Just finished up our week here in Kuusamo. Don’t have much to say about the races other than they were a lot of fun. The Sprint here is always super fast and tough and that uphill is pretty gnarly. If you haven’t seen any video of it before I would check it out. It’s a pretty fun hill to sprint up but definitely makes your legs a little tired by the end of the day. I couldn’t believe Ola V pulled it off again, that guy is pretty incredible…. also stoked to see our man Polsa on the podium. I was bumming that I missed my shot in the Final and wasn’t able to fight it out with them.
15k was an amazing day for Bird and Kikkan. That course is really tough and the tracks were icy and fast again making for some fun downhills. Our techs did a great job with skis finding the best combo of grip and speed. It was awesome to see Bird so close to the podium and I think that was Kikkans best distance World cup of here career too. It’s so cool to see things coming together for everyone. I’m still getting into the feel of doing more distance racing but I definitely like it…. and it’s a lot more fun to race longer distances when you’re in decent shape.
From here we head to central Europe. Sprinters are off to Dusselfdorf for next weekends sprint and sprint relay, and everyone else is off to find snow (there isn’t much of it in Central Euro). Maybe Italy, maybe Davos. who knows. chasing the pow pow.
here are some pics from the week.

Mo and liz disco bowlin’ in Ruka. we had a USA Canada bowl-down

no shave november ends today. I hadn’t shaved since the start of Lake Placid Camp. 2 months of beardage

in case you didn’t know….. cross-country is cool

Inspired by Billy D and Carl’s Bored in Norway rendition of Kelly Clarkson…. here’s Bored in Finland by Morgan, Liz and myself.

Thanks to everyone who is sending in video links for the new website! We’ve been uploading material daily to the X Ski FIlms page. Just put a pretty sick one up there from the Bogan Boys destroying some Norwegian backcountry. If you haven’t been there in a bit… check it out, and keep the videos coming. just send the link to me via the Contacts page on the new site.
 http://andrewnewell.com

The world cup opener today saw some icy fast conditions which made for some awesome racing. It was a solid start for the American squad with Kikkan finishing 21st in the 10k and Freeman 22nd in the men’s 15k. The racing continues tomorrow with the 4×10 relay and the US will start a team. Freeman/koos/Newell/Flora. Then it’s off to Finland for the next stop.

I’m happy to announce that my new website  http://andrewnewell.com  is up and running.

now I’m sharing this with everyone because I’m really stoked about the X Ski Films page. It’s set up like a video post page and will be constantly updated with new content….. which is where I need your help. I want to see the gnarliest, funniest, stupidest cross-country ski videos you can find on the internet. If you ever come across anything you’d like to share on the page just go to the contacts page and send me the link. Same goes for any videos you make….Post them on youtube or vimeo or whatever and send the link over to me by using the contacts page. I want this to be the go to spot for everything outrageous that even remotely involves xc skiing. Show me you stuff!!

we wrapped up our first weekend of racing here in Norway and it looks like the whole team has recovered from the travel and is looking pretty good. I was supposed to be posting some video for you guys right now but the video camera got effed up somehow so all the footage is bunk. so you’ll just have to settle for me rambling on. The Sprint race on Friday didn’t go that well for the US men but kikkan made it through the quarterfinal and got to fight her way to a 9th place. I must have been a little but flat during the qualification, and then somehow got caught sleeping during the quarter too. Somehow I let myself get pushed back into 5th place before the last hill so I had a lot of work to do in the final 200 meter. Got by some folks and almost manage to advance in second but missed it by a foot. so it kind of sucked. But it was the first hard skiing we’ve done over here and it was a good way to wake up the body.

In the distance races Bird is definitely off to a strong start finishing 5th in both the classic and the skate. Our girls did really well too both Mo and Liz having strong skate races and kikkan putting together a wicked classic race to finish 4th. The sprint on friday helped put me on the right track and I was able to put together a fun 10k classic and score some of the best distance points of my life. It felt good to get back into distance shape and it looks like some of the training I did this summer is going to pay off. here are some pics from Liz’s camera.

Today we are officially 24 hours away from our first race of the season here in Norway. The team made in to Beito without any major problems on Monday night and since then we’ve had three days on snow to get used to our skis. The time change is still a little bit of a struggle but we’re going to be starting the season off tomorrow with a classic sprint FIS race. Even though it’s not a World Cup there will be an extremely strong field here with many national teams here training for next weekend. The Racing will continue on on Saturday and Sunday with distance skate and classic races. The conditions have been great for training so far with cold temps and hard wax skiing. The team is enjoying some Norwegian cabin living just a short walk away from the World Cup race trails. lets get racing!

for those of you who are into the Twitter scene I will be updating regularly throughout the season from my phone. sometimes that’s a little easier than finding some internet to get the blog done.  twitter name is AndyNewellskier. tweet tweet boom!

Perfect winter conditions….. the team walks to training.

This time of year we have a lot of boards to test

kind of the original extreme side of cross-country skiing and something we should practice a lot more often.

It’s true…. You should NEVER try to Marathon skate in Oslo

More clippings from the 1984 book A Complete Guide to XC skiing by Casey Sheahan.

These clippings are from the 1984-1988 book Sports Illustrated Cross-country skiing, A Complete Guide by Casey Sheahan. classic stuff.