Russia Announces Its Squad Selection 2020/21

Russia Announces Its Squad Selection 2020/21

Leaders, Newsfeed
The Russians have just announced their national team selection for 2020/21. -It's one skier smaller in total numbers compared to the last season yet remains by far the world's largest: 39 athletes in total. Wow! [caption id="attachment_15599" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Yuri Borodavko & Oleg Perevozchikov[/caption] -The unique structure of independently operating inner groups remain: those under Yuri Borodavko (10 skiers ) and Markus Cramer (9) have both men and women, the one under Oleg Perevozchikov is men-only. Egor Sorin's group is considered equal in status, but is composed primarily of U23 skiers of both sexes with two exceptions. [caption id="attachment_15595" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Sedova, Nepryaeva and Belorukova[/caption] Get used to two new names: Yulia Stupak and Anastasia Kuleshova. Those are Yulia Belorukova and Anastasia Sedova who both are back to the squad…
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Squires,  Team Russia Know-How

Squires, Team Russia Know-How

Newsfeed, Training & Outfitting
Well, it isn't really. Coaches who maintain their form were training alongside active athletes for yonks. A squire - or " coach who trains along" - fulfills many roles including conducting training sessions  , leading by example ( how about 5 hour mountain trekking or equally long biking? ) and to some, namely team leaders, being quasi-personal coach. It could be argued that recent successes of both Team Slovenia and Team GB are linked to that active coaching system. But it's the Russians who polished the system and in some ways took a step further in the last couple of years. Here's how it works: [caption id="attachment_12791" align="alignnone" width="1920"] ...it's all started with Markus Cramer arrival to Team Russia. First order of things was to get him an interpreter. By…
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Gällivare Premiere: Skiing Stars Gather In Swedish Lapland

Gällivare Premiere: Skiing Stars Gather In Swedish Lapland

Leaders, Newsfeed
https://www.instagram.com/p/BbhTEsnhqA7/ "We never had such a strong line-up of participants like we have this year!", the organizer of the Gällivare Premiere, Stefan Nieminen, can't hide his satisfaction. He – and the team he runs – also look very tired from having to work from 5AM in the morning till 8PM at night to to make the competitions. It's not easy to prepare the tracks fit for Olympic and world champions. https://www.instagram.com/p/BbiJKiCBtJP/ Out of 21.000 cubic meters of farmed snow that were stored from last year only some 14.000 have survived the unsually rainy summe of Swedish Lapland. But that's was just enough to lay crucial parts of the track – and then Mother Nature helped the last moment with a snowfall. The Olympic champions Marcus Hellner of Sweden ( after…
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More Skiers Go Camo

More Skiers Go Camo

Leaders, Newsfeed, Trivia
April is the month when professional skiers descend ( quite literally) from the mountains and come out from the forests where they live and train most of the year and for a short while become the ordinary citizens. Yesterday we shared with you a link to Niklas Dyrhaug's Instagram, featuring a Team Norway trio of Didrik Tønseth, Finn Hagen Krog and Dyrhaug himself in Norwegian Army uniforms with assault rifles. Unspoken message is quite clear – locked & loaded for the next season! Today Tønseth have added some heavy artillery to the message – here's the trio on top of Leopard 2, one of the biggest & meanest main battle tanks in the world. https://www.instagram.com/p/BTHjXrtFJwN/?taken-by=toenseth If the Norse men were hoping for their photo challenge to be answered, today they…
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