Book Review -
Endless Winter (L. Bodensteiner)
Date first posted on eCommunity - 5
January 2010
Endless Winter - an Olympian's Journal
By Luke Bodensteiner
Alta Press, Wisconsin 1994
ISBN 0-9643927-0-4
(Out of print but obtainable from some of Amazon's marketplace sellers.)
Endless Winter tells the story of an American cross-country skier's
preparation
for the 1994 Winter Olympics, which were held in Lillehammer, Norway. It
spans
the period from May 1993 to February 1994 and presents "A glimpse of
[the
author's] actions, thoughts, hopes, fears, successes and failures
throughout the
season".
The story opens: "This is it. Training begins today for the 1994 skiing
season."
At this time Bodensteiner is a final-year English student at the
University of
Utah in Salt Lake City. He had participated in the 1992 Olympics at
Albertville
where he had come 27th in his event. At Lillehammer he wants to do
better and he
dedicates the year towards that goal, living the life of a full-time ski
racer.
In May he is training for 60 hours a month - mostly off-snow activities
like
running, roller-skiing and kayaking; but there is some spring skiing
near Salt
Lake and in Oregon. At about this time he leaves his student
accommodation and
effectively becomes homeless for the rest of the year. Dryland training
in Utah
gives way to summer skiing in Norway's Sognefjell, where he covers about
80km
each day. The Norway trip culminates in a preview visit to Lillehammer,
where
the team goes up to Sjusjoen to check out the Olympic tracks.
Next comes a training camp in Michigan, then another spell in Utah.
Then, in
mid-October, he is off to Alaska for a month's training on snow. After
that the
racing season opens in the Alps and brings a rush of visits - to
Austria's
Tauplitz Alm, to Santa Caterina in Italy, to Davos in Switzerland and to
Dobbiaco in the Dolomites.
On 1 January he flies again to Alaska, to take part in races that will
determine
team selection. Victory in two races assures his place in the Olympic
team. By
now the countdown to the Games is well under way and he is soon on his
way to
Lillehammer for his big moment.
- And no, I'm not going to spoil the ending for you.
Endless Winter is a good story. It's well-enough told, and it is laced
with
interesting snippets of skiing lore, with gossipy suggestions of
intrigue and
infighting (and worse) in the racing establishment, and with
delightfully barbed
attacks on sports journalists, who are described variously as obnoxious,
drunken
and moronic.
The book was part of my holiday reading last week at Dalseter, a place
not so
far from Lillehammer. Temperatures were low for us - we skied on green
wax every
day bar one, when we used polar. The cold conditions brought clear skies
that
allowed us to stay out till four in the afternoon, which is not bad for
late-December. But that still left plenty of après-ski hours for curling
up with
a book.
Endless Winter's diary format is just right for the casual kind of
reading that
you do on a ski holiday - when you are weary after the day's exertions
and a
more serious book would tip you over into sleep. And it seemed just
right to be
reading it at this time - when young ski racers round the world are
getting
ready for their own Olympic moments in Vancouver just a few weeks from
now.
Sometimes Luke Bodensteiner is a little excitable as a writer and he
can't
always hold back from lofty observations like "In America there exists a
strange
dichotomy within the masses of people who work in and inhabit
metropolitan
areas".
But on the other hand he is capable of some truly stirring stuff.
Consider this
passage in praise of cross-country skiing:
"I love snow. I love mountain air and I love standing atop the world. I
love
being able to go pretty much anywhere I want to, using only my own
powers. I
love getting to places where other people don't venture. I love
mountains and I
love using my muscles. I love hanging myself out on the line and losing
control
so I can reel myself back in and know that I can CONTROL control. I love
being a
skier. I love being a skier who can go up and down and all-around - a
skier who
can ski it all."
That paragraph on its own justifies the ₤15 I paid for the book. And it
came
into my head a lot during the Dalseter week - on the long route back
from Fefor
where we had looked at photos of the snow-tractors that RF Scott took
with him
to the Antarctic; on the high circuit of Sprenpiggen, a route so good we
did it
twice; on the shady trails west of Espedalsvatn where the trees were
draped with
snow, and elk had stomped their hoof-prints into our nicely machined
loipe.
We spent just a week on skis, not a year. But like Bodensteiner we went
up and
down and all-around, going pretty much anywhere we wanted to and using
only our
own powers. And we loved it.
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