THERES A $25K MATCH FOR EVERYTHING WE RAISED THROUGH CHRISTMAS!
DEC 21 UPDATE- ANOTHER $5,200 TOWARD THE $25K XMAS MATCH BRINGING THE TOTAL TO $8,537 ($17,074 w/ matching)
LOOK, WE STILL HAVE $16,463 of MATCH REMAINING WITH ONLY 4 DAYS LEFT TO CLEAR IT!
OVERALL WE HAVE RAISED OVER $55,000!
MAKE A DONATION TODAY- CLICK HERE!
Summer of ’96- Mix 10 young athletes with 6 weeks bonding, learning, and working their butts off and VOILA- success on the world stage!
KRIS FREEMAN
4 X US Olympic Team in XC
Andover Outing Club
I grew up in Andover, NH as a Nordic combined skier. In the summer of 1996, I was invited to train at what we all referred to as “The Six Week Camp” at the Olympic Training Center, In Lake Placid NY, with all the best junior nordic combiners and ski jumpers in the country. At the time, six weeks seemed like a very long commitment, but in comparison to the 17000+ hours of training I have logged in my career it was hardly a test of dedication. However the camp was a defining time in my life, where I not only became certain I wanted to be an Olympic skier, I began to truly believe that I could.
I believe the camp was a model of how ski development should be done. The 10 strongest U16 skiers in the country were brought together at no financial cost to learn to train like professional athletes. A Norwegian named Bard Elden was brought over to coach the camp for nordic combined. Bard was the perfect coach at the perfect time. He was as passionate about the sport as he was about seeing the talented group reach its potential. He brought the discipline 16 years old’s needed to every training session without being overbearing, and always gave the impression that he really cared about us not just as athletes but as people.
My progress as a jumper spoke volumes to how effective the camp was. My personal best jump was a paltry 50 meters going into the camp and 91 meters six weeks later. I was exposed to the latest skate techniques from the World Cup, and I learned to bring vastly more efficiency and power to my cross country skiing. My improvement was not an anomaly as the entire group saw rapid improvement by working out with one another. The friendly yet competitive nature of the camp taught us the value of training as a team and gave us all a glimpse of what would we could attain together.
Over 20 years later, the members of that camp have earned the following results to the best of my knowledge.
1 Olympic individual Gold medal
2 Olympic individual Silver medals
1 Olympic team Silver medal
3 World Championship Individual Golds
1 World Championship Individual Bronze
1 World Junior Championship team Gold
1 World Junior Championship team Silver
And an Under-23 World Championship cross-country ski Gold (my talent was on the xc side of the sport)
Kris Freeman started as a Nordic combined skier and wound up making a name for himself as a XC skier.
