Cross Country

[KvHagedorn]

What's wrong with Norway? Can't believe they only managed fifth place in the relay. Also heard Thomas Alsgaard is coaching the Swedes this year! Looks like the whole program crashed somewhat.

[Jammrock]

Norway's #1 CC skiier has a flu. Norway has had a lot of bad luck in CC skiing lately. For the 2002 games the #1 CC skiier had spent the previous 2 weeks skiing across Greenland looking for his missing brother

Jammrock

[jms]

Norway's #1 CC skiier has a flu. Norway has had a lot of bad luck in CC skiing lately. For the 2002 games the #1 CC skiier had spent the previous 2 weeks skiing across Greenland looking for his missing brother

Jammrock

Do you have the name of the skier who spent two weeks in Greenland? I haven't heard that story before.

As for Norways bad results this year, their funds where substantially reduced in 2003. The consequences had to surface some day...

And it is not easy to fill the shoes of Bjørn Dæhlie, Vegard Ulvang, Thomas Alsgård and the other 90's skiing superstars They where in a league of their own. Let's hope for better results in 2010.

[Jammrock]

Uh ... I don't remember which skier it was. There was a "human interest" story about it during the cc skiing competition on the US broadcast of the 2002 games ... at least I'm pretty sure it was the 2002 games ...

His brother was skiing across Greenland and got lost in a huge snow storm. He had gone out for several weeks before the Olympics searching for him and looked absolutely drained during the games.

My mom is from Vigra, which is the island where the Aalesund airport is. In fact, I had to sign off my inheritance to the family farm so the government could buy it to expand the Aalesund airport and my Aunt get full value for the land. Or something like that. So every Olympics my mom is glued to the TV watching cross-country, downhill and ski-jumping, keeping track of every Norwegian athelete.

Jammrock

[KvHagedorn]

That was 1994.. Vegard Ulvang lost his brother Kjetil (who had earlier skiied with him across Greenland I think.) They were near their home in Kirkenes which is far far north.. the brother fell through the ice in a pond and died.. they didn't know what had happened to him at the time of the games, so Vegard was preoccupied and was not up to form, since he had missed a lot of training time searching.

The good side of the story was Kjetil's wife/gf was pregnant at the time so his son was born about the same time they found his father. He's 10 now and they showed him skiiing.

[jms]

That was 1994.. Vegard Ulvang lost his brother Kjetil (who had earlier skiied with him across Greenland I think.) They were near their home in Kirkenes which is far far north.. the brother fell through the ice in a pond and died.. they didn't know what had happened to him at the time of the games, so Vegard was preoccupied and was not up to form, since he had missed a lot of training time searching.

The good side of the story was Kjetil's wife/gf was pregnant at the time so his son was born about the same time they found his father. He's 10 now and they showed him skiiing.

Oh yes, that I remember. He dissapeared in 1993 and they didn't find him before the year after. Didn't couple that to 2002 and Greenland.

How do you know so much about cross country? I didn't think there were much interest outside the Scandinavian countries.

@Jammrock: Have you been to Norway. If not you should definately make the trip The part of Norway which you refer to (north-west) is very beautiful.

[KvHagedorn]

I like all the ski events, especially cross country and ski-jumping. Downhill and Super-G are cool to watch too. Cross country is epic.. it's amazing to see how fast those guys can go for such a distance. Takes a lot of conditioning to even try to do it.

It's a shame about the funding.. I don't want to even speculate on how that money is wasted now.

[Jammrock]

Wow, I got my years all messed up.

@Jammrock: Have you been to Norway. If not you should definately make the trip The part of Norway which you refer to (north-west) is very beautiful.

The last time I was in Norway I was 4 months old, so not really. I lived in Denmark for two years while serving a mission for my church, and managed Sweden a few times, but never Norway. My mom was going to fly out and take me to Norway when my mission was over, but her brother died and all her travel money went going to Norway for the funeral, which was about 6 months before my mission ended.

My mom is getting old and plans on one last trip to Norway in two years or so, health permitting. I plan on going with her, for at least part of it. She want to visit her family at least one last time and then take a cruise up the coast from Bergen to Lofoten.

Jammrock