NZers in the Olympic cross-country Ski

Ben Koons and Katie Calder, two New Zealand athletes of extraordinary aerobic fitness, take to the Vancouver Olympic cross-country ski course tomorrow at Whistler.

The sport is rated as one which sees athletes struggling to extremes with oxygen debt, such are the demands of the course’s ascents, descents and flats.

There are two contrasting styles involved. In freestyle, athletes manoeuvre their skis in a skating motion, basically doing whatever allows them to go as quickly as possible. This style is said to be about eight percent quicker than the classical technique which has skis moving forward in two parallel pre-groomed tracks.

Calder races the 10-kilometre freestyle before venturing into the individual classic pursuit, 15km pursuit (7.5km classic/7.5km freestyle) and then the mass start 30km classic later in the programme.

“Classic requires more upper body strength than freestyle because, for example, on the flat parts you use both poles to propel yourself forward rather than gliding like an ice skater. Your legs aren’t being used as much.”

Koons races the men’s equivalent to Calder – a 15-kilometre freestyle, an individual classic pursuit, a 30km pursuit (15km classic/15km freestyle) and then the mass start 50km classic.

He stresses the importance of having systems in place to tolerate physical pain.

“Mental preparation is important. Tomorrow is about 40 minutes whereas the 50k will take over two hours. You’ve got to have a good head for it.”

Calder agrees: “You have to enjoy pushing yourself to the absolute limit, going further when your body tells you it can’t.”

There’s also an element of relief to finally be at the Games.

“I have just been training in the United States at altitude so it’s good to be breathing oxygen again,” says Koons while Calder says the year has been tailored to this fortnight:

“I haven’t tapered off for any events before now. I’m hoping for a big jump in form as a result.”

Each registered course for these types of race has to have a certain amount of elevation. It’s uphill straight out of the start then there are some technical twisty downhill sections. Another feature is the fast downhill corner into the finish straight.

“It’s a good course but it’s been icy so there could be a couple of crashes on the technical corners,” says Calder.

One advantage to Koons’ make-up for his events is that he is used to extremes having earned a mechanical and environmental engineering degree from the American Ivy League University Dartmouth. He used that qualification in sites such as Rwanda.

“I worked on supplying electricity to villages that weren’t on the national grid. Where I worked there was no power or running water for three months. I got excited by the arrival of the delivery vehicle full of coke and banana beer after a while.”

His spirit of adventure extends beyond that too.

“A while back I went cycling with my brother in western China. We started in Yunnan province and pedalled across the Tibetan plateau, all the way to the far west next to Pakistan. It was a crazy adventure in some pretty wild places at times. In fact we were technically illegal because we didn’t have the foreign permits. It meant doing a lot of the provincial crossings at night. Endurance-wise it was great training.”

Calder has looked elsewhere for inspiration, like her ipod song collection. Tom Petty’s ‘I won’t back down’ has been getting a good run.

“You can blame my Dad,” says Calder. “We only had three tapes in the car when I was growing up. Tom Petty, Queen and Creedence Clearwater Revival – old habits die hard so that song is still in my top 50 favourites.”

Perhaps ‘Learning to fly’ is there too as she contemplates tomorrow’s challenging slopes.