Just before Simen Krueger made his bid for victory (Champion thinking 15th Feb) there was another surprising leader of the 30km Skiathlon, Britain’s Andrew Musgrave. This was no early blast to grab 5 minutes of fame on camera but a calculated attempt to win a medal by making a move with less than 15 minutes to the finish. It didn’t quite pay off but a 7th place finish was special. That a skier from a country with no snow should be mixing it with the Norwegians, Canadians and Swiss deep into an Olympic final is worth a closer look.
Four years ago in Sochi Musgrave was back in the pack, several minutes behind the real contenders but his journey to world class had already begun with a brave decision a few years earlier. Realising that if he wanted to compete with the best he had to live like them and learn from them he packed his bags for Norway, learned the language, lived out of a camper van and trained with the best athletes he could find.
I can relate to this as I did something similar in 2003, spending a year in East Africa to learn from the best. For me it was just about self-improvement rather than winning Olympic medals, but it was certainly a life changing experience.
Musgrave’s commitment goes way deeper than my 12 month sabbatical and 6 years later he is still in Norway, winning races there and turning himself into a real contender. On Sunday the results became visible to people outside the small world of cross country skiing. I will be putting some money on a medal in a future World Championships or Beijing 2022