Scando 2014 - the rest of the pictures

I'm sitting in the SAS lounge in Heathrow right now with about 40 minutes until I have to head to my gate to come home. It seemed like a good time to post a few pictures. Here is what happened on the rest of the trip.

As a disclaimer, I didn't take a lot of these pictures.

The Rest of Drammen:

When we went outside the morning of the Drammen race, it was raining. Grim conditions for ski racing.

Me and Jason putting on a brave face in the shuttle to the race. As it turned out, the rain stopped just around the time we needed to be outside testing. That was very good news.

Oslo:

The first few days in Oslo consisted of a lot of fog.

Despite the fog, everyone kept their spirits up in the wax cabin.

The athletes were allowed to exchange skis each lap. That means a lot of work for the techs in a 50km race as we would then have to race to remake the skis. These are the pits for each athlete where their exchange skis are stored.

With a field of ~80 men, it was important to know which pits belonged to our athletes. It would be a disaster to put the skis in the wrong place.

As luck would have it, the sun came out on the day of the race! What a nice surprise.

This is the main ski depot where we operate out of during testing.

The weather seemed almost too good to be true.

The Oslo World Cups are a big deal. People camp out for several days in the woods to get their preferred spot on the course. Crowds (like in the picture) line the entire race course.

Cory, me, and Randy in the stadium.

Packing the van to come home. We roll with a LOT of skis and gear.

Drammen - short update

Drammen was a lot of fun. Kikkan clinched her third consecutive World Cup Sprint Championship.

Kikkan lunging for the line. Cool shot that shows the massive crowds lining the course

You can see a very cool GoPro video shot by one of our USA athletes on a lap of the course in the video below. The direct link is also here - http://youtu.be/13K30CkJDe8

This is for sure worth checking out!

Lahti - PodiumS!!!

Saturday was a big day for us here in Lahti. For the first time ever two American ladies were on the podium at a Nordic World Cup. This was a BIG deal.

The crowds were awesome and really loud. Having tons of people out makes ski racing a lot of fun.

First we waxed some skis. I left my favourite scraper and brush behind accidentally after the last trip. Then the team left for Sochi. But as soon as we got to Lahti, Matt found all my stuff. This was a great start to what would soon be an even better day!

Skate sprint finish. Sophie (#25) on the far left and Kikkan (#11) second from the left.

Then this happened. Sophie is at the top of the picture and the red line is the finish. It couldn't get much closer than that.

Wait, what?!?

Isn't Lahti a nice place to put two ladies on the podium?

Flower ceremony!