Report on World Junior Championships

It was a great group of athletes, 2 female and 4 male, 4 of whom are last year juniors. It was also a great group of coaches, with Alain Parent as Head Coach, and Alain Masson in charge of waxing. The atmosphere was positive, friendly and supportive. I think every single person on the trip learned a lot and gained a lot of valuable experience which will in turn serve to strengthen the Canadian ski community.

The coaches worked hard, and I believe were very productive and efficient.

The athletes raced hard, giving the best they were capable of on each and every day. Racing is always tough, with some athletes having good days, and some not so good, but during these races, no athlete gave up or was scared to try. Each came out and gave it their best shot, each day, and that is all anyone can ask for. I believe each athlete learned a lot, and this experience will make them stronger and tougher.

The trails themselves were not necessarily the toughest that we have skied, and they were definitely older style trails, so were not as technically tricky as some, but the weather conditions made the racing very tough. The snow was very slow each race day, and made for tough trails and very tough racing. For Canadian skiers this would often be an advantage, but this year because of the late snow conditions, our athletes had mostly only skied on very fast snow prior to arriving in Slovakia.

The sprint course was 1400 metres, and was REALLY TOUGH! It had a really long hard climb, as well as a wall to climb up. Sprint strategy, and particularily recovery strategy was very important for the top athletes. The top skier in the men’s category in the time trial was eliminated in the first heat. As a coach, I had underestimated the amount of importance that needs to be put on the recovery part of sprinting. I had also probably underestimated the strategy of needing to start relaxing as soon as you have the sprint in control.

Consistent with my previous experiences overseas, I was impressed with the wax testing process. It was kept thorough, yet very simple. The results were good – the Canadian team had good skis each day. Testing was well thought out, and prior experience and knowledge were used to keep the process simple. Each day’s testing built from the last, and allowed us to feel in control of the wax selection the whole way through.

By keeping the wax testing simple, and the waxes chosen simple, it allowed the coaches to focus on assisting the athletes in ski selection, and in careful and thorough application of wax on race skis.

The wax room we worked out of was tiny and we were sharing the facility with Nordic Combined (the jump skis were too long for the room). Since this was the only area to wax in, and since space was so limited, the coaches did all the work on the athletes skis including cleaning, prep wax, travel wax, scraping and preparing skis for testing purposes etc. This was different than the prior European experiences that I have been on, where the athletes have always done some preparation work on their skis on non race days. Contrasting the two styles of experiences, I believe there is a lot of merit (where it is possible) to have the athletes involved with their skis on these trips. Here I am not suggesting the application of race wax (or even training grip wax as that is often a good time for the coaches to learn the athletes skis) but rather being involved in working on their skis. The reasons I believe that this is important is that (1) the athletes learn a lot from the coaches in the process about waxing, ski selection, ski preparation, etc. (2) this is a good opportunity for athletes to focus and be involved in the process of preparing for their events. (3) this extended travel time is a good opportunity for busy athletes to do more preparation of skis, especially as they often will have some fairly new skis that have not yet been worked on much because it is early season, and (4) it provides the coaches more time to be involved in other things. This would be especially important if weather conditions were not fairly consistent.

We did have timing lights with us, but because of the continual windy conditions, we basically did all wax testing and the zeroing of skis by feel on uphills, downhills and flats. By having three people work together on this process, the results were good. I would say that for each day there was a significant difference in feel once we found the race wax, while with other waxes it was hard to feel the differences.

One of the best experiences of any big event is the working and learning from each other, and learning from the experience of the other coaches. This always leads to interesting dialogues, and to lots of thinking about what it takes to move forward.

An interesting discussion that we had was the feeling that there is typically still a lack of long-term planning with regards to athlete development. I believe that we don’t have enough skiers in our system committed to the dream of representing Canada at the World Junior Championships some day. I believe that we need skiers committing at age 14 and 15 to the dream of being competitive at World Juniors by the time they are 19. And ideally, we need 30 or 40 kids of each age dreaming and working towards this, and fighting to be the best in Canada. I do believe that the strategy currently being implemented by Cross Country Canada of widely publicizing the Canadian Athlete Development Model is a great first step in this process. Athletes need to be aware of the progression required to achieve international success. Knowledge facilitates productive action.

The CPL is a useful tool in ranking athletes, and allowing them to gauge where they fit in in the bigger scheme of things. I do however, believe, especially for 14 and 15 year olds, that it is important to believe that if you are the best, or in the top 4 in Canada by the time you are 19, that there will be a spot for you to compete at World Juniors. It is easy to look at where you fit in, and what you have to accomplish to be in the top 4, firstly in your age group, and eventually in the country. And I believe that if we have a competitive large group of athletes going for this for 4 or 5 years while they are maturing from Juvenile through the Junior ranks, the level will be sufficiently competitive to be internationally competitive. This will especially be true if we can maintain a strong Junior B trip to Europe consistently so that as part of the plan they can gain high level, low stress European experience prior to competing in the World Championships.

From a pure results perspective, the World Juniors in Asiago in 1996 were our best results, and I believe that at least 5 of the 8 racers competing there had raced in Europe before (2 with prior World Junior experience, and 3 with a Scandinavian B tour behind them). Of this years group it was the first time to Europe ever for 4 of the 6 athletes.

One other point here, both Tara and Claire had previous World Junior experience, and that was beneficial to the entire team. There was experience to be drawn on, and in some ways it allowed all the athletes to be more experienced. Sending younger aged athletes to World Juniors provides continuity for the athletes, and I think we often fail to acknowledge the importance of this.

The Junior B trip needs to be an integral part of a Canadian sport model. European racing experience for the purpose of experience only, gives athletes the experience and maturity to deal with the demands of high level competition.

I enjoyed the opportunity of working with a motivated and talented group of skiers, and with a very knowledgeable and experienced group of coaches. Thank you to CCC and the Coaching Association of Canada for that opportunity.