Yesterday Canada lost one of it’s most impressive, formidable ski legends, Shirley Firth.

Between 1968 and 1984 an unprecedented legacy of achievement was attained by two aboriginal women from the Mackenzie Delta. For sixteen years the Firth sisters smashed Canadian sport records and dominated the Cross Country ski scene, both in Canada and overseas.

 The Firth sisters, Shirley and Sharron, were born in Aklavik North West Territories in the winter of 1953. Six years later their family was relocated by the federal government to the newly fabricated town of Inuvik several kilometers east. It was there in Inuvik that the Firth sisters entered adolescence, twin sisters in a family of fourteen. As part of a typical childhood in those days the Firth sisters learned to hunt with their father, a Loucheaux-Metis, and trap with their mother, a Gwich’in from the region.

 There are conflicting reports as to the exact year the Firth sisters were introduced to Cross Country skiing, but by all accounts their introduction to the sport came by a man named Jean-Marie Mouchet. Father Mouchet was a Catholic Oblate from France. A missionary priest, he immigrated to Canada after the second world in which he patrolled the French-Italian border on skis. After spending time in small northern communities such as Telegraph Creek and Old Crow, Mouchet was posted to Inuvik. It was in the tenacity of the northern first nation’s people that Father Mouchet saw athletic potential. Recalling it later he says; “They were trappers, they were hunters. They were living in the very cold climate doing ordinary work, like cutting and packing wood and going down to the river to bring water up. It gave them the right components.”

 It was in Inuvik that Father Mouchet founded the Territorial Experimental Ski Program [TEST]. He received support from the federal government which at the time was trying to develop amateur sport in Canada as well as support the social development of Canadian First Nations.He received skis from the US Air Force in Alaska was given a big warehouse in Inuvik from which to run the operations.It was through the TEST program that the Firth sisters received their first pair of skis. As members of the TEST program the sisters spent many long hours training in the bleak darkness of the winter and under the midnight sun of the summer. It was during this time that Norwegian coach Bjorger Petterson began working with the sisters. It was a coaching relationship that would last many years.

 Not long after they began skiing the Firth sisters attended their first major race in Anchorage, Alaska. Even now several decades later, Father Mouchet recounts the events fondly, “I happened to be in Alaska when they won that Championship. People were surprised. Those skinny girls, they were quite dark. You know how the Americans are, they are quite arrogant, they think they are on top of the world. To see those skinny girls being able to beat them flat out, you know,  [laughs].”

 Their victory in Anchorage (in which Shirley won) was one of many the sisters would enjoy over the years. Together with several other athletes from Inuvik and with Petterson as their coach the Firth sisters went on to compete all over Canada and Europe. The sisters won a total of won 48 Canadian championships and in 1972 they competed in their first Olympics in Sapporo, Japan. By that time Canada’s national Cross Country team was dominated by first nation’s athletes from around Inuvik.The sisters went on to compete in four consecutive Olympic Games between 1972 and 1984 and were the first Canadian women to do so.

 In recalling their achievements Father Mouchet says this of the Firth sisters, “At first it was not easy for them because they did not see their potential. They were not used to discipline, but they grew out of that. They became very active in Cross Country skiing because they started to realize it was the tool for them to penetrate the white man’s world.”

 The Firth sisters have admitted that skiing opened many doors to them that might have otherwise remained shut.  As Sharon once recounted, “(Petterson) said that if we do well we’d travel the world and as a child that was one of my dreams. In school I used to sit by the window and wonder ‘What it was like out there? Will I ever see this world? Will I just stay here in the north.”

 Not only did the Firth sisters manage to tour the world throughout their career, they also managed to make a distinct impression on the people who witnessed them race.  Fellow teammate Bert Bulloch remembers, “They were a household name. Across the country, they didn’t come to see me, or anyone else — they came to see the twins.”

 The story of the Firth sisters is familiar to me to say the least. I have the distinction of being the last athlete the TEST program ever produced. The story of these two young women growing up in a small northern community and becoming some of the worlds top skiers was a hugely positive influence on my life. It was with great sadness that yesterday I heard Shirley had passed away at the age of 59. The legacy of her achievement, the medals, the records she broke and still hold, are an amazing testament of a true Canadian ground breaker and icon. Thank you Shirley.

Now that I’m back everyone keeps asking me, how did Nationals go?

The first metric I’ll use answer this question is Ontario’s Divisional results. According to this fancy graph Ontario ranked 3^rd behind Quebec and Alberta. If we just take into account our Junior ranking Ontario finished 4^th [no improvement over 2012]. My initial reaction to this is to build a blanket fort and hide inside feeling depressed and overwhelmed. HOLD ON!

In order to correctly interpret the results look at how we did compared to last year and note the margins of separation. Spoiler alert- we actually did a lot better.

If we look strictly at the Junior points breakdown

In case your eyes glazed over as soon as you saw a graph here’s the significant stuff;

-Ontario doubled the number of athletes they had in the Top 5
-We closed the gap to being the 1^st ranked in the country from 1,295 to 378 points.
-In the Junior category we closed the gap by 791 points to finish only 84 points from 2^nd place.

Beyond that I’ll tell you why I thought Ontario did a better job at this Nationals than I’ve ever seen before, we worked together like hero’s. It was Helen Lindfors idea to have me drag over 500lbs of wax gear all the way to Whistler with 6 pairs of test skiis. We made Dave Tindall test wax from dawn to closing. Every coach and wax tech in Ontario worked hard. The difference was this year I saw a level cooperation & quality information sharing amongst Ontario coaches that I haven’t witnessed in the past. There was a genuine atmosphere of mutual respect and teamwork happening amongst clubs. Ontario’s clubs are what move us forward. They provide the coaching and programs that bring athletes to Nationals ready to perform. I believe that job is being done well, and that even better plans are in the works for next year. A big, heartfelt thank you to all the clubs, their hardworking coaches, and all of their volunteers.

The truth is- I’m not really much of a numbers lady. Before I crunched the data I knew we’d done better. We’d prepared harder, we’d brought a better A game, and we worked together better. As I’ve sometimes told athletes  “You’ve done all the hard work. Tomorrow could be the best race of your life. It may not be, the point is that it could be.” Ontario did pretty well at Nationals. Did we achieve our best; not yet, but the point is…it’s coming.

Who could forget the time the ON Girls literally swept the podium!

Scott Hill of Team Hardwood is a first-year junior who trains with Shields at the National Development Centre in Thunder Bay. Hill has been on the podium twice this season; he was 3rd in the 15km classic race at the NorAms in Canmore and 2nd in the 15km free this past weekend at Easterns. What follows is Hill’s account of his World Junior Championship experience.

By Scott Hill

Qualifying for this year’s world junior championships in Liberec, Czech Republic had been my main goal ever since last year’s trials races in Whistler. In every hard or long workout during the training season, having this goal in the back of my mind was something that kept me motivated to keep working harder. In the end I was able to have a great trials’ preparation over the Christmas break and I was able to have some of the best races of my life and I fulfilled my goal in making the world junior championship team. It was weird though, after I found out that I had made the team I was really happy, but I suddenly found that my happiness turned into motivation again to train really well leading up to the world junior championships races to give myself the chance to have the best races of my life again. In my head making the team was just another small step in my long term goals as a skier, but none the less I was still extremely excited for the trip to Europe and the new experience.

Less than a week after the trials races I flew to Munich, Germany where everyone on the Canadian team met up. In total there were eighteen junior and Under 23 athletes and five coaches/waxtechs. We then drove to Ramsau, Austria where we were going to do our pre races’ camp. We were in Ramsau for about four days and the skiing was amazing with lots of snow which was nice because the rest of Europe was not doing too well for snow at the time. We had trails right beside where we were staying which made for some great training. What was really cool was that the trails went in and around all the houses in the Ramsau countryside and also went right into the small town in Ramsau where the world championships stadium from 1999 was located. The scenery was also pretty amazing with huge mountains all around us that had lots of downhill ski runs on them. One of the things that some people have trouble with in Europe is the differences in food to Canada, but the place we were staying had great food and all our meals were provided which was a nice benefit. My fitness was also feeling really good when I was training in Ramsau and I didn’t really have any problems with jetlag from the six hour time change.

Alexi Turgeon

From Ramsau we drove to Liberec, Czech Republic where the world junior championships races were being held. It was supposed to be about a five hour drive but ended up being about double that due to a huge snow storm and difficult driving conditions with no snow tires on our vans. We were hoping that the race site in Liberec was getting some of the snow that we were driving through but there was no such luck. The snow conditions at the race site were still not that bad though because there was a lot of man-made snow from the world cup races the weekend before. There was only about 1.5km of trail
when we first skied there though, but by the start of the distance races they had 5km of good trail. We arrived in Liberec three days before the first race so we were able to get familiar with the race course which was much different than the usual race courses in Canada. The course was basically in open fields with rolling hills and there were very few trees around much like the course on the Plains of Abraham for the team sprints at the 2012 Ski Nationals. A few days before the races me and a couple other skiers went for a long ski at a place away from the race site and it was probably one of the nicest skis I have ever done. There was a ton of snow and endless classic trails with perfect hard tracks and 10 minute gradual climbs and downhills. It was also cool to see the amount of people skiing at this place on a Saturday morning. There were literally thousands of people out skiing that were young and old and there were almost traffic jams on parts of the trails. It just goes to show how popular cross country skiing is in Europe.

Over the championships there were seven days of racing in a row with the juniors and Under 23s racing on alternating days. The first races were the classic sprints. Going into the races I wasn’t even sure that I was going to race because I was the fifth person to make the Canadian team for junior men and only four Canadians can start each race. The coaches decided though to start the top four skiers from each of the trials in that specific world juniors’ race. So as it turned out I got to race in the classic sprint and the 10km skate race. I would say that these races went pretty well even though my places in the races may have not seemed that great. I was 58th in the sprint and 62nd in the 10km out of about 90 skiers in each. I did not race the other two races which were the 20km pursuit and the team relay, but they were extremely exciting to watch and it was fun to cheer on my other teammates that were racing. What I found most amazing about my first international races was how normal they felt to any other race I have done in the past. Before the trials races in Canada I was way more nervous but at world juniors I didn’t really get nervous because I didn’t know anyone I was racing against and I had nothing to lose.

Raphaël Couturier

At the start of the week it was really cool to see and ski around all the other skiers and I was a little bit star struck seeing some of the older skiers from the powerhouse countries like Norway and Russia. By the end of the week though I saw all the other skiers just as other competitors and I really felt like I belonged. It was definitely eye opening to see the level that the best juniors in the world are skiing at but also extremely motivating as well to know that they are not super human and that they are doing the same things as everyone else. They eat the same food, they do the same things when warming up for races, they go for recovery runs and they go as hard as they can in the races. That being said I think Canada as a country has a lot of work to do to become competitive with the other strong nations in cross country skiing at the junior levels, but it is exciting to know that Canada is starting to produce skiers that are regularly competitive on the world cup with the programs that we are all currently in.

David Palmer

Overall I learned a lot from the racing and training experience in Europe. I think the biggest thing I learned was that you can’t always have the ideal training and racing conditions and you just have to roll with it. Sometimes the food is not the best or you haven’t completely got over the jetlag or you can’t ski on the courses when you want. One of the hardest things to deal with was trying to warm up for the races on a 200 metre warm up loop with about 100 other skies and having a hard time doing my usual pre-race intensity with the amount of people. I think I still was able to make the best of it which allowed me to still have alright races. I also learned how fast the best in the world really are. My long term skiing goals are to be competitive with the best skiers in the world and with this trip I was able to race against them and now I can see where I want to get and how much faster I need to be to get there which gave me a whole new perspective. With my new perspective on international racing I am extremely motivated to be competitive at the world junior championships next year if I am lucky enough to get the opportunity again.

After all the races were done we packed up the vans and drove about an hour into Prague which is the capital of the Czech Republic were we stayed the night and also did some sightseeing which was really cool. We then drove back to Munich to catch our flights back to Canada and said all our goodbyes to everyone as we headed our different ways across Canada.

-Report and Photos by Scott Hill

World Juniors: A Coach’s Perspective
Coach Kieran Jones of Nakkertok sent two athletes to World Juniors this year, and during a conversation with him, he shared his views on Canada’s results as measured against the rest of the world, and the importance of success at this event.

Kieran Jones
Our World Junior team is just not at the same level as the juniors in Europe. We don’t have the numbers. You look at the junior men’s field for example, and sure there are 55 at the trials in Thunder Bay, but that is the biggest category you get. Our top junior men have competition but it’s not really tight, tooth and nail for every second on the domestic circuit like it is if you went to Norway, or Sweden, or Russia. That’s not to say that our guys don’t work hard.

The other major factor is just pure travel time and distance. For most of our World Junior team it may be their 1st, 2nd or maximum 3rd trip to Europe to race. For Scott Hill, Zeke Williams and Katherine Stewart-Jones, that’s the first time they’ve ever been overseas. To send them over there less than a week after trials, we’re tossing them into the deepest field of their lives. We do plan well and hope they can race the best races of their lives, but ultimately it’s quite tough to make that adjustment. From jet lag, to Czech Republic food, to different courses, to having this big experience that none of them have ever had before. It’s tough for everyone but it’s a lot easier if you have to drive 6 hours across Europe than it is if you have to fly.

A lot of those European countries have exposure to a series of FIS races that are one step down from the World Cups that are well attended and have top level competition where you can get a similar atmosphere to World Juniors. Whereas in Canada, the NorAm races are as intense as it gets. It’s really tough to simulate the pressure of an event like World Juniors where you race 4 races in 7 days and you have to be on for all of them or else you can go from 25th to 50th.

There are different thoughts on the importance of World Juniors. Cross Country Canada has indicated that if you can achieve a top 30 result at World Juniors, then there is a significantly greater chance that you will be able to ski in the top 30 on the World Cup circuit. There is some data to support this. But at the same time for Canadian development, there are unique factors to consider, such as travel. Maybe World Juniors’ success is important but ultimately it doesn’t absolutely determine the success of our skiers. Len Valjas never had that much success at World Juniors, and Devon Kershaw was strong when he went but not outstanding. So I don’t want to diminish the importance of doing well at the World Junior Championships, but I don’t think it’s the be all and end all of a cross country skier’s career.
It’s tough to look at the results’ sheet and think you had a really strong day and then realize you came 55th, whereas in Canada when you feel like you’ve had a strong day, you might come 3rd. The difference between a good day and a bad day, whether it’s World Juniors, U23s or the World Cup, is a 20-30 place swing because the talent is there to make you really pay for having a bit of an off day.

It’s all about gaining that experience, gaining that level of confidence and being a little bit more comfortable in a different environment. The next time these skiers are on a trip to Europe, they will have something to draw on.
The way skiing works is you want the world at 19, but you ask Devon, it doesn’t come until you’re 29.

Compiled by Corina Zechel

Ferritin (Iron)

To say it’s discouraging, is an understatement. Failure is a punch in the stomach. What makes it worse is the fact that had things just gone a little more right you probably could have done it. It’s frustrating because part of you knows you could have done it, and it’s awful because the volume of your own doubts and fears starts to grow.

This is called a setback. It is a universal experience, and if you’re really interested in pursuing excellence you had better learn how to deal with it. In my own bumbling pursuit of excellence I’ve come across several setbacks. This is my humble advice for how to move on.

 1. Go have a good cry in the woods.

The feeling that comes with failure is awful. Take the required time to process what happened, how you’re feeling [and where those feelings should be directed]. It’s easy to accidentally lash out at friends and coaches. Don’t do that. Get your skis, go for a ski and have a good cry.

 2. Recognize that setbacks happen. Move forward.

Start lines are filled with athletes who’ve put in the requisite blood, sweat and tears but podiums only has three spots. For every athlete a Development Center takes, they turn two away. In High Performance you don’t win every time. Some of your attempts on the path to excellence will result in failure. Failure is not an absolute.  If your goal is big enough you’re probably not going to achieve it on the first attempt. It’s time to keep moving forward.

3. Know that you’re in charge.

Results are a mechanism of external validation. In a specific incidence [a race, or race weekend] they may say you’re not good enough. The truth is no one gets to say what you can and cannot do, what you are, or are not capable of. You are in charge of that. Don’t let anyone tell you what the ceiling is on your ability. You are the only person required to believe in yourself. The rest will follow.

4. Accept that no one’s going to hand you your dream.

Success is not an entitlement, it’s earned. It may not be earned every time. It’s no one’s job to believe in you. It’s your responsibility to seek out support, put in the work, and prove yourself.

5. Surround yourself with people who DO believe in your ability.

Create a successful environment around yourself. Infallible belief  in one’s self is difficult. You don’t need people around you who fuel the flames of self doubt. Consider the peers, coaches and mentors you surround yourself with. Are they facilitating positivity? Are they helping you focus on the trajectory towards success or are they looking at failure? You want to be around people that will help you keep your eyes on the road- not on the ditch.  There are plenty of amazing people who believe in each of you and are willing to help you achieve your goals. Reach out, and consult them.  A great coach is someone who can identify both your strengths and weaknesses-but who will help you move towards strength….

6. Make a new goal. Keep moving forward.

No matter what your goal is there are different roads to getting there. Find your coach and create a new map that plots your route to the top. Wake up tomorrow, blast some U2, and get to work.

Learning how to deal with failure was one of the greatest lessons sport taught me.

As always- feel free to share.

Ski on.

The goal of the OST summer training camp was technical improvement. Full stop. The number one weakness of Ontario skiers [in general], the thing that holds athletes back from those coveted top 3 or top 10 positions at nationals is technical skill. With winters that start at Christmas and end before Nationals it’s no wonder we struggle to compete against athletes who have access to on snow skiing from October to May. Get them on snow, get them skiing well. These were the Golden Objectives that led us to Germany.

The trip to Oberhof was an adventure into uncharted waters. No one from the Province had been to the German ski tunnel, a new, above ground facility with the longest summer trail network in the world. Some of our athletes [and coaches] were about to experience their first trip to Europe. While I’ve had more than my fair share of European skiing adventures I’d never led a gaggle of teenagers overseas before. As the saying goes, if it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.

When you plan a trip around a central objective it becomes much easier to judge both during the camp and in retrospect not only whether it was a success, but also what factors contributed to that success.

Here are some of the key factors that resulted in this being a kickass camp;

First and most simply, our living arrangements were seamless. The ski tunnel was one kilometer from our house and three minutes away from a track, a full gym and some amazing roller skiing paths. From a coaching perspective this was ideal. Not having to stress over logistics such as food [full meals were provided], transportation, or finding descent training venues meant that all we had to focus on was providing athletes with the absolute best support at every turn.

The quality of skiing in the tunnel was excellent. One might wonder how entertaining 1.8km of trails will be around hour two of an LSD workout. The nature of tunnels design however makes it surprisingly engaging. The horse-shoe shaped trail network is double wide allowing athletes to ski in either direction. The terrain is varied, consisting of a series of short, long, steep and gradual climbs. Athletes can choose the sequence of hills in any combination to make the workout as varied as they require. No- it’s not the same as a 10km loop of Gatineau park but hey- we’re skiing in -7 while looking out windows at the green leaves  of late July. Snow conditions in the tunnel can best be described as hard packed corn snow. The tunnel was groomed each night and set up nice and hard each morning. On classic days we threw down an ultra thin layer of blue klister then covered it with 4 layers of VR60. The conditions never changed so the wax never had to. Training indoors- what a novelty.

Middle double wide section of the horse-shoe

Hard packed early morning. Smells like VR60.

During nine days in the tunnel we shared training slots with national teams from six different countries. This provided the OST with a unique opportunity to train with World Cup athletes. There’s nothing like classic skiing behind the Czech nat’l team to develop a true appreciation for what skiing relaxed and snappy means. When Andy Newell and the US men’s team showed up our boys were invited to jump in for a portion of their sprint double pole workout. Besides training immersion our athletes were observing different teams workouts and taking note of their training and recovery habits.

The thing that resonated the most for me was the basic nature of each teams training regime. They were doing the same workouts I’ve seen done back in Canada a thousand times. In fact- we would inadvertently cross paths with teams all over the place, during our morning workouts in the tunnel, then again during our ski walking or rollerski workouts in the afternoon. [also- I’d like to point out that our friend Tito with Japanese National Team made his athletes do a TON of legs only drills I hadn’t seen since rec courses at the City of Ottawa].

In the end OST athletes put in an average of 17-20 on snow training hours during the nine days we spent in the tunnel. They rotated between a series of LSD, intensity and speed workout all geared towards technique improvement and maintenance of that technique under stress. We [Toivo and myself] provided athletes with constant feedback, both with live video and post workout video analysis.With nothing else to focus except quality technique some really fundamental breakthroughs were made with athletes.

Our athletes have not left this camp with perfect technique, but they have all made major improvements. The works starts now to ingrain those changes, and continue to work towards targeted areas of improvement as the dryland season continues. A training camp in itself will not change the direction of athletes season- but if done right it can shoot athletes into the remainder of their season with more momentum than they had before.  As Baisia said, “look out Canada. We’re commin’ for ya.”
PavOUT

The Ontario Ski Team has finished off our final weekend in Oberhof Germany with a BANG.  The past two days have been high volume for most athletes, involving two to three hour skis each morning, followed by easy recovery jogs in the afternoon. (Except for Cam… He did about fourteen intensity workouts).  The accumulated fatigue is catching up with us, even the coaches.

Pav, after unspoken amounts of coffee

It seems that, by this point in the week, having a restful nine-hour sleep AND power-napping just doesn’t cut it.

When the fatigue starts to set in coaches must resort to more brutal tactics

To top off our skiing filled days we were treated to several other adventures and surprises.  Most of us went for dip during yesterday afternoon’s sun, in the nearby “Lake Luetsche”. It was quiet refreshing, particularly for those of us who are accustomed to swimming daily back in Canada.  It was also a fabulous opportunity for us to work on our butterfly stroke, inspired by Michael Phelps’ latest win in London.

Pav came sprinting into the lounge two evenings ago beaming with excitement. When I asked what the big deal was, she explained that she’d recently learned (thanks to twitter) that the US Men’s Ski Team would be joining us in the tunnel! As it turns out, her exuberance was justified. It has been a pleasure to ski alongside these world class athletes: to see how to train, and even jump in with them! [as Ben did in this sprint]

OST with USA, Andy Newell, Simi Hamilton Noah Hoffman et al! Such nice dudes!

The most rattling news I received all weekend was when the Americans confirmed for us that the Norwegian ski team will in fact be skiing in the tunnel beginning tomorrow afternoon… Literally hours after we’ve departed.  How incredible it would have been to meet the team, whose country’s national sport is cross country skiing! Pav was heartbroken to be so close to meeting Petter Northug… But I guess it was simply too good to be true! [or IS it? follow Pav on twitter @piratepav to find out...]

Although we have thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Oberhof, we are all ready to go home tomorrow.  And although we aren’t pumped for the 15 hour travel day tomorrow, we are looking forward to returning home to our family an friends, and getting some serious ZZZ in our own beds!

A few more days into the trip, we had Intervals Round 2. This time a little more intense, and a little bit harder.

At this point in time most of us athletes are starting to feel the fatigue and the soreness off the long days and hard trainings. We began our workout with a warm up and started the intervals all together, but at different sections of the 1.8 kilometer tunnel loop. We all did variations of 6×3 minutes or 5-6×4 minutes. However, the big change regarding these intervals was that the first half was to be skied in zone 3 while the last half was to be skied zone 4. This is a different type of intensity and was new to most athletes. This not only gave us the opportunity to battle the pain associated with skiing in zone 4, but also the psychological battle. We worked on compartmentalizing where our pain was coming from, then focusing on different things to offset the pain. Training in this way will help all of us tremendously this winter, because when it comes to racing it’s never easy; physically or mentally.

Another thing we worked on, alongside the actual training session was the little things. This included pre-workout snacks, snacks during the workout, and simply ensuring that recovery was as important as the workout itself.

During our many workouts, our fabulous coaches have also been constantly taking video footage of all athletes. Before this interval session we went into it knowing what each of us had to focus on technique wise. It is one thing to ski technically well slow then when at high speed and with the fatigue that sets in after a certain threshold is passed. This particular workout gave us the opportunity to ski well with the stress of such a hard workout, and constantly be getting feedback. That’s the great thing about such a short loop, you’re always being watched!

All in all I can speak for all athletes when I say that we will be leaving the beautiful country of Germany a little faster and stronger, with better technique, and excitement for the winter ahead. Watch out Canada!