Markus Cramer Explains What Russian Skiers Got To Know By Working With Him – And What He Learned From Them

17Jul 2019 by DS News Team

This is Part II of Conversations with Markus Cramer where a German specialist with no previous experience of working with the Russians until a few years ago explains how is it to manage what is now 12 of them , help them to win – and simply have a good time together.

In his own words:

Training large groups is much harder than training a few top skiers – especially when you believe in individual approach. But with the right atmosphere in the team, it’s doable
Establishing and maintaining good atmosphere in a team is extremely important. They spend 300 days a year training and competing. Occasional frustrations are natural – but you could and should offset that by introducing an atmosphere where smile is natural.
There is no such a thing as One-fit-all perfect skiing technique . Skiers are very different and what works for some won’t work for the
others
I’ve trained many very good skiers but Alexander Legkov was and remains an ideal – in behavior, attitude and that grit that defines a truly great skier
When I’ve started training the Russian Team there was a language barrier, of course – had to explain things through Egor ( Sorin, then assistant coach). But now we speak to each other directly. They all had learned quite a lot of English by listening & talking to me…
… And I learn Russian by talking to them. Learned some very effective words that I’d rather not repeat here

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