A trip to Europe with Junior skiers… often these trips were chaotic as the one described below….
FILE: LW-ITALY . RPT
January 22, 1992
MEMO TO: NSTC , Management Group , Sport Science Committee , NST Coaches, Judy Rash
FROM : Lyle Wilson
Trip Report — Juniors Tour Italia
Athletes selected from Silver Star Continental Cups were :
Becky Scott Kirk Howell
Marie—Odi1e Raymond Gerard Frostad
Brook Latimer Mike Kelly
Leanne Luhta Jean—Francois Croufer
ICE coach: Tim Cooke
Leanne Luhta and Brook Latimer declined the trip due to school and personal family reasons.
Trip dates: January 2—13, 1992
All group members met at Pearson Airport in Toronto. Here I learned that Frostad and Kelly had spent the night at the airport as their travel from Whitehorse was January 1st. In future, when our travel agent books tickets, any overnight arrangements should be made or the trip leader notified of the need to make such arrangements. The skiers were told that in the future they should just get a room and they would be reimbursed. Both these skiers caught colds early in the trip and I am sure the loss of a night’s sleep was a contributing factor. J.F. Croufer’s flight from Baggotville was delayed and he just made the connection. We flew Toronto—Amsterdam—Milan and were to land at Linate Airport where a bus and driver were waiting. Due to fog we landed at Malpensa Airport on the other side of Milan. All of my luggage was lost as was Marie—Odile’s ski bag. We filed the claims and caught shuttle buses to Linate, hoping our waiting driver was a patient person. He was! I notified KLM of our baggage problem and gave the forwarding address. Over 700 pieces of luggage were lost during one day of redirected flights.
Upon arrival in Brusson, the Hotel France only had rooms for 5 people, so half of us had to book in for a night at Botel Norde a 10 minute walk down the road. The races were moved to a higher village 10 km up the road (1900 M) due to poor snow conditions and we were not provided with our own transportation. We had to take a public bus that went up at 9:00 a.m. and returned at 12:20 p.m. — not a good plan and to top it off, on the weekend, the driver refused to do the return trip and we all walked the 10 km home after training.
The Hotel France is a DIVE, not recommended for the human race. We were not being fed properly, the rooms were very small (even for Europe) and after three days we were presented with a surcharge on drinks, extra food, even toilet paper. This was taken to our hosts, the race organizing committee, and promptly rectified. The Italian Team stayed at our hotel and they assisted with transportation, ending the bus problem.
The races went well on a very tough course for this altitude and Becky Scott placed 3rd in Senior Women in the 5 km classic, an excellent result, while our boys set the goal of skiing between 86—88% and all but Gerard Frostad, who by now was quite sick with his cold, made this percentage. The percentage calculated reflects approximately a 92—94% race In Canada, so Kirk, Mike and J. F. had very good races. Tim and I produced good skis, considering the fact that ail our waxes, tools, test skis, etc. only arrived the night before the race. One box containing radios, camcorder and all my electronic things did not arrive. Marie—Odile also raced well, placing 15th in the field and over 92%.
Thursday January 9th relays were not well attended due to World Cup in Cogne on the weekend. Becky was second in the opening leg. Marie lost 3 places in the second leg. There was no third skier. The boys had a good race but were outclassed by the senior teams. We did have a good battle with Romania until leg 3 when J.P. used too stiff a ski and could not climb the hills with the Romanian.
On January 10th we travelled by bus to Isolaccia for the Italian Junior Championships 15 km skate and 10 km skate races. We stopped at Malpensa to pick up the box which I had instructed them to hold there for us. It had been sent via Rome to Torino. the airport nearest Brusson. Instructions were left to have the box shipped via courier to the Hotel Augustus in Milan for pick up by us prior to departure.
The race in Isolaccia had over 300 Juniors, all top Italians. Again, the best result was Scott in 4th place and best male, Kirk Howell, in 22nd. The Italians told us their boys are the best in Central Europe and that they have won every international junior race they have gone to this year, so we were racing some of the contenders for medals at the World Juniors , Becky skied[DR1] 94.1% while Kirk skied 92.3%, not bad for a Junior Girl and Boy skiing internationally as a Junior Man and Junior Woman. After the awards ceremony we were piled into private vehicles and driven to the nearest train station where we caught an overcrowded commuter train to Milan. The conductor tried to charge us 8 extra fares for our skis and luggage but I fooled him with the old “empty wallet” trick and a little “no capish Italian”.
At the Hotel Augustus — no box. Couriers do not work weekends in Italy. We now have a box valued at about $8,000 floating around Italy. Arrangements were made for Alessandro Vannoi to pick it up and deliver it to Marty.
The trip home, overnighting in Amsterdam, went as planned until 30 minutes outside of Toronto when we were told by the pilot that Lester B. Pearson airport was closed due to a blizzard. We landed in Chicago and sat on the plane for 3 hours, then got into Toronto in the late evening where we stayed overnight and got various flights home the next day.
Overview :
The Italians did an incredibly BAD job of organizing this tour in comparison to the effort we make when teams come to Canada. Transportation and accommodation were left to each race committee and these arrangements were done very haphazardly. I will never take a team again without our own vehicle transportation. On the bright side, the purpose of this trip was international experience and the skiers had everything possible thrown at them. The information in “Travel Wise” was a huge benefit to them and they coped extremely well with these situations.
On the flight over to Italy all participants completed the “Travel Wise Trip Goals Sheet” and at the final team meeting, goals were discussed and it was felt that, as a unit, we accomplished what we set out to do at the onset of this trip.