Sometimes the hardest thing for an Olympic hopeful to do is to come to terms with reality.
Former U All-American cross country skier Kristina Joder was ready to do so.
The 23-year-old stuck around Utah to train for the U.S. Olympic trials instead of flying home to her native Landgrove, Vt. to spend Christmas with her family (her family came to Utah instead).
She put in six days a week in practice time, running intervals and upper-intensity sprints two days.
She made the personal sacrifices, but with time running down before the Jan. 21 selections for the U.S. Olympic Team, she knew a spot on the roster was a long shot. The most skiers the U.S. Olympic Committee could take is eight, although they will probably take only five. The select few are chosen based on a point scoring system of Olympic trials races which started Nov. 4, and won’t end until the team’s naming.
“I don’t see my chances as very good, which is hard to say,” Joder said.
That was before Dec. 29, 2001. At the U.S. Ski Team Gold Cup at Soldier Hollow, Joder turned in a time of 29:54.6 to turn in a fourth place finish.
Her big performance at the Gold Cup can be credited to the event being staged at the same course she has skied so many times as a Ute. Joder knows if she does qualify to don the red, white and blue at Soldier Hollow in February, she would carry a tremendous benefit.
“It would definitely be an advantage. I know [the course]. I’ve known it since we had to jump over cattle fences to ski there,” Joder said. “I love skiing at Soldier Hollow. It’s perfect, with nice, hard tracks.”
But even with the superlative effort, Joder unofficially stands at 23rd, according to the U.S. Ski Association Web site. The effort just made the upcoming week more difficult.
To gain ground, she must now keep the same intensity at the U.S. National Cross Country Championships, held in Bozeman, Mont. from Jan. 5 13, to keep a hair of a chance for qualifying to the U.S. Olympic Ski Team.
“If she skis the same at Nationals as she did at the Gold Cup, she has a chance,” said her former coach, the U’s Kevin Sweeney. “She needs two or three more results in the Top 8.”
“She’s skiing fast now, and is in perfect form going into Nationals. I think she has a 65 to 70 percent chance of making the team,” Sweeney said.
Sweeney should know. Although Joder, a fifth year senior majoring in parks recreation and tourism, used up her U ski eligibility with the conclusion of the 2001 season, she said she still trains with the team 90 percent of the time.
Joder came to Sweeney and the nationally renown program after skiing for the U.S. Junior World Team from 1996-98. At the U.S. Junior Olympics, Joder took home the 10K freestyle championship.
Joder chose Utah because of its distinguished past, and also because an older brother had attended the U.
At the U, Joder qualified for the NCAAs every year she competed. As a junior in 2000, Joder skied to All-American status, was named second team all-conference and was Utah’s 2000 Toril Forland Women’s Outstanding Skier Award winner. Joder crossed the finish line in fifth at the NCAA Championships in 2000 and was 10th in the U.S. Cross Country National Championships in the same year.
In her senior year, Joder ended without All-America status, turning in a 25th place in the women’s 5K Classical and an 11th place in the women’s 15K Free Technique.
However, a spot on the Olympic team would be all the vindication Joder needs that she has regained her form. She said a spot on the Olympic roster would be “something that I’ve wanted for a long time. It would be great.”
But she stressed if she won the right to represent her country, it would be important to perform. “Making the team is the goal, but then skiing well at the Olympic Games is really important to me.”
Joder doesn’t expect to claim hardware if she makes the cut, she would just want to finish in the top half of the field.
However, if Joder’s determination and drive doesn’t will her into the Olympic cut, she won’t be bitter.
“If I don’t make the Olympics, I will be watching the Olympics,” she said.
If Joder doesn’t accomplish her dream this time around, she’s won’t give up, at least not yet. Time is on her side.
“I plan on skiing the next four years. I’ll give it another shot if I don’t make it.”
Even if she doesn’t get an Olympic berth, she is the epitome of the Olympic spirit.