Sweden FIS Races
Leon Spiller raced last weekend in the FIS competitions in Idre and Sarna in Sweden. He didn't fare so well in the 15km Classic in Idre on December 9, finishing 8:50 behind the winner Tobias Fredriksson, with FIS points of 209.9. Leon had this say after the race via SMS:
That was a tough course. All steep uphills with slush. Maybe 200m of double pole per lap. I skied well for the first three laps, then got tired. I think I need to lose about 10kg for a course like that.
In the 10km Freestyle in Sarna the next day Leon performed better, finishing 4 minutes behind Fredriksson, with FIS points of 179.9. Still not quite in the ball park for World Championship qualification, however almost in the car park outside the stadium. There's now no FIS races in Sweden or Norway until after the New Year. With bugger all snow in Borlange, Leon is heading up to train in Jarpen, where Esther Bottomley and Rhiannon Palmer went to the Ski-Gymnasium as juniors back in 2001.

Swiss City Sprint #2
Down in Switzerland Duane Butcher raced the second Coop City Sprint in Olten on December 7. Unfortunately he again struggled to go fast, finished 24 seconds behind in the qualifying and missing out of the finals. Duane has headed back to his Norwegian base of Geilo, where at least they have snow to train on.

Junior Team Settled in Silver Star
Most of the Australian Junior Team are now in place in Silver Star in Canada, with the exception of Alex Almoukov who is training in Russia, and Jaffa Withers, Chris Cook, and Phillip Bellingham who are not travelling out of Australia this summer. The junior athletes are training in Silver Star for a month, together with senior athletes Esther Bottomley and Mark van der Ploeg, and coaches Finn Marsland and Jacinta O'Neill. Also training with the team for three weeks is New Zealand skier Samantha Bondarenko, the female winner of the Australia-New Zealand Cup this year. Snow conditions are very good in Silver Star right now, with about 50km of trails groomed just about every day - which is just as well, as it keeps snowing every couple of days.

The first of the athlete reports for this season is up now, read Neil van der Ploeg's report of his journey to Canada. Neil is also responsible for getting the other athletes in Silver Star to write reports for the internet, so if there is no news for a while hassle him, not the editor.

Coming Up Next
Nick Grimmer will be racing next week in the Super Tour events down at Soldier Hollow in the USA, while KT Calder is set to notch up her first competitions of the season (after two events cancelled) in the OPA Continental Cup in St Ulrich. Still no news from the crew in Russia, maybe a surprise report will pop up soon.
Courtesy XC Files