Pre-Season Finland Camp

November 21, 2024

The skis are prepped, the jumps are ready, and the final preparation before the 2024/25 Nordic Combined World Cup season is complete! The World Cup season kicks off in Ruka, Finland next weekend, December 29th, and it starts with a bang: three back-to-back races and the opportunity to claim the first of the coveted golden bibs signifying the World Cup overall leader.

After U.S National Championships in Lake Placid, NY, we returned to Trondheim, Norway to warm, rainy weather. Around Europe temperatures have been high and snow sparse, which left teams scrambling trying to figure out the best place to prepare for Ruka. Our original plan was to train in Trondheim until the ski tracks and jumps in Lillehammer opened. 

Unfortunately, the warm weather resulted in poor skiing conditions around Norway, and there was growing uncertainty that Lillehammer would be ready as soon as we had expected. Luckily, my teammates Niklas and Annika Malacinski had gone to their second home in Rovaniemi, Finland after Nationals and reported that the local club was working hard to open the jump the following weekend. There were also six kilometers (3.8 miles) of ski tracks in great condition. (This of course didn’t hold a candle to Alaska where the Nordic Ski Association of Anchorage had most of the trails up and running, but Anchorage unfortunately was too far away to travel to).

Getting on snow early is a huge advantage, as many of the teams don’t have that opportunity until Ruka or just before. I hopped on the first plane out of Trondheim on November 6th and arrived in Luleå, Sweden where Niklas picked me up for the three-hour drive to his grandparents’ home in Rovaniemi. I wasn’t planning on going to Finland so early in November, but with warmer and warmer temperatures, you have to go where the snow is… shockingly even Trondheim, Norway wasn’t far enough North!

Absolutely Stoked to be back on snow! (Plus sweet new Kappa gear!)

I stayed with Niklas’s family for a week until the rest of the team arrived and moved into the team Airbnb. Going early to Rovaniemi turned out to be the right move and I was quickly back skiing and jumping on snow. Due to our early travel to Finland, the U.S team was actually the first team in the world to jump on snow! 

In our free time, I enjoyed the immersion into Finnish culture, as Niklas’s grandparents spoke only Finnish. I also got the chance to try Finnish food like Lakkahillojuusto a squeaky cheese that you put in your coffee, as well as cold smoked reindeer, blueberry oatmeal, Karelian pies, lots of local berries picked by his grandmother, and more. We had an evening sauna almost every day, which Finns keep HOT, and even cold plunged in the icy lake. Exploring the town, we went to Santa Claus Village, a popular site in Rovaniemi, as well as the Malacinski’s summer cottage in the woods. The house in Rovaniemi provided a great base for this last hard block of training, and I am super grateful to the Malacinski family for having me!