Challenges in Norwegian XC Ski Development
The following is a translated and summarized version of an article by Per-Øyvind Torvik originally appearing on Langrenn.com. Translation and summary by Inge Scheve.
Although many of the points raised by the author are areas of some debate in North American development circles, the overall topic is one that should be of widespread interest parents, coaches, and ski education leaders.
Recruitment is up almost all over Norway – more skiers participate in local races, regional events and even divisional races. 85,000 Norwegian children are enrolled in the Kids Ski League and more than 70 percent of Norwegian children participate in some sort of organized ski practice.
The challenges are numerous and the road is long. The main objective must be to encourage more young skiers to perceive competition as positive, exciting, developing, and interesting. This article focuses on two elements: the competition format and how skiers, parents, coaches and administrators react to the race results.
1. Establish more alternative competitions on the regular race calendar. Create a competition program that encourages well-roundedness and speed skills.
2. The race calendar and competition program should be the framework training and conditioning revolves around.
3. Coaches, parents and skiers need to understand and accept the values of competitive sports. The way adults handle competition and competitive environments determines to a large extend how the kids will handle racing and what racing will be like in the future.
FEWER YOUNG SKIERS FIND THEIR NICHE IN COMPETITION
Despite growing enrollment in the sport, as kids get older, they tend to disappear from racing. In cross-country skiing, race participation decreases drastically about the time where the kids start racing on the divisional circuit. In other words, we don’t have a recruitment problem; we have a retention problem. Many blame the drop-out on factors outside the sport. Some blame the increasing emphasis on competition; others blame the way we run practices, administrative issues and the image of the sport. In this article, I will focus on what I believe the sport needs to ensure the children who start ski racing stick with it throughout their junior careers. I don’t claim to have all the answers, I hope to share some thoughts on how the clubs can welcome all kids who want to ski and how to encourage them to race. From my stand point, it is obvious that to achieve these goals, we need to reconsider what is offered, how it is presented and whether we can make the content more attractive to young people.
COMPETITIVE VALUES
Fun, exploration, pushing limits and building skills as well as social factors such as camaraderie, security and team work are all important values in youth athletics. Most clubs are aware of these factors and do a decent job at making sure these needs are met. But the value of competition, on the other hand, is often regarded as conflicting with the above-mentioned values. The values of competition are defined as rankings, measurable performance and progress, records, suspense, improvement, training hours (many and at times uncomfortable), pain and internal fighting among other things. But many kids experience enjoyment, mastering, comfort and camaraderie in a competitive environment.
When encouraging kids to make the step from youth skiing to competitive racing, one of the main responsibilities is mainly to prepare the young skiers to develop a sensible attitude toward these values. The problem many clubs experience with young talents leaving the sport could be a result of adults failing to prepare the kids for the brutality of competition. Some argue that competition by creating losers and celebrating winners is the evil. I argue not. Competition is an important aspect of athletics, and it’s about time that responsible adults and coaches put competition on the ski club agenda.
But don’t misunderstand me – this is not about turning youth athletics into the World Cup. This is about introducing, presenting and explaining the values of competition to everyone in the ski club and about coaching the kids to act according to the values as competition is introduced. We can not create the illusion about ski practice being pizza parties, trips to the movies, fun and games when in reality it is large volumes of training and racing. We are succeeding in this process if the young racers find competition interesting, stimulating and exciting. If a young racer experiences competition on these premises, s/he will likely continue to perceive racing that way. While competition on the wrong premises is detrimental to young racers, the majority of them learn a lot from competing. When competing, young skiers attain skills they can apply later in life regardless of whether they succeed as ski racers. Just imagine you are in the process of hiring a new employee. How would you rate an applicant with the following abilities on his or her resume?
I have great endurance and am able to handle a high-intensity project over a relatively long period of time. These are all attributes that describe elite athletes both on the national and the international circuits. There are values connected to ski racing that require athletes internalize them into their nature in order to succeed on snow. Racers who display interest in the sport, make calculated choices and act in accordance with the values of racing develop these attributes almost regardless of level through the process of pursuing a career in cross-country skiing
RACING: EXCITEMENT
One of the most important lessons in skiing is that racing is exciting. Or, as my son said to his mother the morning of his first ski race: “Mom, I have snakes in my tummy!” This is easy to relate to, this is excitement directly connected to competing. Most of us do not hold degrees in psychology, and most of us don’t have a good answer to what you say in such a situation. Neither the boy’s mother nor I had a good answer at the time, but in retrospect, I am glad I didn’t leave the subject or ignore the importance of the topic he brought up. He was uncomfortably nervous. This was not just butterflies or little worms – he had many big, fat, wiggly snakes in his tummy. We talked about it briefly, and we concluded that this is simply “the way it is before a race.” But I also realized the topic needs further follow-up. Race jitters is not a sign of weakness or poor mental preparation; it is a healthy reaction to competition. Race situations create emotions. My responsibility as an adult is to help sort the feelings, create some understanding for the fact that racing is exciting. I simply talked a little to my son and asked some questions while I tried to explain the situation. Among the questions I asked was “If you got to choose, would you pick a boring movie or an exciting movie?” The 8-year-old promptly answered he would pick an exciting one. Next, I explained that people race because it is exciting to see who finishes first and who comes last, that it is interesting to see if you do better than last time, and if you race faster this time than last time. This is true for everyone who competes.
RACING: HANDLING SUCCESS AND DEFEAT
How we react to winning and losing, disappointment and excitement becomes important. Today, youth coaches typically shy away from ranking and timing young skiers. Not that the results in and of themselves are important, nor is it that important to name a winner, but without these factors, some of the crucial elements of ski racing are lost. We end up pushing the issues in front of us rather than dealing with them. In a way, we are playing soccer without a goal. I believe we need to work on making the young racers understand and accept ranking, and to deal with results in a positive and productive manner. When I was a kid, we were told that you pay to play, those who run with the big dogs have to step up to the challenge, and you win and lose with the same attitude. If you can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the porch. Likewise, we were told that participation is more important than winning.
But because winning at any cost has become the dominant value even at regional youth events, these old values have been forgotten. Young people need to learn that when racing, they run the “risk” of losing, not reaching their own goals or not succeeding. In reality, they are not losing but experiencing that you pay to play, and they must learn to accept the reality. However, stopping here would create losers. We need to continue to encourage the athletes by offering advice on where to go from there, how to build on the current experience. Asking the skiers what they suggest should happen between now and next race is a strategy that allows the young racers to have input on their own training and that encourages positive attitude. The answer should be “train more.” As coaches we are responsible for letting the racers know that hard work is the only way to improve on a disappointing race result. If we fail, the young skiers are likely to quit racing once they face a disappointing race result. Losing as well as winning, should stimulate to work harder.
RACING: RESULT-ORIENTED VS. SKILL-ORIENTED
Is a 12-year-old who skis two kilometers in 10 minutes worth more than one who skis the same distance in 11 minutes? Of course not, most would claim. But why does the faster skier receive more attention, praise and encouragement? The interest in young athletes who excel in their sports is insatiable, while those farther down on the result lists tend to be ignored. What is the worst thing you can do to a kid? Ignore him or her. All kids are equally valuable, but that’s sometimes forgotten in a sport where “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” In my mind, all kids have the right to be acknowledged when they give all in a ski race. “How was it? What did you enjoy the most? What was most exciting? How did you like that corner? Did you handle that technique thing we talked about at practice last week?” A common mistake is to ask only result-oriented questions, but completely avoiding them is also not beneficial. A race without ranking and results is simply not a race. Mankind has sought to push limits and competed about almost everything since times began, and this is natural. Everyone needs to feel that they master something. A race situation and rankings are also elements kids need to master. Those who can’t handle competitive sports might want to try boy/ girl scouts or 4H. But if the kids master the race situation and the connected stress, the desire to compete will increase. Internal motivation is, according to Gebauer, an individual’s desire to improve. The desire to develop new abilities is motivating to humans as a species, and competition is a method to measure this development.
To encourage kids to stay in the sport through racing is not enough to secure retention. All kids need to feel that they master something and that they are succeeding. If they don’t achieve these things within a reasonable amount of time, they quit even if they have internalized the values. In practice, this means that we need to use results in a way that motivates skiers to stick with the sport and keep training because practice is the only way to improve. Second, we need to use results to encourage the kids to train more. Increasing the training load as they get older is an important value in competitive sports.
RACING: SUSPENSE AND FAIR PLAY
To retain young athletes’ interest in racing, the following premise must be met: First, suspense (the race results must not be a given). Second, the competition must be perceived as fair. Finally, athletes need to feel safe on the race course and feel comfortable with the race environment both mentally, socially and physically.
1) If everyone knows who is going to win or lose, the race is not interesting to anyone. This is a situation many experience if they have to race against athletes who are much bigger than themselves even though they technically belong in the same age category. Along the same lines, most kids find it uninteresting to compete against kids they know are much faster than they are. In the kids’ own unorganized games, they level the playing fields by assigning handicaps, adding time penalties, or by selecting teams. These adjustments add suspense and excitement. In youth skiing, there is no A, B and C league, nor a corporate or recreational league. Competition is only stimulating when you compete against equal abilities.
2) Competition is never totally fair, but we must be careful to avoid that some racers perceive others as have an unfair advantage. Fair competition means that all skiers have equal opportunity and that the race starts everyone at square one. Youth and junior skiers are quick to identify is someone have an unfair advantage, and those who feel disadvantaged typically quit sports where these unfair advantages are of especially high importance for the result.
RACE FORMATS
Everyone perceives fair competition as motivating. But it is hard to see how it could be fair that if you are 13 years old but look like you are 9, you race against skiers who are 13 but look like they are 15. Because body size is typically more important than skills and training volume in the age groups 10 to 15, or at least, small skiers need to train insane volumes to make up for the difference – just note the body size of the top three or four racers in these age groups next time you attend the awards ceremony. We could try to use body size rather than age, which is used in several other sports. But changing the categories would be a hard sell to those who benefit from the existing system. Although other sports can document that a size-classification system works well, the reluctance to change just proves how result-oriented the sport is, and how result-oriented we as parents and coaches are – we are the ones who determine these things. It might be easier to incorporate elements that encourage and reward more than just brute force, endurance and technique in cross-country racing.
ALTERNATE COMPETITION FORMATS
While on the national and international circuits, skiers compete in mass starts, pursuits, duathlons, sprints, sprint relays, relays, 100 meter, 1-mile, par for the course, 15 second interval starts, and traditional individual start races in both classic and freestyle, the variety is typically much slimmer in youth and junior racing. The Norwegian Ski Association’s directives for youth and junior competitions demand the races must contain elements that encourage play and inventiveness, which tends to be ignored or neglected in most youth events. We need to change the competition formats to where we alter the ranking and create more suspense at the races.
Skicross is an attempt at turning a game into a race, and at the same time making the competition more interesting for more of the kids than just the top skiers. Skicross incorporates for instance powder skiing, giant slalom, whoop-de-doos, big-jumps and double-pole-only obstacle course, all as a part of a regular race course. Including several different elements like this means there are more possible winners than in a traditional XC race.
Sprint races where everyone skis the qualifying rounds. Then (starting with the quarter finals) pit the top four skiers against each other in one heat regardless of age and gender, then places 5 through 9 in one heat, 9 through 12 and 13 through 16. The top two from each heat advance to the semi finals. In the semi finals, the winner goes to the A finals and the second-place racer goes to the B finals.
Combined race, jumping and XC or alpine and XC on skate skis. Your imagination is the limit!
I am good at prioritizing, planning and organizing.
I work best under pressure.
I am goal-oriented and work well with both long-term and short-term goals.
I am rational and effective.
I am used to assessing risks and can handle both winning and losing.
I am dedicated to fair play
I am almost never sick and take care of my own health.
