Cross Country athletes commence domestic winter training at AIS in Canberra
Published Thu 23 Jun 2022
It was a hive of activity at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) last weekend, with the Cross Country team joining the Emerging Talent Program (ETP) in the nation’s capital.
The three-day Cross Country training camp was designed to benchmark where the athletes are at before the domestic winter season, performing tests such as VO2 max tests, sub-maximal rollerski treadmill tests, rollerskiing and time trials.
The camp was attended by 12 athletes, including Winter Olympians Seve de Campo, Aimee Watson and Hugo Hinckfuss, and was led by NSWACT Cross Country coach Alexei Sotskov.
2014 and 2018 Winter Olympian Watson said it was a great camp to assess the progress she’d made in the off season, before returning to the snow.
“It was good to do all the tests to get a baseline of where our fitness is at this time of the year,” Watson said.
“It’s important for us to know what we’re good at, what we’re bad at, our strengths and our weaknesses.
“It gives us some goals to work towards heading into the Australian season and then onto the European season,” she said.
Having made his Olympic debut in Beijing earlier this year, Hinckfuss said he’s adjusting to the fact that another season is on the horizon, but looking forward to it.
“We’re in this subliminal space where we’ve just finished one season and are preparing for the next one,” Hinckfuss said.
“So we can use this data, year-to-year, to see how our training has been developing us and if we’re getting fitter, stronger, or may have to change our plans,” he said.
Coach Sotskov thanked the AIS for hosting the team over the weekend, noting that the high performance services they are able to provide are second to none.
“The main reason why we did the camp at the AIS is because it’s such a phenomenal facility, for exercise science,” Sotskov said.
“We’re running tests for two reasons - to identify training zones and figure out the potential each athlete has and where they are at now with their training,” he said.