Waxing Dilemas For Technicians and Nordic Combined Day 1
By Erik Stange

February 10, 2002

Today our wax cabin received a visit from yesterday's gold-medal winner, Stephania Belmondo. Arve Minde is a good friend of hers, and she also wanted to thank Torbjorn for the work he did on her skis the day before. Steffi had spent Saturday afternoon bundled up to hide her identity, so that she could watch the men's race without being hassled by reporters or others out on the course. To have her drop by and give us some of her very precious free time was a pretty big honor.

Today was also the cross country portion of the individual Nordic Combined event. The athletes did three loops of a 5 km loop, starting at 9:00. The snow was very similar to the other mornings, but the wax teams were out early again-testing the various combinations in the pre-dawn cold. The snow at Soldier Hollow has presented an interesting challenge for the technicians here. It is extremely dry (particularly compared to Europe), and it remains cold despite the intense afternoon sun. What is also odd about this mix of man-made and natural snow, combined with the dry mountain air, is that the humidity actually drops dramatically as the temperature rises. The result leaves a lot of teams' waxers scratching their heads. In a sense the snow begins to act colder as the air warms up. We have seen a number of wax technicians for cross-country, biathlon and nordic-combined stop by the trailer looking for our Solda waxes to test. A coach form Belarus pointed to the names of his two skiers in 14th and 15th place in yesterday's women's 15 km race. He said that their skis were way too slow, and was looking for a solution. We will see how those skiers do in Tuesday's 10 km classic race.

It was a little bit of a disappointment for the US skiers today. High goals had been set for Todd Lodwick and Bill Demong since both have won World Cup races. Neither had a great cross country leg today, and Todd's 7th place was a high for the team. It was fun to see Finland's Sammpa Lajunen and Jaaku Talus finish 1st and 2nd, giving their program a lift after the devastating doping scandal at last year's World Championships. I had gotten to know many of the Finnish cross country coaches and wax technicians during a training camp in Ramsau, Austria, and it was obvious the entire Finnish team was understandably in high spirits.

Tomorrow's biathlon races start later in the day (the women's race begins at 11:00), probably since the European television viewers want to watch these extremely popular events in their prime time television slots. The organizers also have to arrange training times for the other sports using the venues, so there are those logistics to consider as well: the cross country athletes need to be able to get out on the course and test their skis at about the same time they will race the next day. The venue's schedule is pretty tightly packed on most days, and tomorrow is no exception. Should be another exciting day of racing, and we will try to find more interesting angles to provide for you tomorrow.