Ski Team Summer Recap
The summer has suddenly disappeared and we are edging closer towards the season. So much has happened during the summer with the team that it has been some time since the last blog post.
This means that this will be a long one and we will try to capture all the amazing, important moments that happened during June, July and August. Let’s start from the beginning!
As many of you may know, the team has expanded and we now have three different nationalities on the roster. We have three new awesome skiers from Sweden – Gustav, Gabriel and Sofia, and two amazing teammates from Finland – Terhi and Veli-Matti! This means that the team is quite big now and we will have two main focuses during the upcoming season. There will be one team fighting for the best results inVisma Ski Classicsand another one inEstoloppet(a local marathon race series in Estonia). The goal of the team is to offer a great outlook to everyone that wants to be involved. We want to help local talents and give them a dream to work for!
In the beginning of summer our team director, Mart Kevin, had the chance to go and talk on one of the most popular Estonian podcasts about the team and what we are doing. For those, who understand Estonian, this is the perfect opportunity to learn everything about the team!
Quite soon after that, Mart and Ergo went and did something really, really peculiar! During the WRC Rally Estonia they took part in a project that introduced Estonia as a skiing destination to the whole word. The theme of the project was new school vs old school. Mart as the winner of Tartu Maraton played the role of “the new era of skiing” and Jüri Muttika, an reporter for Ringvaade, played the part of “vintage skiing”. The weather outside was +30, but they were skiing on real snow – crazy right!?
During the summer we have taken part in quite many races, some of us more than others. Merilin has been challenging herself with triathlons, where she has taken home several podium places as well as some tough, tough adventure and military races. She has been holding the Team Nordic Jobs Worldwide flag high during a lot of weekends here in Estonia. Gabriel “Gabbe” has done some Visma Challenger races and together with Gustav they took part in the Swedish National Champs in rollerskiing. Awesome 2nd place for Gabbe in the 20K freestyle! Sofia did a crazy mountain bike race that lasted for 14 hours. The highlight for Taavi, Piret, Henri and Mart was definitely Ironman Tallinn! A weekend of crazy winds and heavy rains, but our athletes performed super well. Piret, Henri and Mart took home the win in Ironman Mixed Relay and Taavi pulled off an amazing performance in Ironman 70.3! You can take a look at the recap of the Ironman Tallinn –here!
Of course the main subject of every skiers summer is training and we have done that a lot. Each of us has a specific goal for the winter and a lot of focus has gone into making these dreams a reality. There have been two training camps for the team. The first one in June, to kick off the training season and one now in the end of August to bring the summer together.
The summer was capped off August with a training camp inTorsby, where most of the international group of the team got to together for the first time. A lot of tough training sessions, which are always the best to do together. For example we took on a famous climb with rollerskis – Tossebergklätten, which has sections with 20% ascent, averaging at 12%. At the end of the sixth interval you could see, how it had taken a lot from the athletes to complete the sessions.
Torsby is also famous for it’s ski tunnel and of course it had to be used. Two quality skiing days with more than 150 kilometres of skiing brought back the winter feeling for everyone and reminded that it is getting quite close now to the start of the season.
After an challenging training period the team headed to Trollhättan for Trollhättan Action Week. Maybe not the smartest idea looking at the freshness during the races, but all of this helps us in the future. There were three races on the plan and we had athletes racing in all of them. 15K individual, skate sprint and Alliansloppet – 48K marathon race.
The results were consistent and showed that we were not really preparing specifically for the races, but everyone performed well! At least now we saw, where we might stand in the world and know, what needs to be improved in the fall to be 100% ready for the winter!
This was the quick recap of our summer activities, but if you want to see more of what we have been up to – go check out our Instagram account –teamnordicjobsworldwide!
Take care and stay active!