More Norwegian success for Musgrave and Young
Last weekend (3rd to 5th February '12) Andrew Young and Andrew Musgrave skied in Junior and Senior Norwegian Cup races held at Granaasen, near Trondheim. Both came away having made the Norwegian skiing community sit up and take notice of British skiing yet again.
The first race of the weekend was a freestyle sprint. There were no junior age category races in this event but Andrew Young opted to ski up with the seniors. He just missed out on a place in the knock-out heats when he finished 36th, less than a second behind the last qualifier and also less than a second behind Petter Northug of Norway who finished 31st. Andrew Musgrave went through to the quarter-finals with his 13th place in the prologue, and then qualified for the semi-finals. But he found himself in the fastest heat and failed to go further, finishing in 9th place overall.
Conditions on Saturday for the 15km freestyle timetrial were difficult with soft new snow on the trails and snow falling throughout the day. Perhaps British skiers are used to less than perfect weather and tracks, but both Andrews had great races. First out of the two was Andrew Musgrave in the Senior Men's race. He said that he started steadily but finished strong and at every timing checkpoint he moved up the rankings, finally coming over the line in 3rd place, with Finn Hagen Krogh of the Norwegian national squad in 1st and Anders Soedergren of the Swedish team in 2nd. Andrew Young then started in the 19/20 years Men's race and paced himself so well that he was in around 5th or 6th place at every checkpoint, finishing in 6th. The quality of the field can be seen when it was later announced that 4 of the boys who finished in front of him have been picked for the Norwegian team to go to the World Junior Championships later this month.
Sunday's classic 10 km timetrial was less outstanding for Andrew Musgrave, who was not happy with his 30th place. Andrew Young though had another fine race, finishing in 14th place and with an excellent time in the overall listing (of junior and senior men combined) which earned him his best ever FIS points.
Both the Andrews left immediately after the races to travel south to Oslo from where they flew out next morning to join other members of the GB Team who are racing in two weeks at the World Junior and Under 23 Championships in Turkey. Because the races there will be at very high altitude the team are spending a week at a training camp high in the Italian Alps to get acclimatised to altitude.
