With the coming of snow and cold comes the start of the 2024-25 Nordic season. Nordic skiing is a winter sport similar to cross-country running, except on skis and snow. The sport combines endurance with strength, balance, and technique. Additionally, it has two types of events, classic and skate skiing.
Hunter Simon ’26, a captain for the team, said “The season has been going great. We lost some seniors last year but our team is still going strong. We have a great team culture.” Another skier, Sean Bizily ’26 said “We have some really good skiers and hopefully some of the people on our team will make it to State.” A noticeable skier who has made noise is Jack Rudolph ’28, for whom Simon and Otis Friesen ’26 had high praise. Friesen said “He is almost definitely going to make State and he’s probably gonna do pretty well at State this year.” Simon said he is “a very talented skier” and noted that he “trains almost year-round for Nordic skiing.”
With a new season comes new goals, and Frieson talked about the differences the team has made compared to other years. He said, “We have a lot of younger skiers, so we’re…trying to teach them…technique and get our younger skiers to develop.” Simon added, “We want to have more time during practice to improve things like technique and our endurance. We’re doing these by increasing the amount of workouts we have.”
Simon also shared another goal which was building a better connection between the Varsity and JV teams. He said, “We want to keep our team connected because sometimes you sacrifice your team’s connectedness to specialized Varsity and JV, which we’ve had lots of discussions about if we should do that for our team and so far we have.” Connecting the boys and girls team has also been a focus for the team. Simon said “We’re definitely looking to join the girls and boys team because sometimes they can feel a little separate…We’re trying to do that and we also want to make the team fun. There were a lot of fun seniors we had so we don’t want it to feel like the team lost energy.”
Bizily says that before a race, “I usually warm up and I ski one lap of the course. And I also wear some extra clothes because the races are pretty cold. When the race comes down, I try and just focus and make sure I can maintain my form.” Bizily said that “form is a huge part and usually when you start getting tired your form gets much worse and when your form is worse it’s much harder to ski…Keeping a balance between those two things and ensuring that you’re able to keep them both all together.”
Frieson said his personal goal is simply “To make it to State.” Simon wants to “Improve [his] uphill technique” and “want[s] to get an All-Conference honorable mention.”
Frieson said “We have a really fun team atmosphere. It’s not a super intense team…we’re kind of like a chill team; we like to have fun at practice.” For students thinking about joining the Nordic team, Simon said “We have great leaders and the team will help you learn if you’re worried about learning how to do it.”
