By André Santos
As the start of the Visma Ski Classics XII Season approaches, the French Pro Team, its full name Team Nordique Expérience – Coste & Crédit Agricole Franche-Comté, has just put roller-skis on the shelf and is now having its first training camp dedicated to snow training in Tignes where the French squad will also take advantage of the altitude.
The only French Pro team on the Visma Ski Classics tour spent a week in the region of Tignes, in the heart of the French Alps, training above 2000 meters of altitude. Enjoying the first snow of the season, the skiing conditions were good with great tracks and blue skies.
The Pro Team athletes were able to do all the planned sessions where the main objective was training snow-specific technique, mixed with some speed sessions.
“Conditions were great for skiing. We did all that we had planned: skiing on snow during the mornings and running on the mountains or strength training in the afternoons”, says Kati Roivas, the Finnish athlete of the French team, who is looking forward to the start of the long-distance season.
The main goal of the team is to get used to snow again after the summer months where it was only possible to train on roller-skis. After finishing this block of technique training, the team’s athletes will undertake a block of intensity training, just before the start of the season.
The training camp was also helpful to see how the team’s newbies would adapt to snow technique, which according to Kati, has been an easy process.
“They are a great fit to the team; all the athletes feel motivated and are working very hard towards their goals”.
Jennifer Lambert will be participating in her first Visma Ski Classics Season and Matis Leray will now race for the French long-distance squad, after having raced for Team Robinson Trentino.
After the training camp in Tignes, the team will move to Davos where they will do more snow-specific training and ski testing. Finally, they will spend another week doing high altitude training in the French region of Bessans, before going to the season-opening in Orsa.
“We feel ambitious and we’re getting ready for the whole season except for Jizerska 50 because it will happen on the same weekend as Transjurassienne, which is the biggest cross-country ski race in France,” Kati shares her team’s plan for the upcoming winter.
