All-American Nordic skier Sylvan Ellefson '09 wears a St. Christopher medal for a bit of good luck to complement a rigorous training regimen.

While Sylvan Ellefson ’09 hasn’t banished sweets or Commons crispitos from his diet, he’s honed an understanding of what his body needs to perform at peak level.

“I was definitely not conscious of eating a balanced diet my first year here,” says Ellefson, a Nordic skier from Vail, Colo., who won All-America honors at last year’s NCAA Skiing Championships. “But in the past two years I’ve really realized what it means.”

Now, he and his teammates consider Bates Dining Services to be part of their team. “Commons does a great job of providing us with the food we need for how we train,” Ellefson says.

For example, when the Nordic team travels during carnival season, their van carries Commons-provided food like granola, breads, fruits, and yogurt. Not for the skiers’ major meals — they get meal money for that — but for quick post-race nutrition. “Your body recovers more quickly if you get food right after a race,” explains Sam Evans-Brown ’09, Ellefson’s teammate.

When it comes to establishing healthy food routines, the teammates support each other, says head coach Becky Flynn Woods ’89. “It’s about getting into the right habit. For example, the skiers racing later in the day will take time in the morning to prepare food, like PB&Js, for everyone to eat right after the races.”

These days, the Nordic team’s training is especially motivated, what with Bates hosting this season’s NCAA Championships, March 11–14. For Ellefson, a Colorado-raised skier not recruited by any Division I schools out West, his competitive cup runneth over. “I’m proud to race as a Bobcat,” he says. “I love it in Maine.”

An alpine enthusiast growing up, Ellefson and his Vail Mountain School soccer buddies took up cross-country skiing to stay in shape during the winter. As a high school sophomore, he won skimeister as the best performer in Nordic and alpine events. By then, he knew his forte was Nordic so he dropped alpine, comparing it to choosing soccer over baseball when, as a little kid, he “couldn’t hit the ball off the tee.” But as a relative latecomer to Nordic skiing, Ellefson came East for college when Division I schools passed him up.

Highly competitive by nature, Ellefson describes his mother, Tashina, as a “tremendous” athlete. His late father, Lyndon, who helped found the sport of skyrunning — high-altitude, long-distance running — died in 1998 when, on a training run near Cervinia, Italy, he fell into a hidden snow crevasse, dropping 75 feet to his death.

Sylvan Ellefson is well-aware of his father’s reputation as a highly motivated competitor who pushed himself hard. “I feel that if I can do something really well, I can carry on his legacy,” he says. “In my case that’s Nordic skiing.” Looking ahead to his post-Bates racing career, he wants to “get to that level,” referencing the accomplishments of Nordic alums like Justin Freeman ’98, a 2006 U.S. Olympian, “and then do better.”

Ellefson’s specialty is freestyle, like skating on skis, and he earned trips to the NCAA Championships in both 2006 and 2007. Last year was a breakthrough season, as he won freestyle races at the season-ending carnivals at Williams and Middlebury, the first-ever wins for a Bates Nordic skier on the Eastern Collegiate Skiing Association circuit. At the 2008 NCAA Championships, Ellefson finished fourth in the 10K freestyle, one of only three Americans, and the only Division III skier, in the top 10.

While Ellefson targets another top-five finish, teammate Evans-Brown, a Spanish major from Gilmanton Iron Works, N.H., is so eager to qualify for his first NCAAs that he spent last summer in Argentina, living with a government official who’s a cross-country enthusiast, so he could train on snow. “I had easy access to skiing and was well-fed,” he says. “Lots of meat, for breakfast, lunch, snacks.”

There, he earned a reputation as “the kid who always eats,” and Evans-Brown estimates that he and Ellefson will take in 6,000 to 9,000 calories a day while training hard. That’s more than triple the typical daily diet of 2,500 calories — if not quite the famous 12,000-a-day regimen of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps.

While the Nordic team tends to frequent Italian restaurants on the road for a good balance between protein and carbs, “what you eat right before a race is not so important, I think,” Evans-Brown says. What’s critical is “fueling yourself well while you’re training.”

At a recent campus meal, Ellefson and Evans-Brown are joined by Nicole Ritchie ’09 of East Dummerston, Vt. Twice an All-American rower as well as a skier, she has begun to avoid processed food. “A friend is doing a thesis that focuses on corn syrup,” she says. “I’ve been reading over her shoulder. The amount of energy going into producing corn syrup is pretty disgusting.”

In the new dining Commons, Ritchie gravitates toward local products: apple cider from Greenwood Orchards, chocolate milk from Oakhurst Dairy, and hamburgers from grass-fed, Cold Spring Ranch beef (see page 16) for her training fuels. She also frequents the vegan bar.

“Making your own food choices takes a lot of different economic and environmental issues into your hands,” says Ritchie. “It’s really cool that Commons supports us in making these decisions.”

By Andy Walter, photograph By Phyllis Graber Jensen

Since his appointment to the team in January, U.S. Olympic cross country skier Freeman has e-mailed a few updates to family and friends, reprinted below in edited form. We will post further updates as available. You can also read about Freeman in this Face at Bates profile.

(In his first Olympic race, on Feb. 17, Freeman finished 53rd out of 97 competitors in the 15 km. classical, at Pragelato, Italy. Upcoming races for the U.S. team are the 4 x 10 km. relay on Feb. 19, the sprint on Feb. 22, and the 50 km. freestyle on Feb. 26.)

Monday, Jan. 23
Grand Rapids, Minn.

I am just getting around to thanking everyone for sending their congratulations and good wishes. And there is no way I can get back to even the fairly small number of fans I seem to have individually, so I just have to shout to all of you at once: Thank you!

On the perhaps egomaniacal assumption that you are interested hearing more than a quick thanks, here goes. I am here for the Nor/Am races that took place this past Saturday and Sunday. They went fairly well; I won the skate race and was fifth in the classic race — I think I missed the wax a bit, and I was still close to the lead. Next I am off to Massachusetts for a couple of job interviews, and then on to Davos, Switzerland, where I will just miss the World Economic Forum but I will get to spend a good week of training before heading to the Olympic village.

Freeman was being modest about his Minnesota performance, a vast improvement over his efforts at the U.S. Cross Country Championships, which he described to Bates Magazine as “pretty horrible…. My confidence is a little shaken.” After he won the 10k freestyle at Mount Itasca, the Web site FasterSkier.com reported that Freeman, “possibly the most controversial pick for the 2006 U.S. Olympic cross-country ski team,…may have silenced some nay-sayers today…. Freeman overcame killer steep climbs, biting cold and a fast, deep men’s field comprised of many of the country’s top professional racers as well as club and college teams from the Midwest and beyond.”

Tuesday, Feb. 7
Torino, Italy

We were up at 6:45 a.m. so we could catch a bus to Torino at 7:30. Once there, we had lunch and then had to be “processed.” This involved getting issued cell phones (with 18 Euros of pre-paid time, rather than unlimited calling as in past Olympics, but I’m trying not to complain), getting a shopping cart full of clothes for opening and closing ceremonies, podium, and just for hanging out in.

There was a room full of seamstresses doing nothing but hemming our pants precisely. We had to get sized for rings and decide whether the gold plate was sufficient or if we wanted to shell out for 18k gold with diamonds and such. We had to review medical history, try on our other clothes and of course wait in line while everyone else did the same things.

They didn’t actually drive us to the press conference but simply drove us to an intersection near the building, then stopped in the middle of traffic so that a dozen and a half confused Nordic skiers could run across the street dodging traffic!

We could still smell the paint drying in the building where they lined us up, loaned us matching jackets, and sent us into a room (first women, then men) to answer questions from the media. I was asked relatively few questions, but my brother [fellow Olympian Kris Freeman, a diabetic who injects insulin daily] kind of held us up. It was now after nine and we still had a two-hour bus ride to Sestriere, where the Olympic Village (one of three) we are staying in is located.

Wednesday, Feb. 8
Sestriere

We took a shuttle from the cross country stadium in Pragelato back up to the Olympic Village at Sestriere. Before entering the drop off/pick up zone, the car had to be searched by security. While we were being searched, a few Russian athletes who had been walking around town tried to walk in. They were told that only people in shuttles could come through on foot. So they knocked on the door, the driver let them in, and security seemed satisfied that no one had passed them on foot.

Thursday, Feb. 9
Pragelato

Three of us raced in a time trial today, and I won handily. So I will almost definitely race in the 15 km. classical on the 17th. If that goes well I will ski the relay as well.

Saturday, Feb. 11
Torino

I just watched the Canadian coverage of the opening ceremonies and saw myself — hopefully I was on TV in the U.S. as well (for whatever reason all I could watch here was Italian or Canadian coverage — go figure).

We watched the start of the ceremonies and much of the athletes’ parade on a big screen in the hockey arena, and then suddenly the organizers were yelling at us to assemble and start heading out. We had to run a couple hundred meters, and then got a chance to catch our breath while the countries ahead of us went in.

The noise (both fans and athletes screaming) was overwhelming as we marched into the stadium. There was a section of bleachers chanting “USA!” and waving flags. And then those of us who wanted to get home at a (semi-)reasonable hour had to step out of the parade and watch the other teams from the sidelines. We just got to see the Italians come in and then we were spirited away back to the buses.

I am a bit tired today and taking it easy, but nine hours of sitting on buses and in bleachers was a small price to pay for the three minutes of marching!

Tuesday, Feb. 14
Sestriere

Once again thank you all for your support, whether this is expressed directly to me, through Heidi [Freeman's wife] or just by reading my ramblings. It means a lot.

The 15 km on Friday goes off at 10 a.m. CET, 4 a.m. EST. I will probably go out around the middle, maybe bib 40 or 50 of 90, which means I will race from say 10:25 till 11).

The course is a pretty good one, two laps of a 7.5-km. loop. The first four kilometers are fairly mellow, a few small climbs but nothing super challenging. Then there is a big climb, a huge downhill and an even bigger climb. I did intervals on this section of course yesterday. I felt good and I think I know how to ski it. Then the loop goes down another big hill and has a deceptively long gradual climb into the stadium.

The weather has been perfect: cold at night, but so sunny I had to buy sunscreen to keep my face from burning. It looks like it will warm up even more, and there is a chance of rain or snow, which could damage the course a bit. I’m not too worried about that, though — our wax techs should be able to handle any weather that gets thrown at them.

Freeman is the second Bates alum to earn a place on a Winter Olympics team, the first being Nordic skier Nancy Ingersoll Fiddler ’78, who competed at the 1988 and 1992 games. (In Summer Olympics, rower Mike Ferry ’97 competed in the double sculls at the 2000 Olympics, and runner Arnold Adams ’33 was a member of the U.S. team at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics but did not compete due to a foot injury.)

The full Nordic team comprises 10 men and seven women. Five of the men, including Kris Freeman, and three of the women competed at the 2002 Olympics.

Freeman becomes the second Bates alum to earn a place on a Winter Olympics team, the first being Nordic skier Nancy Ingersoll Fiddler ’78, who competed at the 1988 and 1992 games. (In Summer Olympics, rower Mike Ferry ’97 competed in the double sculls at the 2000 Olympics, and runner Arnold Adams ’33 was a member of the U.S. team at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics but did not compete due to a foot injury.)

Freeman has competed in the upper echelons of U.S. skiing since leaving a doctoral physics program at the University of Colorado in 2000. As he noted in a class note in Bates Magazine that year, describing a new life of training, chasing snow and competing, “I can’t say I would trade this life for any other.”

In 1998, Freeman’s combination of academic and athletic mettle was described in Bates Magazine by Marc Glass ’88. An excerpt:

“Calling Freeman ‘self-motivated’ seems too soft,” said Associate Professor of Mathematics John Rhodes, who, along with Professor of Physics Mark Semon, was Freeman’s honors thesis advisor in 1997-98. For example, Freeman wanted to take Rhodes’ upper-level Complex Analysis course, but couldn’t attend the afternoon class because it conflicted with ski practice. So Freeman asked, and received, permission to take the course as an independent study…. Though he rarely appeared in class and received no instruction from Rhodes during office hours, Freeman earned an A. He apparently taught himself the complex math solely by poring over his textbook. “Presumably that’s true,” Rhodes laughed, “although I think he borrowed the book from someone else.”

While Freeman, ranked 10th in the latest U.S. Ski Association point standings made the team, his Bates classmate David Chamberlain ’98, ranked 13th, did not make it off the bubble despite a strong performance at last week’s U.S. Cross Country Championships.

Chamberlain posted a fourth, fifth and two sixths in his races. He had passed up December races and potential points in order to peak at nationals in January and, he hoped, at the Olympics in February, according to a profile in the Portland Press Herald. His being left off the team was a topic on the skiing Web site TeamToday.org. As one poster noted: “David Chamberlain…you did it right. You did what you should have done, trained smart and went fast when it counted.”

The 2006 U.S. Olympic men’s cross country team, ages, hometowns, and previous Olympic experience:

Chris Cook, 25, Rhinelander, Wis.
Justin Freeman, 29, Andover, N.H.
Kris Freeman, 25, Andover, N.H. (2002)
Lars Flora, 28, Anchorage, Alaska (2002)
Andrew Johnson, 28, Greensboro, Vt. (2002)
Torin Koos, 25, Leavenworth, Wash. (2002)
Andy Newell, 22, Shaftsbury, Vt.
James Southam, 27, Anchorage, Alaska
Carl Swenson, 35, Park City, Utah (1994, 2002)
Leif Zimmermann, 22, Bozeman, Mont.

(For race results from the World Championships, go to the U.S. Ski Team site and scoll down to “Cross Country.”)

Classmates Justin Freeman ’98 and Dave Chamberlain ’98 are members of the U.S. cross country team competing in the World Championships Feb. 18-March 1 at Val di Fiemme, Italy. Freeman and Chamberlain join Nancy Ingersoll Fiddler ’78 as the only Bates alumni to represent the United States at a Winter Olympics or World Championships.

“This is incredible for our program and for collegiate skiing,” said Nordic ski coach Becky Woods. “Justin and Dave were standout student-athletes here at Bates. They are humble, down to earth and set great examples.”

The World Championships team, in many respects a precursor to the Olympic team, comprises eight men and five women and all but three have international competition experience. Chamberlain, a Rumford native, competed in the 2001 World Championships while Andover, N.H., native Freeman will be making his first appearance for Team USA, He joins his brother, Kris, who competed in the 2002 Olympics and the 2001 World Championships.

Although being named to the World Championship team does not guarantee selection to the 2006 Olympic team, there is a high probability of seeing Freeman and Chamberlain in Turin, Italy, in three years, Woods says.

“We are so proud to be represented on the World Championships team by Justin and Dave,” said Director of Athletics Suzanne Coffey. “These two men are shining examples of what can be achieved when you combine the rewards of a Bates education with the hard work and dedication it takes to be a world-class competitor.”

At Bates, Freeman, an honors major in mathematics and physics, and Chamberlain, a mathematics major, earned NCAA All-America honors and participated in NCAA national championships. “It was at Bates where Justin and Dave got to compete and succeed against other colleges that have predominantly foreign rosters,” said Woods. “That gave them the realization that they could take it to the next level.”