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Heading into next winter's Olympics in British Columbia, the U.S. Ski Team sliced its cross-country team nearly 40 percent, dumping Kikkan Randall's favorite training partner.
Laura Valaas of Wenatchee, Wash., who skied at the Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center last season, was one victim of the downsizing that took the combined "A" and "B" teams from 18 to 11 athletes. Randall, the native of Anchorage who was a silver medalist at last year's world championships, headlines the team, which also includes 23-year-old Taz Mannix of Talkeetna, another APU skier. Mannix is more of a distance skier, while Randall and Valaas are strongest at sprints. "I didn't expect to get cut, but I knew they were planning on cutting people," Valaas, 25, told the Wenatchee World newspaper. "(It) doesn't really affect my skiing, just which camps I'll be going to and which coaches I'll be working with. "I'm still training with my same teammates -- Kikkan in particular. Having her to train with is more helpful than any amount of coaching." Last season there were eight women on the B team. Valaas and three others were bounced. Two, including Mannix, remain on the B team. Two others will join Randall on the A team. "Performance-wise, this is going to be more of a motivator and a good thing to get me to take responsibility for my own training and not have so many coaches looking over my shoulder," Valaas told the newspaper. "All you have to do is ski fast. If you ski faster than other people, you're going to be on the (Olympic) team. You just have to prove it in the races." One advantage for Valaas is her familiarity with the trails at Kincaid Park, site of the 2010 national champions that double as the Olympic Trials beginning Jan. 2. The Olympic team will be announced Jan. 19. "There's no doubt she's the second-best sprinter in the U.S.," Randall said Tuesday of her teammate. "We can get together and push each other, and that's the most important thing. Otherwise, it would be hard to judge where each of us are." Last season, Valaas finished second in the 1.3-kilometer classic style sprint at the national championships at Kincaid and fourth in the 5-K classic race. She made the U.S. team that competed at the Nordic World Championships in the Czech Republic, finishing 42nd in the 1.3-K freestyle sprint and 57th in the 10-K classic style race. She's made 11 starts in World Cup races. Mannix, by contrast, had a tough year, with a best of seventh place in two national championship races. She's made three starts in World Cup races. "Being a little younger is to her advantage," Randall said of Mannix. "She's showed some good progress and they've given her one more chance. "But there's increased scrutiny of athletes in their mid-20s, toward the end of their development period," Randall said. "If they haven't made it by then, they look hard at keeping them. "It's a tough call. (Valaas) is great here at APU." Six athletes earned a spot on the A Team and five were named to the B Team. "It's a young team, but it's also an experienced team," U.S. Cross Country Ski Team head coach Pete Vordenberg said in a press release. "A lot of them have already been through the Olympic cycle. We feel like we're on the right path with this group." Almost exactly four years ago -- and nine months before the 2006 Winter Games in Italy -- a similar purge knocked all Alaska skiers, including Randall, off the U.S. team, which was trimmed to just five skiers, all men. Those five were all New Englanders. Luke Bodensteiner, then the U.S. Nordic director, offered some criticism of Alaska at the time. "There's plenty of talent (in Alaska)," he said in 2005, "but they struggle with keeping kids in the sport after high school. Alaskans have short careers. It's always been that way." Bodensteiner didn't foresee the powerhouse the APU program would quickly become under director Erik Flora. Nor the talent of Alaska skiers. Anchorage skiers James Southam and Lars Flora, who were booted off the national team along with Randall, skied with her at the 2006 Olympics in Italy.