Early mornings, wide and tight curves and a heat wave. The Swedish men's World Cup team completed its camp in Saas Fee, Switzerland, on Tuesday.
"Because of the heat we had to take the first gondola up at 5:15 AM to have enough time to train before it became too warm but no one was complaining. We had a great time," said Anders ”Andy” Andersson.
The camp in Saas Fee was about a week long. Anders Andersson has moved to the men's side after eight years with the ladies and is in charge of the giant slalom training. Mostly this concerns Matts Olsson, who made his breakthrough as giant slalom racer last year but the slalom specialists too are going to be doing more wide curves this year.
"During this camp we divided ourselves up between a slalom slope and a GS slope so that the racers had some variety. André has been training more with us and all the other slalom guys have joined us, too," Andy said.
At this time Sweden has three starting places in giant slalom World Cup. Matts and Markus Larsson have their personal ones and then there is one national quota.
"We are feeling very good. The guys have been training real well and are in good form. No one is stressed out and we have a great spirit in the team. We have not set a special goal on giant slalom before the racing season but are working very hard. Matts is in the first start group and tries to stay there. It is clear that we will try to improve our level," he adds.
The Swedish men's European Cup team is currently training in New Zealand where Tim Lindgren collected two wins and a 2nd place finish in the ANC races.
The World Cup men will be returning to Zermatt (SUI) on 29th August.
