Not just about the numbers

We have talked regularly and often on the subject of results. For many they are the measure of one's athletic worth against the best in the world. For others they are a litmus test of forward progress, and, yes, for some they can be a cruel reality check. I have always gone upon the assumption that everyone tries as hard as they can, whether it be the BKL or at the Olympics. Every athlete wants to put their best foot forward.

Yet, sometimes results can be misleading -- yes, it sure does mean if you have the fastest time; you covered the course the quickest. Further, however, it doesn't always take into account skiers' long-term goals and plans. And it sometimes needs context. That's why judging too early and making inane predictions too far ahead can be a fool's game. We do not play our games in a stadium. The weather changes, even after we've selected the right wax. We wax for fast skis, and then sometimes we need more kick.

There can be a solar eclipse in the middle of a race -- I'm not kidding, it happened once -- dropping the temp nearly 30 degrees. A dead, old tree can fall on the course just meters in front of you, leaving you to scramble thru, having to take your skis off and then slap them back on. (I'm going to go on here, for a point.) The track bed which, perhaps wasn't set up well overnight, remains fine for the first few skiers and then turns into a thousand pellets of rounded sugar snow and you have no kick.

Okay, you're getting the idea. While leading a high school race many years ago in Rutland, Vermont, the skier in front of me fell off a bridge with no railing into an icy stream. I hurriedly took off my skis and went in after him; neither of us finished the race. But for many, the race is a metaphor for survival. In the World Cup most everyone has good wax -- some wax for kick and others wax for speed. Temperatures are taken at the high point and the low point of the course and radioed back to the wax cabin. What's the humidity?

That's what makes this sport so impossibly wonderful. The skiers go out and do their very best against whatever Mother Nature throws at them.

That's why there are surprises, and friends, they happen at the Olympics, too.

You're ready for your feed in a 50km, the coach slips (I've done this, too) and you never get the drink you so desperately need. What do you do? Quit? Heck no (use the less-PC version of that phrase for a more dramatic sounding sentence). That doesn't even cross your mind.

And those are just a few of the variables that can happen during the race.

How about just getting to the start line? You travel, your flight attendant is serving you coffee with a cold, your seatmate is sneezing, you go thru multiple time zones and your sleep is dreadfully interrupted. The doctor giving you your flu shot is himself sick at uniform processing. This all happened in 1972 to the U.S. cross-country team before they left JFK in New York City. Keep this in mind for all our sports. You wonder if Woody Allen was right, that, "90 percent of life is just showing up." It isn't easy.

Yet, surprises are wonderful things; even if they really aren't surprises at all.

*** So many things impressed me last weekend. Take the French ski team's performance: Maurice Manificat skied to his first-ever podium, in third, at Davos. A surprise? "Last year, I did four top-15s," he said at the press conference. The skier from Thyez, in the lovely Haute-Savoie, has been racing seriously since he was eleven. Surprise? He had a bronze medal with the French team at the 2005 VM juniors in Finland. In fact, and it must blow a lot of people away, France had five men in the top eight. They could mount a very strong relay team at the Olympics Games.

Finn Matti Heikkinen scored his first World Cup win in Davos. He said the secret was that he did not start too fast (people listening?) and worked into the race, as the first nine minutes at altitude was really hard and mostly uphill -- even though he had been there nine days acclimating. Now he wears the FIS leader's yellow bib. Swedish star Marcus Hellner took the silver medal with Manificat rounding out the podium.

American Kris Freeman continues to put on a display of amazing consistency, finishing a career-best seventh place -- all while living with type-one diabetes. You want to know how to spell "guts"? It's Kris Freeman. Every race, he fights hard to the bitter end.

Davos' homeboy and defending World Cup champion, Dario Cologna continues to bounce back inch by inch from his thigh injury finishing this race in 31st. I still think he will be among the favorites at the Games.

*** In the individual women's race, Russian Irina Khazova took her first World Cup win. "I was going to be happy with a top-six, and now this?" she said smiling. She was a former VM Jr. champion. Sweden's Charlotte Kalla continues to ski strongly, finishing second. There can be little doubt about the returning former Olympic star, Estonian Kristina Smigun-Vahi, with her smokin' third place -- she took two years off to give birth to baby Viktoria

***Canada's Devon Kershaw went big in Davos. His ninth-place finish in the men's 15km event was a huge result and an important affirmation following Kuusamo. "I worked incredibly hard that this result; I had to go out and then some," Kerhsaw said. "I pushed really hard for it, and I needed that really badly."

Just one week before he had turned in some of the poorest results of his career. You want motivation; it's called Devon Kershaw. As coach Dave Wood told me, "Our week of training in Italy was just what we needed; we worked hard, but we relaxed, too, and it helped us prepare for the altitude we would face at Davos. I mean, a big improvement. Sarah was 25th; George (25th) and Ivan (27th) skied well and Alex Harvey showed improvement in 34th place."

It is common knowledge that Alex Harvey of St.-Ferreol-des-Neiges, Quebec, starts slowly and finishes the season strong. I continue to say, watch out for him at the Games.

Wood announced that five or six Canadians would take part in the upcoming Tour de Ski following Christmas. They are likely to include Renner, Kershaw, Babikov, Grey, Harvey and possibly Chandra Crawford. The U.S. Ski Team will also have Andy Newell on portions of the Tour de Ski, but only, as Coach Vordenberg told us, "to prep for the Games, we will hit the Tour next year for real."

***Alaska's Kikkan Randall turned in another fine weekend in Davos, too. The world championships silver medalist from last season landed a seventh-place finish at the sprint race in Switzerland. Vindication was had for Petra Majdic of Slovenia as she won the race, followed by Norway's Marit Bjoergen while Finland's World Cup leader Aino-Kaisa Saarinen was third.

Randall will take the day's success and apply it into her bank account for the next race. Other Americans in the women's sprint included Liz Stephen in 51st and Morgan Arritola in 77th.

In the men's sprints, Team Norway was dominant. John Kristian Dahl picked up his first-ever World Cup win followed by the prodigiously-talented Petter Northug. Russia's Alexei Petukhov took third.

American Andy Newell was also gunning for a podium spot but had some tough luck and landed in 22nd place. U.S. sprint coach Chris Grover said, "When Andy started his quarterfinal he had his pole broken right away. He did get a new pole pretty quickly and was able to get back to the group, but when they saw he had broken his pole they put the hammer down." Other American sprinters included Torin Koos in 32nd, Kris Freeman 57th and Lars Flora in 73rd place.

*** I caught up with head U.S. cross-country coach Pete Vordenberg upon his return to the States. He told me that this first period has been promising. "It is a balance of patience and pushing to get the team in shape at the right time, and that requires being able to not have your best results at the World Cup level and not lose confidence. That's tough. But we've tried to focus on the process, which is always about doing your best everyday. So, it shouldn't be much different training your best in June or racing as hard as you can in December or racing for a medal in February," Vordenberg said.

*** This weekend, the cross-country skiers will travel to Rogla, Slovenia. This is a first-time venue for the FIS cross-country tour and sets in the enchanting Pohorje mountain range -- not far from Maribor -- while Ljubljana is a little over an hour away. This area is famous for its "black kitchens" that serve smoked foods and the wonderful taste of locally grown mushrooms that grow on the mountainside of Pohorje. I have been there for mountain bike races in the summer, and it's a great delight.

The U.S. will race Andy Newell, Torin Koos, Kris Freeman and Kikkan Randall.

The Canadians are expected to start George Grey; Ivan Babikov, who raced sick last weekend; Alex Harvey and Devon Kerhsaw. Top Canadians Sara Renner, Alex Harvey and Devon Kerhsaw will spend the Holidays in Davos, with Sara's husband former Alpine star Thomas Grandi. Davos over the holidays sounds pretty good to me. It should be a time to train, relax, recovery and think of other things than just skiing, especially when you consider what's down the road for these athletes. Pressure city.

*** Colorado's gifted Nordic combined skier, Todd Lodwick, opened his season with a pair of wins in a Continental Cup -- which is like World Cup B -- in Park City, Utah. Lodwick and company powered thru an epic blizzard. Lodwick left the country on Monday and is now in Ramsau, Austria for a three-event weekend at the mountain hamlet that lays just below the year-round snowfields of the Dachstein glacier.

Continental Cup Nordic combined action opens this week in Lake Placid for a pair of events.

*** On the women's ski jumping beat, a pair of U.S. gals, Sarah Hendrickson and Alissa Johnson of the VISA women's ski jumping team placed in fourth and ninth, respectively, last weekend in Vikersund, Norway. This was the second stop on the tour.

Big goings on in ski jumping on the horizon with the Four Hills tournament coming up, soon I'll have a complete preview of the big show.

*** It was yet again, another promising weekend for the U.S. biathlon team in their universe with Tim Burke continuing his powerful momentum by finishing 10th in the first 12.5km pursuit competition of the season in Hochfilzen, Austria. It is clear that Burke's results have raised the bar for the entire team. "I have to force myself to stay calm," Burke said after last week's race. "Normally a 10th place would be fine for me, but I guess I am a bit spoiled by now, with those two podiums." Burke is currently in fourth place in the overall World Cup rankings. You want grace under pressure in sport? It's Tim Burke.

***

These folks are among the ultimate risk-takers, putting it out there -- a world away from home in a sport not understood well by many Americans. They have my vote for perseverance and tenacity. Yet, that's what competition is all about at every level. You test the water. Stick your toe in, and then immerse yourself into a lifelong sport that captures your complete passion. Think of biathlon. They do all this heart-pounding cardio work, and then they must have the truly Zen-like ability to fire a rifle at tiny targets with their heart beating like a freight train. God, I love this stuff.

They almost never have a "home game" in Nordic sports, yet they are never without dreams, never without hope and recognize that each day is a new day to try again. All in a magnificent setting tucked in against the pines, the icicle-laden trees, stabbing the snow with their poles -- jumping off towers that take your breath away. For it was the late, great former Dartmouth and St. Lawrence ski coach Otto Schniebs who once quipped, "Skiing is more than a sport, it's a way of life."

Ski folks know what Schniebs meant -- no further explanation needed. And we wouldn't have it any other way.