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2007-08 Magazines
Coming in Features
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Canmore World Cup Coverage |
The tuck of the team wax tech (see a larger version) |
Coaches like Bryan Fish of CXC, along with several others, were finishing dozens of pairs of skis for their athletes. Since tomorrow’s races are pursuits, the testing consisted of both classic and skate skis.
For example, Zach Caldwell supplied American Evelyn Dong with at least four pairs of skate and classic skis, which sat for her along the edge of the stadium while she did short loops to probe which of the pairs she prefers. Kick waxing started out the day in the green variety but by 12:30 had moved to an underlayer of Swix’s broad range VR40.
The tendency to thicken layers of kick wax was more evidence of the difficulty of Canmore’s trails. Wax techs start the kick wax process with thin and short layers. Then, after skiing a test loop, athletes like Zach Violett often asked for more thickness in anticipation of racing 15km with plenty of steep climbs. “I could ski the climb but not with good technique,” said Violett after an initial run on a minimal wax pocket.
A big part of the whole pre-race-day process is gliding skis out on one important downhill. In Canmore’s case, the choice is a moderately large downhill that brings racers into the finish chute. Today, so many skier descents occurred on that downhill that, by noon, the tracks had developed some speed wobbles or miniature waves in their surface.
Racers and techs work together to do the best they can on selecting skis. But after a certain time, the athletes want to get out of the cold and rest for tomorrow. Alternatively, yesterday, several athletes skied harder and for longer periods. A typical workout two days before a race consists of skiers making short bursts of speed in order to prime the bodies for race efforts while not wearing themselves out. These bursts reveal one of the pleasures of watching a World Cup.
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