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Show sr I 'f 1 I "'t takes I ;? PS ten years I.jk J j I to become ff I y I cross-country' (Iff 1$ skier and it's - I P ' not a l'fe fr ,ff . I I everybody' $' 1 1 i I U.S. Ski Team jumper J I ; - I Mike Holland is a hero f f If i I in Yugoslavia, but little J 3 I i I known in his own I V I country. "j I I photos by Lori Adamski-Peek , I J J ...... ' . ' - . . t ' - '0 Nordic athletes: A rare breed by JIM SMEDLEY Record staff writer Competing on the U.S. Ski Team requires a special type of Jndividual. Only 1 percent to 2 percent of America's skiers have the right stuff. But competing on the U.S. Nordic Nor-dic Ski Team is perhaps the toughest task of all, for it seems the alpine team gets most of the glory. The nordic skier gutting it out on some backwoods trail is not beamed into American living rooms via national television. The downhillers and those who ski slalom races get most of the ink. I "The nordic athletes are the type of people who are well- conditioned and enjoy a high L level of competition," said Jim Page, the U.S. Ski Team's nordic I director. "Cross-country skiing is J a hard life and our athletes will continue pursuing this life for a ; long time after they are off the f ski team." Athletes participating in nordic events have a specialized pursuit that requires a unique devotion, he said. They are denied the life lived by their peers. Competing means not going to college in the normal sense and even postpon-inemarriaee. I U.S. Ski Team jumper I Mike Holland is a hero I in Yugoslavia, but little I known in his own I country. I photos by Lori Adamski-Peek Jim Page is responsible for administration of Nordic I "Our athletes have to get up 365 days a year and think about skiing. ski-ing. They can't falter. They can't take a month or two off because they know that the athletes in Sweden and Russia are going after it," Page said. "It takes 10 years to become a top cross-. cross-. country skier and it's not a life for . everybody." Page said within all three nor- s. - UedtecipUnesWumping v cross country and combined he is involved with 50 athletes directly, and indirectly with more than 200 more, as the ski team tries to influence the type and quality of their training and coaching. "We have 10 A-team athletes and six are ski jumpers," Page said. "Being on the A-team means that you are a true international inter-national competitor." He said Europeans appreciate and respect nordic skiers more than Americans do. For many in Europe, cross-country skiing is almost a way of life. They learn to ski as soon as they learn to walk. One European hero Americans know little or nothing about is Mike Holland. The 24-year-old ski jumper from Barre, Vt., set a world jepord in 1984 with' a , . 619-foot jump in Yugoslavia, while competing for the U.S. A-Team. A-Team. "He's a hero there. Here, few know about him," Page said. Page said Americans' perception percep-tion that ski jumping is a crazed, daredevil sport is really the biggest big-gest con-job there is. He said it is actually a well-disciplined sport in which the athlete rarely gets higher than 10 feet above the ground, regardless of how it looks on television. "Our guys like the fact that people think what they do is dangerous. Actually, we have very few injuries," Page said. "Our guys are just good athletes that could compete in other sports if they chose to do so. They just happened to pick ski jumping as their sport." . .. He said Europeans have ambivalent am-bivalent feelings about the progress pro-gress Americans are making in nordic events. Page said American success in nordic events may mean more television coverage, which, in turn, could increase the popularity of nordic skiing in the United States. This may open American markets for European nordic products, which could mean an economic boost for that region. "The skiers on the U.S. Nordic Team are also viewed as part of a family of international skiers and Europeans like to see members of their family succeed," Page said. "However, the Europeans and Scandinavians are scared stiff that the U.S. will get behind nordic skiing. When the U.S. gets behind a sport, it will be the best because of the tremendous resources available here." But it would take a real grassroots effort to popularize ski jumping. Page said there are only on-ly 300 ski jumpers in the world and, "If there are 25 in the U.S., some are hiding." He depends on former ski jumpers to recruit new jumpers, which means there are not that many recruiters. Page said a lack of facilities also hampers the evolution of ski jumpers. Upkeep of jumping facilities also is difficult. The jumper needs a perfectly smooth landing area for maximum safety, safe-ty, so many times a jumper will groom the area himself. And many times jumps will have no lifts. "Oftentimes, a day in the life of a ski jumper will be walking up a hill and then jumping off. Then he'll walk and jump, walk and jump," Page said. When the snow disappears,. jt- . doesn't meant nordic training is over. There are a half-dozen hills in the U.S. and many outside the country that have plastic jumps. Skiers slide down plastic to land on plastic. Cross-country skiers strap on their RollerBlades and macadam and cement roads replace snowpaths. It's a rugged life with little acknowledgment. |