To find out
what each of these sports look like and who is the international competitor who
is related to one of us here at Nordic Academy, read more…
Cross Country (also called Nordic or
shown as XC) Skiing
is a form of ski touring across snow covered terrains using skis and poles to
pull and push your body smoothly along the snow.
The athletes compete in sprint races (< 1.4 km) and
long distance races ( 5km – 50 km), which includes Sprint, 15km and 50 km races
for the men and Sprint, 10 km, 30km events for the women. The ski stars will
perform either the classic or the freestyle technique.
Another interesting competition is the relays of women
and men.
Cross Country Skiers are known for having (on
average) the largest VO2 max scores, which measures aerobic fitness, than any
other sport – including swimming or running. The reason for this is thought to
be that the lungs have to work extra hard due to the cold air that they are
exercising in.
Ski Jumping
is a winter sport activity where skiers go down a take-off ramp, jump and try to land as far as possible down the hill
below.
One of the most famous Ski Jumpers
is ‘Eddie the Eagle’ who competed in the 1988
Calgary Olympics even though he was an inexperienced (and fearful)
novice to the sport.
He is Patrick’s god son, and was competing on the international circuit 10 years. He is now being succeeded by his younger brother Sepp (in the Nordic combined) – so watch out for him in the future!
Nordic Combined is a combination of the two sports explained above. To excel in this sport is very challenging and requires all round abilities as you need the strength, balance and plyometric abilities of a Ski Jumper, as well as the extreme aerobic fitness of a Nordic Skier.
The most successful competing countries and the ones to watch out for in the upcoming Championships are Austria, Germany, Norway and Finland.
No comments:
Post a Comment