Oddvar Braa: Founding Team Post Giro
The following is an exclusive interview with Norwegian Olympic and World Champion Oddvar Braa that took place in Fall 2005 by Inge Scheve, XC Oregon/Alpina Racing/Madshus USA.
“Some people consider cross-country ski racing as a sport comprised of individuals who enjoy inflicting themselves with large amounts of pain in the woods and eventually return to the stadium,” says legendary cross-country champion Oddvar Braa.
Oddvar Braa retired from professional full-time ski racing in 1989, after dominating international cross-country ski racing for three decades. He first entered the international senior circuit as a junior in the 1960s, and earned his last Norwegian national championship title in 1994.
Upon retiring in 1989, Braa was far from ready to leave ski racing. Having watched the making and braking of athletes through the national governing body’s national team structure, Braa wanted to create an alternative for talented, motivated racers who fell outside the national team structure. After convincing one of the largest corporations in Norway that his idea was viable, Team Post Giro, based on a more flexible set of criteria for inclusion, was a reality.
Team Post Giro was an elite development team outside of the national team structure, says Braa.
“We did something entirely new in Norwegian skiing. We created a corporate-sponsored team that picked up skiers who were not included in the national team structure, and it was our job to build these racers to where they could make the national teams,” he says, adding that the racers who came out of Team Post Giro are still in the news today, both on the racing and the coaching end in Norwegian cross-country skiing.
But while Braa had decades of training and racing experience to offer, he lacked formal education in physiology and exercise science. He pulled in Inge Andersen, an untraditional, progressive and creative graduate of the Norwegian College of Sports Medicine and Exercise Science (NIH). Andersen is the current secretary general of the Norwegian Athletics Federation, the highest governing body for athletics in the country. He has also been the head coach for the Norwegian women’s cross-country ski team, and the head coach and director of the Swiss cross-country ski team.
“We had very different backgrounds, but shared much of the same training philosophy,” explains Braa. “We filled each other out well.”
The duo ran Team Post Giro for about five years, turning out a number of racers who have won Olympic and World Championship medals. Among the Team Post Giro graduates are Frode Estil, Kristen Skjeldal and Erling Jevne.
Team Post Giro training philosophy
• Based on experience
• Based on research and theory
• Athlete-specific, individual (everyone is different, and training needs to be adjusted to fit each athlete’s personal potential, ambition and life situation)
• Group dynamics
• Flexible and progressive
• Directional – developmental
Team Post Giro had fewer clear-cut rules for inclusion, Braa explains, adding that there were young mothers with little babies on the team.
“We delivered a social environment and acceptance that contributes to a very close team atmosphere. Even though our athletes gave 110 percent at their sport, Team Post Giro represented an opportunity for talented, motivated athletes who fell outside the rigid system of the national teams, because our team was ready to adjust and be flexible in making training and racing work for them.”
Team Identity: Team Post Giro was built on the following factors
• Recognition
• Commitment
• Membership
• Reinforcement
• Meaningful
• Creativity
• Hard work
• Success oriented
• Clear goals
• Burn for their cause
• Training effort and training environment (based on investment, involvement and inspiration)
“We wore team apparel at practice and during camps, as well as at races. It contributes to a feeling of team identity, acceptance and community both for the athletes and coaches, as well as externally to the world,” Braa says, explaining that team identity and team recognition are important factors in creating a successful team. “Aside from a strong will to win, our athletes identified with the team as an avenue to success, were proud of the team, and represented the team.”
Teambuilding was one of the main keys to Team Post Giro’s success, Braa explains. “Teambuilding is crucial in order to make the athletes comfortable and create a good training environment,” says Braa, who believes having a group of people to train with is even more important today than when he was racing. “I was used to training alone, and I was an only child as well, so I was used to being alone. But the long-distance workouts, I always did with others,” he says.
While skiing has been in what seems like a constant evolution over the past decades, Braa believes it is important to consider the history and the roots of the sport when adding elements.
“While it’s important to be open to new developments and impulses, it is equally important to consider the history of the sport. It’s so easy to reinvent the wheel, and that doesn’t bring progress,” he says.
And Braa has been through almost all the large developments in the sport, starting with the fiber glass revolution in 1974 to the addition, rejection and inclusion of skate skiing in the mid-80s.
Through the evolution, the sport presents different challenges, which requires different qualities in the skiers, Braa says. Today, there are more mass starts, races are generally shorter races and the courses consist of shorter loops with fewer truly long hills. The lack of really long hills has developed the double-pole technique tremendously, he explains. “We see a lot more true double-pole sprinting and less use of the double-pole kick. We as coaches and racers have to join the evolution but at the same time be careful not to lose the identity of the sport,” Braa says.
Truth is, he concludes, cross-country skiing is and will continue to be an endurance sport. “There are no shortcuts. Good racers are built on hard training over a long time. But you need to adjust the training to each racer individually, and to that racer’s environment and life load in order to see progress,” Braa says, noting that at Team Port Giro, the coaches spent large amounts of time with each racer in order to build trust. “We talked to the racers about everything, not only training. We talked about life’s challenges and even love and relationships. But when the racers and the coach build such a strong relationship, it allows the racers to really believe in the coach and trust the program.”
The future
“It doesn’t matter how many intervals you throw at an athlete if the endurance base is lacking,” Braa explains. “I feel that some teams have gotten a little ahead of themselves lately. I hope it works for them, but I’m not sure it won’t actually backfire.”
Braa is also concerned that some teams forget to vary intensity. He believes in compiling a variety of intensity sessions that include all the intensity zones, while he observes that many teams focus only on high-intensity workouts and long-distance, low intensity sessions. “If you do only level 1 and 2 workouts or only level 4 workouts, you’ll miss something and the training program will fail to bring results,” he fears.
“The winners will be those who create positive training environments and social environments where the athletes thrive,” says Braa, who believes this is particularly important in order to attract and keep girls in skiing.
“Good skiing communities are the results of open, positive relationships between athletes who want to be outside skiing and positive, flexible coaches and parents,” says Braa. “It is through my relationship with my athletes that I improve as a coach.”
