Not long after Andrew Kastning began his tenure as UAA’s head Nordic
coach back in 2011, he signed his first-ever recruits, and he was pretty excited
about it. He called me one evening in
the spring to announce to me that his first two UAA recruits were going to be
Pati Sprecher from Switzerland and
Marine Dusser from France. I think he’d found them on the result page of
the Engadin Ski Marathon in St. Moritz, where they’d raced against each other
once during the previous winter. But while Pati came to Alaska with
considerable experience racing both classic and skating techniques, Marine had
been spending her time competing for the French national team in biathlon. And as you may already know, biathletes are
too busy messing around with their rifles to waste their time fretting over
kick wax. So while we had some idea that
Marine would be pretty fast in the skating races, the classic skiing situation
remained a bit of a mystery to all of us, including Marine. By and by, Pati and Marine both arrived in
Alaska, they both were successful, and we all had a nice time together.
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| A typical scene in 2013: Marine had a way of getting not just one coach, but TWO coaches to slave over her kickwax while she stood by, giving directions. (Sorry, Marine, but those days are behind you now.) |
I have this little game I like to play when I
first get to know new UAA skiers who didn’t grow up in Alaska. I ask myself
whether our new skier will eventually leave Alaska and move on to some other
place after college, or whether they will get hooked on Alaska for whatever
reason, and end up remaining here to establish a career, a family, etc. I have never told Marine this (so don’t tell
her) but when she arrived in Alaska I didn’t know how long she would stay, but
I suspected it wouldn’t be more than a year or two at the very most. It was a pretty rainy fall that year, and a
cold winter, and Marine had come to us from the southern French Alps where they
get a lot of sunshine…. and somehow, for one reason or another I just got the
impression in those first few months that deep down, Marine would rather have been there
than here.
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| Marine has told me several times that she enjoys very cold weather. But I'm not sure if I've ever really believed her. |
But I also noticed something else about Marine in those
first few months. She had really good body awareness and physical coordination. She was a fantastic skater, but she wasn’t
very confident in her classic skiing.
Nevertheless, she was able to watch and learn from others, and incorporate
what she learned into her own technique very quickly and naturally. One time that first November, during a
practice at the Hillside trails, Andrew told Marine, “We want you to change
your classic technique so that instead of doing it the way you’re doing it, you
do it THIS way. It’s a little complex and difficult, so we can keep working on
it throughout the winter...” Marine gave
it a try, executing exactly what Andrew had explained and asked, “Did I do it right?” After Marine skied off, having
changed her technique significantly in the space of about two minutes, Andrew
looked at me, and paused, and said, “Well... I guess that was easy.” It still makes me laugh every time I think of
that moment and the way he said it.
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|
Our first big race of the year in 2013 was during the first week of
January at the US National Championships in Utah. It was a 30km mass-start classic
race, and there was some uncertainty as to how things would play out since
Marine hadn’t done any classic races yet, and was starting near the back of the
field in around the 68th spot in the starting grid. My assignment was to station myself near
the top of the first major uphill with spare poles in case any of our skiers
broke one in the start, so I was standing beside a short, steep section that
everyone would have to herringbone up due to its steepness. By the time the
field reached me, a little less than a kilometer into the race, Marine had
already moved up to somewhere around 20th, but when the group got to
the little steep bump and everyone broke into herringbone, Marine broke into
what she knew best – skating. I’ve been
around this sport long enough to know trouble when I see it, so I got on the
radio to Andrew and told him he needed to get some place on the course that was
deserted and private – fast – and he needed to convey to Marine in the clearest
terms possible that this is a classic race and you’re not supposed to skate.
When Marine got this information from Andrew, she yelled back, “Oh, I know! The Utah
girls already yelled at me and told me I’m not supposed to do that anymore. So we're all good now!” Marine ended up something like sixth among the college
women. Not a bad classic debut. And in
fact, her first college win came on the same course the following year – in a
classic race!
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| Here's a photo I took of Marine during that US National's race I was discussing above. Any physical evidence of any alleged skating during that race has been destroyed, and all that's left is hearsay and innuendo. |
Marine went on to have a successful college career, getting
a degree, winning some college races, reaching the podium in every single weekend of regular-season college racing she ever did,
getting on the podium in both races at the NCAA Championships in Middlebury,
Vermont, and just barely missing out on being the RMISA “MVP” during her senior
year in 2014.
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| The NCAA podium in 2013. A familiar place for Marine. |
After finishing college, she moved back to France and worked for
Rossignol, where her assignment was to design a line of activewear for the
company. But it seemed every time I turned around, Marine was either in Alaska,
was soon coming to Alaska, or had just left Alaska. She had a boyfriend here,
and the two of them couldn’t bear to be apart from each other for long, so
whenever Erik Bjornsen wasn’t in France visiting Marine, Marine was here
visiting Erik. Last spring, the two got
engaged and they plan to tie the knot next summer in France. In the meantime,
Marine has moved permanently to Anchorage.
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| Marine and Etienne, relaxing with music between races on the road. |
You may (or may not) be wondering why I’m giving you
Marine’s life history here on this blog. It’s because Marine has recently
accepted the position of UAA’s assistant Nordic coach! I know that Andrew is very excited to have
secured Marine for this role, as she will bring some special skills and her own
personality to the team. Marine comes (back) to us with a lot of heart, and a dose
of stubbornness, that is going to add significantly to the coaching team’s
palette here. She is not afraid to express her opinion, and she comes into this
role with a considerable amount of recent high-level racing experience.
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| Marine was none too fond of the drills. Never liked them and never really tried to hide her disdain for them. But she probably didn't know until now that I have photographic proof of her slacking off on "agility day". Little to no effort was made to go around those cones. (You were only cheating yourself, Marine.) |
Marine comes into this coaching job extremely fit, having won some Alaska mountain running races during the past
couple of summers, and her fitness is going to enable her to be that much more
effective as a coach when we’re out on the ski trails. Marine also knows skis.
She demonstrated during her time as a UAA skier that she knows the difference
between fast skis and slow skis, and she understands ski flex and ski
grind. Perhaps that has something to do
with the fact that her dad, Bruno, ranks high with Rossignol, and his name can
even be found on some of the Rossi ski patents. Marine has had no lack of
good-quality skis available to her through her connections at Rossignol, and it
was a rare day when her teammate Lasse wasn’t begging Marine to let him borrow
a pair of her skis for one of his races. (When Lasse went off to compete for
Denmark in the World Championships in Italy in 2013, he boarded the flight with
a bag full of Marine’s skis.) We coaches
always appreciated Marine’s candor when testing skis before races. She didn’t
hesitate to firmly state her opinion about which grind she preferred for the
snow conditions of the day, and she wasn’t afraid to tell us when her skis were
too slow, or really fast. And she knew
the difference. Not everyone does.
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Lasse was a little bit sick for Marine's skis.
The story behind the photo: Marine is flaunting her computerized ski database in Lasse's face at our team house at NCAA's in Middlbury while Lasse lusts hopelessly after her equipment fleet. Lasse's jealousy and anguish in this photo are palpable. |
I was chatting with Marine a few weeks ago in a parking lot
in East Anchorage, and she was gushing about how much she’d been enjoying
coaching Anchorage’s junior biathlon program during this past summer. While she
enjoyed the process of designing a clothing line for Rossignol, she told me
that she found much more joy in helping athletes to accomplish their personal
goals, especially as she was working with young biathletes who had a lot of
unrealized potential. Marine told me she felt like she’d found her calling this
summer when she started coaching, and she’s really fired up to get started at
UAA.
I’m so happy that it turns out I was wrong all those years ago
when I guessed that Marine would leave Alaska not long after her arrival here.
We welcome Marine’s return to UAA in the role of assistant coach. I know that Andrew is excited to work with
her again, no longer in a coach/athlete relationship but now together as
coaches. Marine showed during her skiing career here that she knows how to win
college races, and she won her fair share of them. I hope our Seawolf athletes
will take the opportunity to learn some of her tricks.
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| Marine has this message for the Seawolf Nordic skiers. |
