ALPINE:

Speed racers endure frigid Lake Louise

Nov. 23, 2010 ― Michael Mastarciyan/fisalpine.com 

LAKE LOUISE, Alberta — Blue skies. Bright sun. Big mountains. Brilliant snow.

Perfect conditions for ski racing in the Canadian Rockies ― well, almost perfect ― given the thermometer in Lake Louise dipped to a frigid minus-34 Celsius on Tuesday morning.

“It was even colder than that yesterday morning,” said Darrell MacLachlan, chief of race for this weekend’s Lake Louise Winterstart World Cup.

“On Monday it was minus-51 Celsius at the top of the course ― now that’s cold!”

“I’ve seen it cold in Lake Louise, but never this cold for this long in November,” said Canadian Alpine Ski Team head coach Paul Kristofic. “Usually it gets colder the week after the men’s races here, when the women arrive. But this year it looks like we’re getting the freezing temps and they’re going to get the warm weather. Oh well, it’s payback I guess, and it’s a killer!”

For some of the more junior racers on the Canadian squad, training during a cold spell like this one has been an eye opener on the less glamourous aspects of earning a living ski racing around the world.

“It’s been nasty and brutal out there all week. Training in this kind of weather is no day at the beach,” said a smiling Tyler Nella, one of the Canadian Alpine Ski Team’s young guns who spent most of last week training at nearby Nakiska.

“I can’t believe how cold it is. I think this is the coldest weather I’ve ever trained in. The windchill factors have been crazy,” added teammate Dustin Cook, winner of last season’s overall Nor-Am Cup title.

For well-seasoned Canadian veterans such as Manuel Osborne-Paradis, the freezing temperatures of the Great White North are best handled with a warm smile and a good sense of humour.

“The last few days have been freaky cold, but this is Canada not Florida. Skiing is an outdoor, cold-weather sport and sometimes it gets a little chilly or really, really, really chilly. You just gotta deal with it and ‘chill’ when it’s chilly, I guess,” Osborne-Paradis said.

Swiss veteran Didier Cuche’s take on the recent cold snap in the Rockies is, like Osborne-Paradis’, tinged with humour.

“Yes, it’s been very cold, but after four or five days you get used to it,” Cuche said with wry smile, before quickly finishing off the statement with a wink and adding, “USED to it?!” as a well-timed comedic punch line.

For others, like Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal, the current deep freeze is uncomfortable but manageable and bearable as long as you use common sense to deal with it.

“The cold hasn’t been a surprise to us because we’ve been training in very cold weather almost all month. First we were in Sweden and it was really cold. Then we were training in Nakiska last week and it was extremely cold there too, so you can say we are pretty used to it now,” Svindal said.

“When it’s this cold my biggest problem is my feet. There is almost no insulation from the cold when you are in race boots because they’re really not made for skiing in extreme conditions. It’s tough because there is nothing between my socks and the plastic of the boot, which is quite thin, and it’s the only thing between my feet and the freezing temperatures. So to stay warm, I’ve been going indoors after every practice run to warm up my feet. As soon as I get inside, I go straight to the washroom to find hand dryers. Then I take my boots off, lie on the floor on my back and stick my feet in the air up close to dryers to let the hot air warm them.”

A good sense of humour and common sense solutions might be useful cold combatants for some, but for others they are insufficient insulation in real-life terms. For these cold fighters, it’s what you wear on your skin that matters most.

“We noticed white spots on the cheeks of the racers and coaches last week in Nakiska and we know that’s the first sign of frostbite. So we have been using a lot of tape on the faces of our athletes this week ― a lot! Cold weather like this can be dangerous if you aren’t careful, so we’ve been making sure everyone is dressed properly and are asking them to go inside after one practice run to get warm,” said Haavard Tjorhom, head coach of Norwegian men’s World Cup team.

There is good news, though, on the frozen horizon for lovers of warmer weather. Weekend weather forecasts for Saturday’s season-opening downhill and Sunday’s super-G are considerably balmier relative to the bone-chilling temperatures currently cloaking Lake Louise. Saturday and Sunday’s highs are expected to be in the minus-8 to minus-10 Celsius area with lows in the more bearable low teens.

And at least one racer is taking the weather service’s forecast as gospel.

“I’m definitely sure it’ll be much warmer on the weekend. This kind of weather can’t last forever. It’s a cold snap and sooner or later it’ll snap out of it itself,” said Canadian veteran Robbie Dixon.

But before Lake Louise goes tropical this  weekend, it will be more of the same ― the frosty low for Wednesday ― the first downhill training run of the new speed season, will be a nippy minus-35 Celsius, and undoubtedly facial duct tape and protective ski masks will be the race fashion statement of the day.  S-Magazine