1 starts, Grover stated in the following interview and in accordance with the selection criteria, the discretionary picks were made in consult with a larger working group. That group is comprised of four national-team staff coaches — Grover, Matt Whitcomb, Jason Cork, and Kaeding — as well as Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess (athlete rep), August Teague (chair of the cross-country coaches sub-committee), and eight senior club coaches: Chris Mallory (Sun Valley Gold Team), Erik Flora (Alaska Pacific University), Joe Haggenmiller (Central Cross Country), Pepa Miloucheva (Craftsbury Green Racing Project), Austin Caldwell (formerly of the Bridger Ski Foundation, now assisting the University of Colorado-Boulder Ski Team), Dragan Danevski (BSF), Pat O’Brien (Stratton Mountain School T2 Team), and Dan Weiland (Ski Club Vail).

According to Grover, this 14-person working group was tasked with helping develop WSC and World Cup selection criteria. Further, this group, which again includes the four USST staff coaches, remains responsible for nominating the discretionary picks for each World Cup period this season.

Once those World Cup Period 1 nominations were made, they were sent to a three-person discretionary selection review group with the authority to approve or disapprove those nominations.

The language in the World Cup selection criteria, as it refers to this smaller group, reads as follows: “All discretionary selections will be reviewed by a discretionary selection review group comprised of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Nordic Program Manager, the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Chief of Sport, and the athlete representative from that sport who is a member of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Board. If the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Board Athlete Representative is also a currently competing athlete then another athlete, who is not actively competing, will be selected by the Athletes’ Council to be the representative in this group.”  

In a follow-up email, Grover clarified who serves on the discretionary selection review group. “This would normally be Bryan Fish, Luke Bodensteiner, and Rosie Brennan. Because Rosie is an active athlete, Dakota has replaced her,” Grover explained.

The other changes to World Cup selection that Grover cited in his original blog post are as follows and discussed in the podcast:

World Ski Championships Criteria

Come late February, the World Championships begin. In a personal blog published on FasterSkier, Grover noted the key changes to the current WSC selection criteria.

The World Cup remains the most direct path to meeting objective criteria for WSC team nomination.

Discretionary selection is divided into two phases: Phase 1 and Phase 2. The phases refer to the use of coaches’ discretion once ...

He’s another skier who bleeds maple syrup. Raised in Putney, Vermont. Skied at the Statton Mountain School (SMS), Dartmouth, and post-collegiately with the Craftsbury Green Racing Project — take a breath — and yes, still in Vermont as the SMS T2 Team head coach is Pat O’Brien. Thirty years old this summer, O’Brien has been at the helm of one of the dominant elite level programs in the U.S. since 2014. As he begins his fifth year leading the program, he has had the unique opportunity of guiding emerging athletes, like new SMS T2 skier Alayna Sonnesyn, along with a newly minted Olympic gold medalist, Jessie Diggins.

Aviators? Check. Hi-vis attire? Check. Five o’clock shadow from a gruelling dryland camp? Check. SMS T2 coach Patrick O’Brien on the last day of this year’s Lake Placid summer training camp. (Photo: Matt Whitcomb)

In this episode, we spoke with O’Brien on Aug. 15, shortly before his departure for an on-snow camp in New Zealand. He discussed how he entered the coaching game and how he navigates working with skiers who have found success on the World Cup to those just breaking into the world of SuperTours and post-collegiate skiing. Bonus info from the interview, O’Brien claims to have once beaten Simi Hamilton at something.

Patrick O’Brien at the 2018 SuperTour Finals in Craftsbury, Vermont. (Photo: Reese Brown/ U.S. Ski and Snowboard)

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In this episode of Nordic Nation, we spoke with Dan Cnossen, who, at 38, has much to celebrate. This past winter, he raked in six medals (one for every race he competed in) at the Winter Paralympics — three in biathlon, three in cross-country — in PyeongChang, South Korea. But as he discusses in this podcast, the winning does not define him. Raised on a fifth-generation family farm outside Topeka, Kanasa, Cnossen went on to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy and now holds masters degrees in public administration and theological studies — both from Harvard.

Biathlon gold medalist Dan Cnossen of the U.S. celebrates his win in the men’s sitting 7.5 k biathlon sprint on March 10, the opening day of competition at the 2018 Winter Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Mark Reis)

On his path to the Paralympics, Cnossen served as a Navy SEAL platoon leader. He lost both his legs in an explosion in 2009 while on patrol in Afghanistan, and became a recipient of both a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star with Valor.

In the 42 minutes we have with Cnossen, we learn about perseverance and how a curious mind meshed athletics with theology.

(To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.)

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Nathaniel Mah, a 22-year-old Canadian, isn’t someone we would normally liken to an endangered species. That’s perhaps the best analogy for Mah, who describes himself as the last remaining nordic combined athlete in Canada. He currently trains in Canmore with the Alberta World Cup Academy and jumps when he can — most often in the U.S. at the Utah Olympic Park (UOP) jumping facility in Park City.

That defining characteristic, the last Canadian NoCo skier, hasn’t deterred Mah from his international competition ambitions. He’s been able to weave a tapestry of training opportunities and support to pursue his athletic goals.

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In this Nordic Nation episode, we speak to Mah about how he’s been able to train and compete while Canada’s nordic combined and jumping scene struggles to remain viable. Mah is coached in cross country by Chris Jefferies and Allison Macardle from the Alberta World Cup Academy. Currently, Mah is without an official jumping coach. 

Nathaniel Mah racing in 2017 in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Nathaniel Mah/Instagram)

Most pressing for Mah and his constituency of avid ski jumpers is the prospect of Calgary’s ski jumping complex at Canada Olympic Park (COP) shuttering this coming October. WinSport is a nonprofit that owns and operates the COP as well as the Beckie Scott High Performance Training Centre on Haig Glacier and the Bill Warren Training Centre at the Canmore Nordic Centre. According to several news reports, WinSport claims the jumps require a costly upgrade and the $500,000-dollar annual cost to operate is not sustainable. (Read more: March 27 CBC article and March 23 article in Canada’s Global News)

Ski Jumping Canada posted a press release detailing its position on the likely closure of the jumping venue.

Making matters more complex, it appears Calgary is preparing a bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics. In a study (full report) commissioned by Ski Jumping Canada, data suggest a majority of respondents desire events involving ski jumping to be held specifically in Calgary rather than Vancouver. (It has been reported that Vancouver is a possible ski-jumping venue for a proposed Calgary 2026 Winter Olympic bid.)    

(To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.)

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Here on Nordic Nation, we’re featuring back-to-back interviews with notable Norwegians. We previously connected with Marit Bjørgen and focused on the athlete side of the performance matrix. This time, we spoke with wunderkind sports physiologist, Øyvind Sandbakk. If you are new to his name, he is one of the key reasons Norway has remained ahead of the sport-performance curve in nordic sport.

Dr. Øyvind Sandbakk (Courtesy photo)

If there’s an interesting question to answer with regards to things like double-poling efficiency, Sandbakk or one his students is on it. Yes, Norway has strength in numbers when it comes to cross-country athletes, but they also have a Sandbakk and a cadre of graduate students who keep Norway a step ahead.

Sandbakk serves as managing director at the Centre for Elite Sports Research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. And as if he is not busy enough, he’s also head of research and development at the Norwegian Olympic Sports Centre (Olympiatoppen).

Sandbakk discusses how he became involved with research and how his research group has become one the premier nordic-sport think tanks.

Here’s a link for a comprehensive list of Sandbakk’s research.

For another interesting read, Sandbakk, along with PhD. student Guro S. Solli (Solli is the first author on the paper) explored Bjørgen’s training during and after the birth of her son.

(To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.)

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The stats are simply mind-boggling. Essentially, Norway’s Marit Bjørgen has the mostest. The most decorated Winter Olympic medalist: 15 total medals, eight gold, four silver, and three bronze — over five Olympiads from 2002 to 2018. The most World Championships bling: 26 total medals, 18 gold, five silver, and three bronze. Bjørgen won 114 individual World Cups and podiumed 184 times on the World Cup.

Take a bow. Marit Bjørgen of Norway winning the 30-kilometer classic mass start at 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden. (Photo: Nordic Focus/Fischer)

Maybe something more sentimental for the core Norwegian fan, this past March, Bjørgen won a record seventh Holmenkollen 30 k. And she won that in un-Bjørgen like style by coming from behind to reel in a speedy Jessie Diggins.

Norway’s Marit Bjørgen celebrates her seventh Holmenkollen 30 k victory in Oslo, Norway, ahead of American Jessie Diggins, Norway’s Ragnhild Haga (not shown) and Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

This brings us to the point that this is the 50th episode of Nordic Nation. So, we wanted to go big. Really, no one is bigger than Bjørgen in the sport. In this ‘Take a Bow’ episode with Marit, we cover motherhood, training, racing, the media, and growing up in a small Norwegian club with three racers. The newly retired Bjørgen, 38, was interviewed last Tuesday, July 10.

Enjoy.

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BEND, Oregon — In this von Ballcap episode, we sit down with newly retired pro-skier Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess in his hometown of Bend. At 32, Dakota, or “Dak” as he’s most often called, had been on the scene for over a decade. In that time, Blackhorse-von Jess won the support of his peers and fans as a skier’s skier. The man is nothing but energy and intellect wound into a 5-foot-9-inch body that ultimately became a sprinting force.

Andy Newell (near) and Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess during official training at the 2016 Ski Tour Canada in Gatineau, Quebec. (Photo: John Lazenby/Lazenbyphoto.com)

His story resonates because Blackhorse-von Jess’s story is the one you might want to tell the kids: stick to your goals, stay true to your values, and although you might achieve some of your dreams, some will be left unfulfilled. He raced at the 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden, he won skate-sprint national titles in 2013 and 2015, and a classic sprint title in 2015, too. Beyond the titles, he landed on the national sprint podium four times: placing second twice and third twice. However, an Olympic birth eluded him.

Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess in bib 1 (as the day’s top qualifier) leads Bend Endurance Academy teammate Akeo Maifeld-Carucci (10) in the classic sprint at the 2016 Auburn Ski Club SuperTour in Truckee, California.

We’re talking about a person who gave up a full ride to the University of Washington, that brought with it a postgraduate job/internship at the “JPL”, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in favor of the ski-racing chase. Never look back and work for what you earn. Blackhorse-von Jess took a gap year, landed at Dartmouth where he skied for four years, and the rest is sifted through in the podcast. Not all of it, of course, but we sift through a whole bunch.

Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess (30) off to a quick start in the quarterfinals at 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden.

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