I had hoped to be able to generate some updates from the road during the Tour de Ski, but had a pretty good idea that might be wishful thinking. With eight races in ten days at four different venues it was a busy schedule. But the biggest issue wasn’t time, it was convenience. The days were long, but mostly the work was steady, not overwhelming. I just lacked motivation to go find a good internet connection at the end of long day, knowing another early morning was coming.

I really expected the Tour de Ski to be more onerous than it was. On the whole it was quite a relaxed scene. Kris mentioned this early on, prior to the second stage, noting that everybody seemed pretty calm – as if they knew they were in for a long haul. I left with the impression that the Tour de Ski is a totally viable event, and one in which American athletes can be competitive. Of course, having the Canadian guys there proving the point makes that assessment pretty self-evident!

With a small team of three athletes it was a lean and simple operation. The bulk of the work involved ski service. We set-up, broke-down, and moved the wax room four times for the different venues. So it was a lot of packing and unpacking. After stage two we had to pack everything up, then drive four and a half hours from Oberhof to Oberstdorf, and then prepare for a classic sprint the next day. For that race the Norwegians sent a ground crew ahead to test a day in advance, and waxed all the race skis with paraffin before even leaving Oberhof.

On the whole we did good work with ski service, and I actually remarked on it the day before it all went to hell. On the day of the classic mass start in Val di Fiemme we had really bad skis, and the whole staff felt terrible for Kris and Kikkan who had to gut it out at a big disadvantage. Kris’s skis were so bad he fell on the first downhill because he was looking to see if something was wrong with them. These days happen, and it really sucks to be involved and in the middle of them. The staff did a good job regrouping, and Kris and Kikkan both kept their heads screwed on and put together good races on the final day.

Going into the Tour I was pretty certain we’d see some real highs and some real lows, and that prediction pretty much held true. Andy had a super-impressive prologue, finishing 14^th (his first World Cup points on the distance list) in an event normally dominated by distance skiers. He had great legs in the classic sprint in Oberstdorf, and some atrocious luck – overcoming a fall at the start of his semi-final, only to get taken out coming into the finish straight. Kikkan missed the podium (the podium is getting to be an expectation for Kikkan) in the skate sprint in Toblach, but followed it up with one of her most impressive distance races in the pursuit the next day. Kris started abysmally with a 55^th place in the prologue, but built his form through the event as planned, and finished with an 11^th place pursuit and a 7^th place final hill climb, as well as qualifying for the rounds in both sprints – something he had never done on the World Cup.

All things told it was a fantastic experience, and one that I feel can mark a good foundation to build upon. Everybody stayed healthy, and Kikkan clearly managed to come out of the tour in great shape with her win this past weekend in Liberec as evidence. The major goal of the season for all three of the US athletes who did the Tour is the upcoming World Championships, and it remains to be seen how that will go and whether the Tour was a good idea from that standpoint. But my feeling is that the Tour de Ski will be a big part of the schedule for Americans in the future. I hope I have another opportunity to go back and work at the event. I don’t get all that many chances to work at that level, and there’s no way to pack more learning into two weeks than the Tour de Ski!