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Sweden: Great Racing and Great Times
By Logan Hanneman

Recently, I traveled to Europe to compete for the United States in the 2011 Nordic Junior Competition in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden. These races are international races for the J1 age group, which is basically the ages of 16 and 17, or for those born from 1993 to 1994. It includes the best J1 skiers from Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Estonia.
For the first week, the team stayed in Ostersund, Sweden to have a pre-race training camp. Most of us arrived on time, however, there were a few stragglers that had rough connections in the U.S. due to the winter storms on the east coast, but we eventually all made it safely. We stayed in these extreme Euro-style condos that were very nice, and the nicest part about them was that we could walk out the back door onto 100 kilometers of ski trail that was groomed multiple times a day. This place was the ultimate training venue!
Ostersund hosts many World Cup ski races, so the stadium and the ski venue are spectacular. There were people skiing constantly, which amazed me. No matter what time of day it was, there were always large amounts of people skiing. I guess that is just their culture and that is what they love to do. It was funny, one day, during school hours, I was skiing on the trails and I came across a line of little kids skiing that must have been 2 kilometers long! As I skied by I thought to myself that somewhere in that group was the next World Cup champion! Speaking of World Cup Champions, we got to ski with many Swedish World Cup skiers while we were there.
We stayed in Ostersund for about a week, then we drove east to the coast to the town of Ornskoldsvik, where the races were held. The first race was a classic sprint, which was about 1.25 kilometers long. I qualified 4th in the prelim, so reasoned that I had a good shot at the podium in the heats. My quarterfinal went great, and I advanced onto the semifinal. However, right at the start of my semifinal, I broke the basket off of one of my poles, which made it next to impossible to hang with my heat on any flat section. I did not move on to the A final, which I was very disappointed about, but I just started thinking about the next day.
The next race was a distance skate race. Normally 10 kilometer races are not my cup of tea but I kept my head up. The race turned out pretty well actually, and I finished up in 14th place. However probably the best race I had there was the relay. This was a 3x5km race, with the first leg being classic technique. I led off for my team, and surprised myself a little with the result. I ended up tagging off to my teammate in the lead, which meant that I had beaten the guy from Norway who had won the sprint. This really made me excited because who knows what might have happened if I had not broken my basket a few days earlier!
The trip was a great experience. I was able to race right with the best guys my age in the world and show that I was competitive with them. Also I gained a lot more motivation to train because of racing with those guys and seeing what the world of skiing is like.