Fun and the Games

What happens when you take a team of America’s best downhill Alpine skiers and put them through a grueling training regimen on a Southern California beach?

They joke. They laugh. They sprint through the sand and ride the waves, smiling and yukking it up and enjoying every sun-soaked minute of this break from their life on the snow-powdered mountains.

And that’s what this is: a break. Something a little different to try and help the U.S. men’s ski team get focused.

The so-called “dry land” beach exercises are intended to help the skiers forget, if only for one week, the monotony of 10-hour days spent living out of a suitcase, trying to tackle the mountain slopes.

The team is a concoction of wavy hair and muscles, tans and tattoos, snarls and grins, aggressive and laid-back attitudes--and nearly all will represent the U.S. in the 2002 Winter Olympics.

“This is just to get [the team] going in a good direction,” said Bill Egan, who has been head coach of the team for four years and will retire after this summer practice. “We’ve been practicing so much in the snow lately.”

The team arrived in San Clemente after spending one week training at Mt. Hood in Oregon. This week’s practice involved playing touch football, sprinting on the beach, surfing, swimming, and a kayak competition, all in an effort to inject fun into a practice schedule.

Still, the activities on the beach are more rigorous than those on the mountain; they could turn practically anyone’s body to toast.

After Wednesday’s swim-run-swim workout, where team members had to run out into the ocean and then run back up the beach, many were falling over, out of breath, or just simply exhausted. But nearly all of them were enjoying the water and the sand, without question.

“This is a total break from the norm, and it’s tough,” said Tahoe native Daron Rahlves, the world champion in the Super G downhill event.

“We’re not used to this, being in the water. But I’d much rather be doing this during this time of year, though. It’s really fun being down here.”

Rahlves and the team prepare year-round for the Olympics, nearly all of that time in remote areas, where players spend their nights going over tapes and thinking about tomorrow’s run. There is virtually nothing to do otherwise.

“Already down here, I’ve got to hang out with my friends a couple times,” said Rahlves.

“You can’t do that on the mountain.”

Members from the team will compete in five events when the Olympics roll around next year: The downhill (which is the fastest race), the Super G, the slalom, the giant slalom and the combined event.

The beach training increases their agility, helpful when they make sharp turns on a course or bounce over moguls.

There are locks to make it to the Games, such as Rahlves, and then there are up-and-comers, such as the team’s other Tahoe native, Marco Sullivan, who has his sights set on competing in his first Olympics. Sullivan, in his third year on the team, is already a two-time Ski Racing Junior of the Year.

“We’re having some fun, cross-training, getting some sun,” said Sullivan of this week’s practice.

“This is a great team-bonding type deal. This is a good change from being on the snow.”