While the summer temperatures are back in Europe, the Austrian team escaped the heat with a training camp in Oberhof which featured cross-country training in the ski tunnel as well as jumping sessions on the newly overhauled hills in Oberhof. The annual camp has become a tradition for the Austrian team, head coach Christoph Eugen is heading towards the „winter in summer“ almost every year. The ski tunnel offers a total lap length of 1,75 km, a height difference of about 50 metres and constant temperatures of -3 till -5°C.

The camp focussed on the cross-country sector and so it was cross-country coach Jochen Strobl who explained the main focus: „We did the first sessions on cross-country skis this week. Until now, we focussed on technique and basic endurance with the roller-skis to lay a wide foundation. Now it was all about transforming the technique to the snow and follow up with the first fast sessions. You can see first good results but you can also tell that is is still a while until the summer competitions“, he summed up.

As usual, the Austrian team plans on attending the Summer Grand Prix but will take it without special preparation, just out of the training routine.

World Champion Bernhard Gruber was feeling good in Oberhof: „I really like this camp, not only because of the first snow contact. The newly overhauled jumping hills also gave us the chance to have some good jumping sessions. The first sessions on snow were very positive and I was able to already able apply some of Jochen’s technical training advice. The Summer Grand Prix will definitely be a highlight for me but we’re not focussing the training on it. Winter is when it counts.“