New Ladies’ Nordic Combined focus group in Norway

The Norwegian Ski Federation has established a special training group for Ladies’ Nordic Combined which is supposed to help prepare athletes for the bigger medal events to come. The group is mainly meant for girls in the junior age category with the opportunity for younger girls to take part in individual camps. It complements the structure of local teams and training centres and the "Team Beijing 2022" program.

Girls are currently present in all three big Norwegian training centres, Granåsen Ski Team in Trondheim, Lillehammer Nordic Combined and Kollenhopp Kombinert in Oslo. They will get to enjoy a mix of additional camps and seminars, dealing with specific discipline training for Ski Jumping and Cross-Country Skiing but also base training and training culture, balance and speed and other topics.

The goals of the new focus group, as listed on skiforbundet.no, are to create a good training atmosphere and to foster the team spirit of the girls also across their local team lines, to secure individually tailored training plans for girls pursuing Nordic Combined and to rise the quality of everyday training. The ultimate goal is to foster the development of high-performance athletes in Ladies’ Nordic Combined.

Responsible for the group are Women's Coordinator Linda Svensrud, who is in charge of the general coordination topics, Øivind Strøm as the national Ladies’ Nordic Combined head coach and Jo Morten Hagen as coach responsible for the planning of trainings and consultation with team coaches.

The schedule for the summer features five different events with a kick-off event during Oslo Skishow on the past weekend, a training camp on the occasion of “Kombinertskolen” in Knyken, Trondheim in August, the KK-samling in Lillehammer in September, a common training session with Team Beijing 2022 in Trondheim in conjunction with the Norges Cup in September and a final camp in Trysil in November.

Girls included in the program are:

Gyda Westvold Hansen

Marte Leinan Lund

Mari Leinan Lund

Mille Moen Flatla

Thea Øihaugen

Mille Marie Hagen

Ida Marie Hagen

Thea Minyan Bjørseth, Oda Leiråmo and Mathilde Oustad took part in the first training camp in addition.