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Home >> Icicle Village Resort Leavenworth News Room >> Olympian Travels
Travels with the Leavenworth Olympian - "On the Road - Stories from Spring World Cup" - Torin Koos Photo Story February 2008
On the Road By Torin Koos
(photo by Shaky Fecteau)
Training works through the power of repetition. Just as hearing Robert Frost’s “After Apple Picking” over and over increases its meaning and impact, great training session stacked atop of great session enhance the probability of competing at one’s limits. The Otepaa, Estonia races came thirteen days after World Cup Canmore. During this short competition break I put in some race-like efforts – to keep the good feeling on the skis, the fitness building, and the racing shape sharp. In the picture above Justin Wadsworth and I talk tactics and technique between efforts on the 1.4km race course. I’m smiling because I’m feeling good, strong on the skis and adjusting to Baltic time and culture.
Grey skies, drizzly rain and an absence of snow - only a thin, dirty, slushy ribbon made up the course – didn’t keep ski fans from coming out. These Tartu university students made a real weekend of it – camping out during the night then cheered from the comfort of a wood heated hot tub. Estonia’s passion for skiing really is a sight to see.
In Otepaa even the service technicians pull out the old race skis and throw on a number for country glory to kick off the tour stop. The competition is no joke either. Even former World Champions and Olympic Gold medalists like Silvio Fauner can be relegated to the mid-pack suffer bus by the caliber of this field.
(photo by Shaky Fecteau)
Driving out the start gate, with the mission of skiing in the quarterfinals. Only today I came up three-tenths of a second short. By the finish line I knew I didn’t have my best qualifier, though I thought it was enough. I took two seconds from my fifteen second man Vassili Rotchev. Jens Arne Svartedal, starting right after me, crossed the finish twenty seconds after me. Tricky conditions can make for interesting results. I did a less than adequate job of matching my double pole tempo and technique to the slow, draggy conditions. This is an area of performance that’s still a work in progress. When I get this dialed, though, then it’ll be time to fly. Liberec, Czech Republic presents itself as the next opportunity to get this right.
Estonia shook off the shackles of Soviet occupation in 1991. Some of its architecture remains. This photo’s from an old Soviet winter training center – turned Estonian sport school now – turned hotel. These crumbling concrete walls were my home for a week before race organizers found our team a little brighter, better living arrangement.
After Otepaa, in the big city of Tallinn, in search of nighttime sustenance before hopping a flight to Praha, Czech Republic. It’s really about the racing – that’s what gets me fired up for ski training. But there’s another part that can’t be overlooked. It’s getting to take in Café Opera at the World Cup season’s end. It’s seeing the Aoreola Borealis on a clear night in Fairbanks or Kiruna, Sweden. It’s walking through old town Tallinn without direction, except the best path that presents itself.
Another day. Another door. Another opportunity.
~Torin
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Torin Koos
is a member of the National A Team for the United States and a World
Cup, World Championship and Olympic competitor. If you are interested in supporting Torrin Koos we will be happy to pass your information along to him. Your partnership will help support the lifestyle needed to keep the dream alive. As an athlete, Torin hopes his Olympic journey inspires the community to participate in the free air lifestyle, the same customers that come to visit the Leavenworth area.
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