Drammen World Cup to Oslo

Drammen is a town that is known for their city sprint every year, but this year they did something different and hosted a World Cup up on the town's ski trails. As I have never been here before, it was cool to see a new town and ski at a new venue. Saturday we raced a 10k classic and then us distance skiers drove to Oslo to our hotel for the entirety of World Champs. The sprinters stayed another night and raced a skate sprint on Sunday, in which the North Americans had a really great day. Kikkan took home her third World Cup gold of her career, second this year, which was SUPER exciting to see, and a great way to head into the Championships, where the first race is another skate sprint on the course she was second in last season! It should be a really exciting event, which you should be able to watch live from the USA on www.fromsport.com. Check it out. The canadians also had a great day, with Alex Harvey finishing 2nd and Lenny Valjas qualified 4th and finished 9th! Huge day! We were watching the races from the bar in our hotel where they projected it onto a wall for us! Pretty sweet.

An older street in Drammen. Really cool architecture right by the river

View of the river in Drammen.

This is the downtown square in Drammen where the city sprints usually take place. It would be quite an event to be part of some year.

Drammen library. There is a college here and this library is incredible. I sat in a comfy chair by one of the many windows for part of an afternoon one day and read my book. It's always good to find a hang out place in each town that is out of the hotel room for me. I sleep better, relax better, and feel better not trying to rest in the room I sleep in. So, this was my Drammen spot.

Having the World Championships in Oslo is going to be unreal. As Oslo is the birthplace of nordic skiing, saying people are into it over here, really doesn't come close to summing up how into it these people are. To give you a small idea, we are still 2 days out of the championships and people have had their tents set up out on course for a good couple weeks now. "Camp Gjerdalen" just went up yesterday and is already manned by some of his many friends and family. Im not sure I can sum up exactly how sweet this event is going to be, but it's going to be unreal. We are fired up as a team, and are ready to rock. This is going to be fun. It's time to get into it!!

Stadium in Oslo. 80 Piston Bully passes? 100? Whatever it is, it's a lot.

Tad on day 1 with the 120 meter jump in the background.

Tad, Matt and Canadian Brook Gosling out on a ski the first day. It's cold, but this day in particular was really sunny and nice.

A really awesome old Saab 9-6 I saw. Made from Jets.

Olympiatoppen

I traveled to Oslo, Norway on Wednesday evening and arrived at the Olympiatoppen (the Norwegian Olympic Training Center) on Thursday morning. If you are a skier trying to get some good training in, this is the perfect place to do it. There are literally hundreds of kilometers of ski trails right out the door, many that connect to the Holmenkollen trails, which is great for us, as we are preparing for the World Championships which will be held on those very trails. It's dorm room living and buffet food, a strength facility which is huge, and a train that runs into town every 15 minutes. Its really quite perfect and very easy living. Today we get a few more U.S. athletes, but up until today Simi, Morgan, Pete and I have been the crew. We all had some hard intervals this morning which we did on the World Champs courses. Last night we prepped for them by watching the Women's 30K race from last year on these courses, which really is quite a race to get you psyched up for some hammering. Tomorrow we have some easy distance and then Wednesday we will drive up to Beitostollen, Norway where we will race a Scandinavian Cup mini tour on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Pete, Mo and I walking the streets of Oslo last night after a great dinner and afternoon in town. We met up with one of my Norwegian friends from my Burke days who gave us a tour of the Old City, the Architecture Museum and some coffee shops!

Locals on the train after the daily ski. Routine. Pretty sweet.

View from the ski trails yesterday. Double tracked classic trails are definitely my favorite and there are tons of them here. Really pretty.

A few pumped people during yesterdays ski.

All pictures are from Simi, as I have yet to break out my camera! Whoops! More soon.