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Katrina Howe of GNA reports on her experience in Finland
On July 10th Winthrop Smith, Alexei Sotskov and I left Logan Airport for
15 days of training camp and traveling in Russia and Finland. Before this
trip I had never been to Europe or anywhere over seas. Let me tell you, it's
an experience I'll never forget.

First we spent a few days in St. Petersburg, Russia, Alexei'
hometown. The city is very nice but very different from any place I've
ever been in the U.S. Alexei and his wife Victoria took us all over the
city. We visited the Hermitage and a few other churches and palaces in the
downtown area and were also exposed to some of the wonders of city life
including the subway. (Winthrop and I both had to learn how to get on an
escalator moving at an unbelievable rate of speed.) Well, needless to say,
the Russians who were lucky enough to catch us getting on and off had a
pretty good laugh. On our last day in St. Petersburg we went to the
Russian Nordic Training center and skied some very, very nice roller
skiing loops. The trails were arranged just for that purpose, so the
corners and down hills weren't too difficult. When we got there we also
got to watch a roller skiing sprint race. The Russians, however, have very
long sprint courses compared to ours in New England.

The next day we left St. Petersburg at four-thirty am and
headed for Vuokatti, Finland in a car just barely big enough for the five
of us (Pavel, Alexei, Victoria, Winthrop and I). The drive took us about
eight hours. When we got there I knew I had reached a place I wouldn't
mind staying for a long time. Vuokatti is like a little athletic community
in the middle of nowhere. There are sidewalks, as wide as one lane of a
road all over town. It seemed as though everyone owned roller skis, a
bike or roller blades. The air is unbelievably clean, making it a
wonderful place to train for skiing or other sports.

We stayed in an awesome little cottage not too far from the tunnel (an
easy walking distance). The cottage had two bedrooms, a kitchen, living
room, ski closet (perfect for our skis), and a huge bathroom with a sauna!
The people in Finland were very nice and seemed happy to have foreigners
visiting their area. We also met some friends of Alexei 's including
Vladimir Dratschev, a skier from the Russian Biathlon team and the coach
of the Finnish Nordic Combined team. I also got to ski behind Nina
Gavriliuk, one of Alexei's good friends who is a member of the Russian
women's Nordic team.

At night we watched skiing movies or tried to find something in English
but that didn't 't always work; most everything on TV was always in Finnish.
We also went to Kaijanni, a nearby city, on our day off for some shopping
and Vladimir took us fishing on my birthday. We also got to watch some
high quality karaoke performed by Winthrop and Pavel.

In the mornings we usually skied in the ski tunnel for up to two hours.
That ski tunnel was so cold the first day; I thought I wouldn't survive
the next week and a half. Ok, so I survived, but 26 degrees is pretty cold
when you've just come in from 86 degrees outside! The mornings in the
tunnel were my favorite times. They groomed the tunnel each night so the
morning skiing was always the best. We got to ski behind some of the world
best skiers. Alexei's friend Vladimir was there during our stay training
for the up coming Olympics. We met up with him and he gave me a ton of
tips about my skiing and even led us through a strength practice in the
gym. That was a long, hard practice but I learned a lot! On another
occasion we went to watch him practice shooting and he showed us how to
shoot his biathlon gun. That was something new and different but it was
fun.

Our practices routines usually started off with about 2 hours or less of
skiing in the tunnel at 8:30 in the morning, in the afternoons we skied
most of the time. For the first half of the camp we did skating then we
switched to classical for the remainder. Once we went roller skiing to
Sotkamo, a town about 5 km away. Another day we had a double poling
session where we skied up a 1mile hill twice. We also had two strength
practices, 1 running practice and tons of stretching sessions. Vladimir
told us that he believes he wouldn't be as good if he wasn't as flexible as
he is (he's REALLY flexible) On the whole, I think I gained a lot out of
this camp. I believe that during the camp my skiing has improved greatly
and I would definitely do it again anytime.

Making the New England Junior Olympic Team had been my goal so when the team was announced and I was included, I didn’t know what to expect. I had a great time in Idaho. The other members of the team were awesome companions and made the trip a ton of fun.

The first day started at Logan Airport in Boston with about 50 athletes gathering and checking in their bags. It seemed to take forever to get all the ski bags checked in and I found myself wondering how it was possible that the airlines made sure that they got all the skis to Idaho but they did. The flights from Boston to Chicago and Chicago to Boise were pretty good with little or no turbulence. We arrived in Idaho in the dark and went strait for pizza in Boise before we headed off in four sixteen-passenger vans for the 2 or 3-hour drive to McCall. When we had arrived in Boise I have to admit that I was a little worried about the fact that there was absolutely no snow anywhere in the city. However, the two-hour drive would bring us deep into snow country and up in elevation to about 5,000 ft. We got to McCall early on Sunday morning and went strait to our rooms and slept through till morning.

On Sunday the team skied the sprint, 5k and 10k courses that we would be racing on for the remainder of the week. It was really quite a shock to wake up and step outside into 5 degree weather when we’d left New England with no snow on a nice 40 degree, sunny day. In McCall they had at least 2.5 ft. when we got there and about 3.5 ft when we left.

Monday brought even colder weather but warm sunny in the afternoon for the elimination rounds. I thought our team was very successful but from what I heard from the returning skiers, it wasn’t as good as they had done in years past. The snow conditions were prime and the course was easy, short and flat. I placed better than I expected and was pleased with my performance for the day. After the sprints were finished we all returned to our condo and hotel rooms to retrieve our skis for waxing the wax hanger at the local airport. The airport hanger that our team used housed an old fire engine that was no longer in use so we took great pleasure in trying on the old firemen’s suits, sitting in the seats and climbing on the back. Hannah Dreissigacker has some great pictures of herself dressed in the fireproof attire that we found inside the truck!

On our off days we skied easy and hung out in the condos watching TV and movies. My classical race on Wednesday was awful and not a highlight of my week but many of the NE skiers had outstanding races and scored some big points for us the Alaska Cup. The weather was wet, snowy and the trees seemed to drop bombs. Ponderosa Park was beautiful and a great site for the races. They did a wonderful job with accurate results and incredible organization of the races, spectators and racers. The skate race on Friday had a better turnout than the classic for me and the weather was great with a temperature that more comfortable and snow conditions that were great. The groomers at the park did a great job on all three days that they hosted races. On Saturday we had the relay races with great turnouts from most of our NE teams. Our team did well with a great fifth place finish despite the fact that I got passed once while skiing the final leg. After the race the J2 boys and girls teams went out onto the courses to cheer for the older NE racers. We had a giant snowball fight and I don’t think anyone managed to come out of the woods without being soaked. The awards dinner and ceremonies were great even though the final results from the week weren’t what the team wanted but Alaska worked hard for their win and deserved it.

The races brought some new experiences for me and provided a lot of learning and great memories that will last forever. I had never had to check in and have my skis marked before a race so that was definitely something new. The opening ceremonies had great introductions of each team and some good and some not so good speakers. Overall I had an extraordinary time and will never forget my first Junior Olympics because they couldn’t have been better!