February, 2010

Got ‘er done.  We had an ideal day for the Olympic 15km Skate in Whistler.  After a week of warm temperatures and overcast skies, I couldn’t have asked for a better day.  The race trail was prepared just right, firm and fast with plenty of spectators lining the course.  I started with bib number 59, meaning that I was the 59th ranked skier going into the Olympic event.

I went into the race with a lot of confidence in my Salomon skis.  A fellow Middlebury grad (and Geography Major), Zach Caldwell, sent my skis through his grinder last night to prepare the skis for the exact conditions on the trail today.  My old high school coach, Randy Gibbs, is now the head US Ski Team wax technician and he prepped my skis with the fastest combination of high flouro wax around.  All the US team coaches lined the course with spare poles and a lot of enthusiastic encouragement.  The guys on hand today are just a handful of the thousands of people who have helped me become an Olympian.  Chances are, if you’re reading this post, you’ve played big part as well and I sure appreciate your help achieving this dream!

I finished 58th today, one place ahead of my ranking going into the day, so I guess you could say I improved.  I felt surprisingly good on the course and only got passed by one skier, Vincent Vittoz of France, who ended up in the top 10.  My skis were even a little faster than his on the downhill.  Sweet!  All the spectators, especially the American contingent, got me fired up out there.  A number of my former teammates, including Chris and Colin Rodgers, Jimmy Butcher, and Jenny Hamilton were all in the crowd, as well as my parents (Happy Anniversary!), my Aunt Lynne and Uncle Mark, and two members of the Kuzzy Super Fan Club, Skip Fay and Mary Anderson.

A special congrats to my Twin Cities teammate Caitlin Compton for her Top-30 finish in the Olympics.  Nice work!

Time to grab a little dinner and get ready to fired it up in the Sprint on Wednesday.  Can’t wait!

Happy Valentines Day.  The cross country crew is getting ready for our first race of the Games tomorrow – the 15km Skate, with a little extra motivation from Johnny Spillane’s Silver medal in the Nordic Combined today.  The combiners are up in Whistler tonight at the medals ceremony, while the cross country crew is in the Village, getting ready to hammer tomorrow.

Newell, Mo, Liz, Kikkan & I got out for a little afternoon jog and enjoyed the first sunshine we’ve seen since arriving.  The whole village was in a good mood with lots of cameras out, capturing the surrounding mountains that we had yet to see before today.

This morning, I skied my final lap around the race course before competing tomorrow.  It was a satisfying feeling to know that everything I can do has been done and I’ve got a lot of confidence going into the race tomorrow.  The hay is in the barn!

Start list, live timing, and results can all be found here.  Watch out for #59 starting at 12:59:30 Pacific Time.

“Rain drops keep falling on my head, . . .”  We woke up to partly sunny skies this morning, but the clouds moved in quickly and we’ve been getting some serious Pacific Coast rain all day.  Fortunately, there are at least two meters (we are in Canada, eh?) of snow on the ground at the venue, so we’re not going to lose much.  Race organizers actually spread salt on the biathlon course today, which made the snow a lot more firm and fast.  It’s very likely that they’ll do the same for our race on Monday.

I’ve been dreaming of the Olympics ever since I was old enough to eat my Cheerios.  My parents bought their first television so we could watch the 1988 Games in Calgary at home.  It’s hard to believe I’m on the doorstep of my first Olympic competition.  My folks get into Vancouver tomorrow and will make their way up to Whistler for my race on Monday, the 15km Skate.  Stay tuned live on NBC from 3 – 4pm Central Time to watch the competition live.  Check out your local listings here – click TV listings.

I enjoyed dinner tonight with Todd Lodwick, a US Nordic Combined skier in his 5th Olympics.  Todd’s first Olympics was in Lillehammer in 1994 and was an inspiration for me to start ski racing.  Keep an eye out for our Nordic counterparts, Todd, Billy Demong, and Johnny Spillane in the Nordic Combined on Sunday.  I can only hope to be an inspiration for younger skiers like these guys have been for me.

A special shout out to Grace and Mrs. Pomeroy’s entire 1st Grade class in Winona, Minnesota and to Garrett in Mrs. Houston’s class and all of Meadowbrook.  Do what you love and have fun with it!

Sort of.  I actually decided to stay in Whistler tonight in order to give the other athletes a little TV time at the Opening Ceremonies down in Vancouver.  I wouldn’t want to take all the attention away from everyone else!

It’s been another busy day around here with excitement buzzing.  Although it’s still overcast, the sun tried it’s best to come out this morning.  That made for an enjoyable workout.  I spent the morning testing my skis on the classic sprint course with coach Matt Whitcomb.  We tested a couple pairs of my Salomon classic skis and they were some of the best skis I’ve been on, with both plenty of grip and fast glide.  It’s exciting to have that much confidence in my skis and service technicians going into the Games.

Whistler Olympic Park - Cross Country Ski venue

I felt much safer on my bus ride today, being in the good hands of Bob the bus driver–a Packer fan from LaCrosse, Wisconsin.

Now, in honor of the Opening Ceremonies tonight, here are a few shots of the Cross Country team, decked out in our 1930’s Ralph Lauren ceremonies gear.

Southam, Kuzzy, Koos

Usain Bolt? Nope, that's Torin Koos.

US Cross Country Team

Compton and Brooks

Liz Stephen and Kikkan Randall, showing off their Green Laces.  Stay tuned & enjoy the ceremonies!

After taking two days off of skiing for travel and processing, I couldn’t believe how good it felt to simply get outside and go skiing again this morning.  So many things have been packed into the past couple of days that it felt like weeks since I’d been on snow.

Simi Hamilton getting it done

The trails at Whistler were exactly as I remembered them; soggy and variable with plenty of snow.  The only things that have really changed is a bunch of scaffolding for banners and stands, as well as TV cameras lining the trails.  I’m sure they’ll be different with spectators lining the course, but for now, they’re the same old Whistler trails I’ve been skiing on for the past couple of years.  And it feels great to be back!

For as easy as it was to take cool pictures in Canmore, these photos really capture the dreariness of the venue.  If they look a little dark, imagine skiing out there.  As one of the camera men said as it was dumping wet flakes all over the camera he was trying to hook-up, “Hey, it could be worse.  It could be snowing!”  These are the conditions I’ve been expecting since I first skied here two years ago and I’m into it.

Fortunately, there’s not a lot to report today.  A light jog around the village this morning to see it in the daylight for the first time, breakfast in the massive athletes dining hall, the 45 minute bus ride from the Village to the venue.  Security is tight around here and that adds extra time to anything, but they’re obviously taking our safety seriously.  The only thing that was sketchy today is that our bus driver to the venue this morning is from Texas and said he’d never driven in snow before.  Hmmm.

After lunch, our entire team went through blood testing.  Cross Country and Nordic Combined are the only two sports at the Games, that I’m aware of, that are getting blanket blood testing (where the entire field is tested).  It feels great to know that we can show the World what we’re capable of doing as clean athletes.

View from our room

James Southam and I are roommates here in the Village.  We might not have the biggest room in the Village, but we’re definitely the most centrally located, with the Village Square right below us.  Nice to be a 2 minute walk from the dining hall!

I finally had a chance to lay down this afternoon and get a nice nap in, while listening to the rain fall on the roof outside our room.  Nice to finally be settled in and have a day under my belt in the Village, getting back into a little bit of a routine again.  I’m heading out for a quick jog before dinner, then we’ve got more meetings later tonight.

I’ve added a couple of links on the side of this page to make this site a little more of a “one stop shop” for your Olympic news.  Let me know if you’re into it or if you’d rather keep this site simple.

I arrived in Vancouver for the first time this season on November 1, 2009—barely three months ago.  My arrival was completely uneventful and anonymous, getting off the plane, picking up my duffel and ski bag, and walking through customs.  That trip was spontaneous and a big risk, taking my chances that there was going to be enough snow to ski in Silver Star and get a couple of weeks on snow before the start to the racing season.  I exited the Vancouver airport and took the subway, ski bags and all, to the Greyhound station, where I took the 6 hour bus ride from Vancouver to Kelowna, BC.  My teammate Matt Liebsch and I met up in Kelowna and spent the night at the youth hostel in Silver Star, before clipping into our skis for the first time of the year the next morning.

About the only thing similar between my Vancouver arrival last November and my arrival yesterday was the total lack of snow on the ground.  Besides that, the story couldn’t be more different.

The 2010 US Olympic Cross Country team arrived in Vancouver yesterday afternoon, on Tuesday, February 9.  We had a short, direct flight from our pre-Olympic World Cup races and training camp in Canmore, Alberta.  We flew with the Swiss Alpine Team and the Dutch Speed Skaters and received an ovation from the passengers when the pilot announced our presence.  At the gate in Vancouver, we were met by several delegates from the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and didn’t even need to go through customs, as we were on a domestic flight within Canada.  Immediately, we were handed our temporary IDs and got a team photograph with the Air Canada staff.

morgan getting credentialed

The Olympic experience really set in for me when I traded my temporary ID for my Olympic credential: “Athlete.”  Sweet!  At the baggage claim, the only thing I had to do was take my bag off the carrousel before my bag was taken from me, tagged, and send immediately to our hotel.  We sent our skis last weekend directly from Canmore so we would have less gear to travel with in Vancouver.

as matt whitcomb demonstrates: no smile, no teeth for credential photos.

Team USA Cross Country - even Kris is smiling!

We spent our first 24 hours of the Games in Vancouver, getting many of our obligations out of the way.  The first thing we did after arriving in our Vancouver hotel was what many people probably find the most exciting: processing.  Processing was best described to me by one of the volunteers as, “Christmas shopping without a credit card.”

james signing posters

it's official!

Each athlete went through a series of small rooms, getting photos taken and picking out our Team USA gear.  Our Team sponsors this year are Nike and Ralph Lauren.  Sweet!  We each got a clipboard with a  checklist and went around the room getting checked off for each piece of merchandise we were set to receive, including Opening, Closing, and Podium Ceremonies gear.  No sense describing all the swag, you’ll get a chance to see us sporting most of it in upcoming photos!

kikkan shows off her new nike gear

kikkan and liz

After a quick trip to the tailor from Ralph Lauren, where we were shown exactly how to wear our new duds and some team photographs, we got some well needed time to relax.

compton and kuzzy pre-press conference

In the evening, we enjoyed a nice buffet dinner with the women’s Alpine team and Snowboarders, before getting some brief media training and listening to the “Athlete Ambassador” program, presented by Wisconsin’s own, speed skater Bonnie Blair.  The presentation was meant to get us excited about the Olympics and ready to earn some medals—like that wasn’t already the case!  The presentation was pretty cool, especially with the likes of Lindsey Vonn, Julia Mancuso, and Kikkan Randall in the room.  Even though I was exhausted after the long day, it still took a while to fall asleep with all the excitement in the air.

The alarm woke Newell and me up at 7am sharp.  While I was still a bit tired, I was also thankful that I didn’t have to get up at 5am like Kris Freeman to go on the “Today Show” this morning.  Instead, we packed our bags and dropped them off on a truck that brought all our new swag up to the Whistler Athlete Village.  While our bags were making the two hour journey to Whistler, we were making our way across town to the Vancouver Press Center for the Cross Country Team Press Conference.

2010 US Olympic Cross Country Team press conference

The formal Press Conference was a totally new experience for me.  Fortunately, guys like Andy, Kikkan, and Torin are pros at that and had some great things to say about our team.  Afterwards, we broke out individually and were interviewed more personally by the media—especially locals like the Star Tribune and Kare 11.

simi in the vancouver athletes village

The athlete bus runs between Vancouver and Whistler every two hours.  After the press conference, we had some time to kill before the bus ride.  We got to spend the time exploring; actually, we were mostly just eating, in the Vancouver Athlete Village.  The Vancouver Village is pretty cool, located right on the water front and consisting of a number of new high rises.  However, it doesn’t feel much like a Winter Olympic Village, as there’s no snow on the ground and the temperature is at least 45 degrees F and rainy.  I’m psyched to be staying in the Whistler Village (although I haven’t even been there yet!) as it should feel a little more like winter up there!

US HQ in VAV

like a kid in a candy shop

Make your own pizza in the Olympic Village.  Almost as good as the “Kuzzy” at the Ideal Market in Cable, Wisconsin.  For the next two weeks, you can buy my favorite pizza, the Kuzzy: chicken, bbq sauce, cranberries, and apple, at Ideal Market.  $1 of each pizza sold helps support yours truly.  Stop by Birkie weekend and check it out!

Newell, Grover, and Compton. Thirsty?

We’re riding in the bus as I write this update.  We’re about halfway between Squamish and Whistler and there are finally hints of snow on the ground!

enterance, including airport style security, to the vancouver athlete village

Stay tuned for more!

Please remember: all images on garrottkuzzy.com are property of Garrott Kuzzy and cannot be reproduced.

Vancouver!  My bags are packed and I’m ready to fly with the team to Vancouver tomorrow morning.  We’ve got a full day of credentialing, briefing, processing (ie. picking up the new Team USA garb), press conferences, and the like.  Besides that, I really am not sure what the next couple of days will have in store.  All I can say is that I am psyched.

It’s going to be busy, but I’ll try to keep the website posts coming, even if I can’t get to many emails.  There are all kinds of rules about what can and cannot be posted on a personal website (as athletes don’t have media credentials), so you’ll definitely be seeing some changes here on the website and you may not get that inside peek you may have been hoping for.  I’ll know a lot more after tomorrow and will keep you up to date as much as I can.  Stay tuned for an exciting couple of weeks!

Unexpected, unsolicited support of the entire US Cross Country World Cup team (well, the men’s team, anyway), as seen on a store front in downtown Canmore.

Snow and tracks in downtown Canmore.  If you’re into skiing on the street, check out the Madison Winter Festival, February 20-21 around the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin.

We are still in Canada, eh?

phil bowen photograph - teamtoday.org

Finishing strong in Canmore.  We’re kicking back today and tomorrow, then heading to Vancouver on Tuesday.  Even without the races, we’re enjoying some more beautiful days here in Canada.  Looking forward to a little Super Bowl action later this afternoon.  Who Dat?! Saints Dat.

fasterskier.com

Another beautiful day for the Classic Sprint in Canmore.  The day started well with two US women, Kikkan and Holly, as well as five US men, Torin (2), Andy (10), Simi (24), Cook (27), and Kuzz (26) out of a strong field of 70 some.  Kikkan and Torin both ended up in 11th and the rest of us dropped back a bit.  Still, a solid day to have so many qualifiers as we head to Vancouver next week.

Here are a couple of shots from the day:

US Team coach Pat Casey provides an interview for fasterskier.com.  Topher and the Fasterskier crew have been doing a great job covering cross country skiing at all levels this winter.  Be sure to check them out to get your Nordic fix.  The early morning sunlight provided a cool pre-race atmosphere at the venue.

World Cup quality tracks.  This is how good they looked at the end of the day.  Solid.

Behind the perfect conditions all week here in Canmore stand over 450 volunteers.  These guys worked hard over the past two years to make this weekend such a success.  Congrats to Canmore local Sara Renner for her 3rd place finish today!

Men’s A-Final, fighting for 2nd place.  Sweden’s Emil Johnnson was already 10 seconds ahead of the pack and cruised in for his 3rd Canadian World Cup win in three years.  He sure put the hurt on the rest of us.

We’ve got another two days to relax here in Canmore before we head to the big show in Whistler on Tuesday.

Matt Liebsch kicks back in the Hot Seat after posting the fastest time of the day early in the races.  He held onto his seat for at least 10 minutes before the top Red Group skiers started crossing the line.

Congrats Matt on scoring your first World Cup points today!