Taking Feeds In Long Races and Working The Downhills
BY Erik Stange

February 11th, 2002

Ole Einar Bjoerndalen takes a feed, while another coach hands to the skier behind him

Today was the long event for biathlon. Women skied 15 km and the men skied 20 km. With the dry air and relatively warm afternoon air temperature, many athletes chose to take feeds in order to keep their fluid levels up during the race. Since this biathlon race was an individual event, the feeding was actually fairly uneventful: coaches positioned themselves at the top of fairly gradual downhill section where skiers could take the feeds and drink them down while gravity too over for a while.

Martin Bajcicak of Slovakia drinks another 4-7 ounces

The feed for the men's 30 km cross-country race on Saturday was a little different, though. Since that race was a mass-start, the feed zones where quite chaotic. Large groups of racers attempted to catch bottles from their respective coaches, all at the same time and at pretty high speeds. There were a few near-misses, but I didn't witness any crashes or poles broken. For a race of this length, most of the athletes will take about four to eight feeds, each time trying to take in somewhere between four and seven ounces of fluid with each feed. The feeds are all different, and the contents depend on what each racer is used to and what they have used in training. Usualy it is a mildly diluted sportsdrink of some sort. A coach will run alongside the skier briefly, and hand off a small bottle which the racer will drink and then throw to the side 50 to 100 meters down the track when the bottle has been drained. In 30 km races, the feeds are only fluids, but it is not uncommon to give a skier half a banana towards the end of a 50 km race if there are beginning to "bonk." Keep an eye out for that in the 50 km next week. Feeds don't usually make it onto the television coverage, but for the mass start races, they can be the most hectic and exciting parts of the race.

Bjoerndalen (17-NOR), Piller Cottrer (8-ITA), & Hoffman (11-AUT) work over the top of the course's toughest climb and skate the first strides of the downhill.

Another observation worth noting is something that can help your own skiing. The athletes who are doing well here so far are all working well on all parts of the course. This may sound somewhat obvious, but think about where you can pick up time and go faster on certain parts of a ski trail. What is making a difference here at Soldier Hollow is how the skiers do not just collapse into a tuck once they reach a downhill section. Almost all of the top skiers are skating three or four strides before tucking, and that extra effort builds up more speed while costing relatively little. Try to work over the tops of the hills in your next workout or race, and see if it doesn't make a difference.