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OLYMPIC
JON ENGEN
Contributing Editor for The Master Skier
Jon Engen grew up in Norway and has lived in the U.S. since 1980. He has extensive competitive skiing experience, including Olympic starts for the US ski team in 1988 and biathlon in 1992 and 1994. He is several times Master's World Champion and still competes internationally. Jon is a Professional Engineer and ski coach.
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The 2002 Winter Olympics have a more significant place on the calendar than my 45th birthday, but they take place about the same time.
As a true fan of the Olympics, I keep tabs on these events and had the opportunity to compete in cross country skiing in the 88 and biathlon in the 92 and 94 Games.
We went there, did that, fun it was, and we took the good memories with us.
During the last couple of years, friends in the sports environment came to life like never before, encouraging me to go for the 2002 Olympic Biathlon Team. The arguments were stronger and more compelling than ever. I wish I had this kind of encouragement during some of my previous sports endeavors. I suppose Santa still visits these individuals.
My last biathlon effort took place eight years ago, and then I was the oldest competitor on the US Olympic Team, regardless of sport.
I have attended a couple of summer or winter biathlon events every year since that time, actually kept some of my touch, and even popped a good result now and then without thinking much about it.
The enjoyment of doing sport has removed me from single-minded training and turned towards challenges in bicycle racing and other escapades.
I was actually never a biathlete, just a cross country skier who liked and knew how to shoot well.
Cross country skiing has always been a passion and I have fun racing marathons across the nation with the Rossignol Ski Team, I have raced in Europe every year and also bagged a few World Masters titles.
As October of 2001 rolled by, it was clear that fellow master skiers Eric Wilbrecht, Scott Creel and Marc Sheppard were heading to the 2002 Olympic trials. Heck, I might as well go.
I pulled out the old shooting equipment and starting playing with it. Next up was to figure out the time and place to practice. Guess what, there were none!
We settled in on selected weekends and paper targets at the Sun Valley Gun Club and West Yellowstone. The training program moved slightly beyond the lunchtime bike ride, but time and place were again limiting factors.
The December Trials came before we knew it. Since October I had shot my rifle eight or ten times, skied in West Yellowstone over Thanksgiving, worked at Big Sky, gone to U S Ski Team Meetings in Colorado, been sick, stared at the snowless ground in Montana and celebrated Christmas in Idaho.
Now we were on the starting line of the Olympic Trials at Utah’s impressive Olympic venue, not exactly off the couch, rather off the seat of my pants.
The average competitor here would be at the pinnacle of his or her athletic career, about 20 years my junior and having worked specifically towards this moment every day for the last decade.
The effort would be supported by the armed forces, other funded development programs and family investments.
Needless to say, only a few people participating in sport qualify for the Olympic Trials, and the nerve wrecking competition is a major event in a young person’s life. So what was I doing here? The answer is quite simple, I was here for sport, just for pure joy of skiing.
We skied, we shot, lap after lap and round after round. I actually felt OK skiing, my form improved over the week of four races and the shooting went up and down. That’s biathlon. I felt good for the most part and ended up in the middle of the pack around 20th place.
The analysis can be made as trivial or complicated as we want to make it.
Simply put, I had not practiced biathlon, the other participants had. I skied segments of the course with the best, but it was hard to keep the pace through the shooting and the whole race.
Without doubt, my skiing compared to these guys will improve as the winter goes on with more opportunities to be on snow.
We also have to realize that masters skiing is recreational sport, the Olympic trails is pro sport, and the gap is not bridged in a few days of impulsive early season training.
Shooting takes practice, that can be done as well, but it isn’t done over night.
The keys are in the combination of fast skiing and precision shooting and on the psychological level. The conditioned athletes in this sport have trained the combination elements for years and they are psyched up to perform right now.
My basic shooting skills are fine, they are with me the same way I’ll always know how to swim or ride a bike. But, it’s hard to be consistent without systematic training.
I used to race biathlon on a volatile load of physical and mental energy. With specific focus enhanced by programmed mental conditioning, I was able to bring out the shooting scores and assemble the combination sport.
That was more important than all the technical skills put together, and I used those skills to gain the upper hand on better trained individuals and teams with much more sophisticated resources.
Could that be done at 45?
The answer is yes. However, who is going to find the motivation and take the risks necessary to be competitive in today’s tight and refined field. As Eric Wilbrecht put it: “I could have taken a year off to train and maybe ended up 10th.”
Let’s face it, the behavior of a decent, normal person who in the athletic environment is considered focused and concentrated is more likely to be labeled as selfish and egotistical in the real world.
In the competitive environment, top athletes use mental management tools and seek shelter from an array of distracting elements.
Back in reality, these distractions are hardly more than basic pieces of having a life, interacting with normal people and participating in society.
It takes a lot of good will and practice in itself to mix the lifestyle of the competitive elite athlete with that of “normal” folks. At a fit 45, mastering that obstacle is the hardest task to visualize.
In the final analysis, I’m convinced a person in the mid-forties could make the Olympic Team, but I cannot imagine what motivational factors would be necessary to actually put oneself through the required steps.
Maybe fame and money would do it, but those things do not exist in our reference frame of this sport.
As food for thought, it should be noted that Alfred Eder, then 42 and a soldier in the Austrian Army, placed 10th in the Lillehammer Olympics. He was recognized for participating in six consecutive Olympic Games.
Hats of to the young talent in the National Team and other organized groups, and broad support to the teams and programs within the armed forces. Their efforts have broadened and elevated the level of biathlon in the US.
Special compliments must go to Minnesota Biathlon, a successful club program fielding a strong amateur team, and putting the talented Dan Campbell on this year’s Olympic Team as they did Andy Erickson four years ago.
The best of luck to all, we will be cheering for you at Soldier Hollow.
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