Cross+Country

**__Cross-Country Skiing__**

There are many winter Olympic sports. Can you guess mine? Endurance describes my sport. In order to participate in my sport you need to use two long, flat skis. Finally, you glide across a flat snowy surface. Have you guessed yet? Yes? Did you guess cross-country skiing? If you did you are one hundred percent correct. Let me tell you some more about the sport, cross-country skiing.

Before anything, knowing some history about cross-country skiing might help. Did you know the sport is the oldest type of skiing? It emerged at the end of the 19th century! Also, the word “ski” evolved from the Norwegian word “skid”. That is a split length of wood. Finally, the first cross-country ski race was in 1842. Wow! Cross-country skiing has a really interesting history. Lets hear some more about it.

Downhill skiing requires different equipment than cross-country skiing. In cross-country you use light and narrow skis with long-curved tips. The skis usually measure between 1.95 and 2.10 meters. The poles extend to armpit while standing and baskets at bottom provide a base for a strong push-off. Also, the boots are similar to running shoes, as they are not as rigid and do not have as much ankle support as regular boots. Speaking of boots the bindings only secure the toe of the boot. They are a bit like **__tele__**-skis. On the bottom of the skis there is wax. Depending on the weather you use glide wax (less friction between snow and ski) or kick wax (more friction between snow and ski to keep from slipping).last but not least, comes the suit. It is skin tight so there is no drag and it doesn’t slow the skier down.

There are so many cross-country skiing athletes. One of them is Kikkan Randall. She is known for being the first U.S. female to get a medal at cross-country skiing World Championships, taking silver in a sprint event. Liz Stephen is also a cross-country skier. She was born and lives in East Montpelier, VT. Liz is the second U.S. women cross-country hope with two top twenty finishes!

Have you been watching cross-country skiing in the Olympics? If you have you would know that USA’s Johnny Spillane won a silver medal. He won it Sunday, February 15, 2010. HE almost had a gold, but when Spillane was about to cross the finish line, France’s Jason Lamy Chuppuis zoomed past him. Also that was only USA’s third medal in a Nordic event, so Johnny should be proud. Also, his loss wasn’t that bad; he lost by four-tenths of a second. Wow!

Cross-country skiing is really interesting! Did you know that Anders Haugen got the first medal in the Nordic event for the United States? But that medal wasn’t awarded until 50 years later when a historian discovered an error in the scoring. Another cool fact is that Brian McKeever (Canadian) is that first Olympic athlete to compete in the Paralympics and Olympic games. In fact, he has won four gold medals in the Paralympics, out of seven!

Wow! Isn’t cross-country skiing such an interesting sport! I want to learn so much about it! In fact, I think I will continue educating myself about cross-country. At this rate, I might as well try it! Maybe you should too. Who knows… maybe you’ll be in the Olympics one day!