Possibly the World’s Best Ski Club

Lucas Braathen and Alte Lie McGrath, Beaver Creek super-G: Photo Credit GEPA

How does Norway develop so many top racers? The philosophy and sports plan of a successful ski club near Oslo, Norway, might provide some answers. Lucas Braathen, Atle Lie McGrath, Kajsa Vickhoff Lie, Mina Fürst Holtmann and other top racers hail from there. Join Ski Racing in a look at Bærums Skiklub in part two of a series that focuses on the Norwegian development system.

Part 1 – The Norwegian Development System

Part 2 – Possibly the World’s Best Ski Club

Part 3 – Norwegian World Cup Racers Share Ski Club Experiences

Five key areas

“We are probably the world’s best ski club,” claims Dag Rune Langehaug. A former Norwegian national team member in the mid-1980s, Langehaug is the current chairman of the executive board for Bærums Skiklub (BSK). The club, founded in 1885 and now organized in six sport-specific groups, holds enduring snow sport traditions in alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, biathlon and – more recently – snowboarding and freeski.

Langehaug highlights five core areas as the basis for BSK Alpine Skiing’s success:

• All skiers are welcome, with a mutual focus on “one club, one team, one coach, one program.”
• Consistency and structure in the program through a set sports plan.
• The mantra “trust the process” focuses on long-term development, not results.
• An environment that attracts good coaches and helps the coaches to develop.
• Kirkerudbakken ski area, owned by the ski club.

The BSK philosophy, focus areas and sports plan will be explained more in-depth throughout this article.

Alpine skiing managers

In 2011, former U.S. Ski Team member and experienced coach Felix McGrath became the general manager for Bærums Skiklub’s Alpine Skiing group after having coached for the club since 2007. As general manager, McGrath developed a solid sports plan which still creates the framework for BSK Alpine Skiing today.

Before McGrath, Claus Ryste, the current alpine director for the Norwegian Alpine Team, led the BSK Alpine Skiing program. As the first full-time general manager for BSK Alpine Skiing, Ryste increased the amount of training facilitated by the club.

Today, the current general manager for BSK Alpine Skiing is Martin Budal, a former European Cup racer. Like his predecessors, his racing and coaching experience gives him insight into the sport and the needs of young skiers and ski racers.

In Norway, ski clubs usually offer training programs for age groups U8-U16, sometimes also for older skiers. After U16 ski racers are old enough to enter ski academies (high school), according to the Norwegian school system. Ski academies are typically attended for three school years, sometimes four.

BSK Alpine Skiing has 200 members ages U8-U16. The membership number has been fairly stable for the past 20 years, with a slight increase during the past two years. Today, there are 19 FIS racers in the club, according to Langehaug.

Neighborhood nest

BSK owns its home ski area, Kirkerudbakken, uniquely placed in a suburban, densely populated area. Kirkerudbakken lies 18 kilometers from downtown Oslo, Norway’s capital. Smaller ski areas are common in and around Oslo and are the home training hills for various ski clubs. Many top racers, including most alpine skiers on the 2022-23 national team, hail from these small ski areas in Oslo and adjacent regions.

In the past, Kirkerudbakken was surrounded by farms, but the sloping fields gave way to more homes. Now, the ski area is their nearby playground. A busy road passes right outside the fence at the base. Just above the ski lifts, the hillside flattens into farm fields that remain untouched between suburban homes. Further onto this plateau, the medieval Tanum church, built in 1100-1130 and still in daily use, makes the 138-year-old ski club seem like a recent addition.

For decades, kindergarteners and school children have come to Kirkerudbakken during their free time to play on skis and boards, hang out, socialize, learn, practice and race. The ski area isn’t big, but it works magic. Two main runs head straight down the hillside, with a T-bar and a Poma lift in the middle. Minor extensions of skiable areas, a shorter Poma lift and a magic carpet lift have been added in recent years, squeezed in despite limited space. But it works.

Hundreds of young children attend BSK’s ski school here every winter, and many continue training with the ski club for years. The whole setting is like a nest bustling with enthusiastic activity every afternoon, under the floodlights at night, and all day on weekends and during school vacations. It is a cradle for friendships and life-long love for skiing, like how friendships and enthusiasm for skiing are nurtured in many ski areas worldwide.

Successful legacy

Why is Ski Racing interested in the activities of this specific ski club?

Bærums Skiklub maintains a legacy of producing many of Norway’s and the world’s top ski racers. Currently, BSK is a major force on the Norwegian Alpine Team as BSK skiers fill six of the 31 spots on the 2022-23 Norwegian Alpine Team, more than any other Norwegian club. Last season, BSK filled six of 29 national team spots.

The five World Cup racers from BSK – Mina Fürst Holtmann, Kajsa Vickhoff Lie, Lucas Braathen, Atle Lie McGrath, and Rasmus Windingstad – represented Norway during the 2023 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships (WSC) in Courchevel and Méribel, France, Feb. 6-19. They also set their marks on the 2023 World Cup season. This winter’s top-10 WSC results and World Cup highlights:

• Kajsa Vickhoff Lie: WSC bronze medal in women’s super-G, two World Cup podiums including the first-ever downhill World Cup victory for a Norwegian woman.
• Mina Fürst Holtmann: WSC 4^th place in women’s slalom and 6^th place in women’s giant slalom.
• Rasmus Windingstad: WSC 5^th place in men’s parallel, silver medal in the team parallel, and two World Cup podiums.
• Atle Lie McGrath: One World Cup podium, and WSC 5^th place in men’s combined, before sustaining a knee injury.
• Lucas Braathen: Winner of the World Cup slalom globe, seven World Cup podiums including three victories, and WSC 7^th place in men’s slalom only 19 days after undergoing surgery.

Norwegian Alpine Team member and BSK racer Halvor Hilde Gunleiksrud won the 2023 European Cup slalom title.

In 2022, four BSK alpine skiers and 11 BSK athletes total participated in the Olympic Games. BSK brought home two Olympic gold medals, one silver and two bronze.

There are three BSK Olympic champion alpine skiers from past Games: Finn Christian Jagge (1992, slalom); Hans Petter Buraas (1998, slalom); and Lasse Kjus (1994, combined). Kjus is also a three-time world champion. He has won a total of 16 Olympic and World Championships medals, five in Vail in 1999.

BSK’s Inger Bjørnbakken became Norway’s first female world champion in skiing (1958, slalom). The 1972 World Championships combined bronze medalist, BSK’s Toril Førland, became one of the dominant women on the World Pro Tour in the USA in the late 1970s-1980s with five overall titles.

The ski club’s impact on international skiing can be traced back to the club’s early years and BSK ski jumper Karl Hovelsen, known as Carl Howelsen when he lived in the USA from 1905-1922. Viewed as a skiing pioneer in the USA, Howelsen was inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 1969.

The list of significant BSK accomplishments is longer and includes BSK Olympic and World Championship medalists in the other winter sports where BSK is represented.

With BSK alpine skiers dominating the recent season’s top-level competitions, it is interesting to look at what the BSK Alpine Skiing program has been up to for the past 20-25 years.

20-25 years ago: More skiing days

Ryste, the current alpine director for the Norwegian Alpine Team, started coaching for BSK in 1996. A few years later, Ryste became the first general manager for BSK Alpine Skiing. It gradually grew into a full-time position.

As general manager, he added more ski camps to increase the number of on-snow training days. He also focused on creating an atmosphere and setup that helped the young skiers feel secure and comfortable traveling without their parents, making the camps more accessible even if parents are unable to travel with their kids. Ryste added several ski camps, including an annual winter-season speed camp and an off-season camp for training basic technique.

Simply put, the main focus of Ryste’s strategy was training. He ensured the club facilitated a lot of training, both dryland and skiing.

Many skiers engaged in the training. The ski club traveled to some of its camps as one group. Ryste shares memories of training camps at Juvass (Galdhøpiggen Sommerskisenter) in western Norway, where BSK traveled with 100 athletes. It was very enjoyable but involved a lot of logistics, Ryste tells Ski Racing, and adds: “It became enormous, and a lot of good skiers came out of it.”

20 years ago: BSK’s ski academy

As a next step in creating opportunities for long-term, quality training, BSK and Ryste started a ski academy in cooperation with an already existing public high school near the Kirkerudbakken ski area. BSK owns the Dønski Alpin ski academy.

The Dønski Alpin ski academy is open for student-athletes from all ski clubs, not only BSK. Many top World Cup racers from Norway have studied and trained here, including Aleksander Aamodt Kilde (Lommedalens IL) and Henrik Kristoffersen (Rælingen Skiklubb).

Today, there is also a training partnership between Dønski Alpin/BSK and U.S. based Burke Mountain Academy’s post-graduate E-team program.

The BSK general manager holds organizational responsibilities at Dønski Alpin and is part of the group that evaluates which racers are offered a spot at the academy.

“To get a ski academy in the local environment and keep the athletes there created the next push. It created momentum in the ski club,” Ryste says. The ski academy is located only a 5-minute drive away from BSK’s home hill Kirkerudbakken. He believes the critical factors to BSK’s success are the culture, the enthusiasm, the home training arena, and the facilitation of enough training.

10-12 years ago: A plan for systematic skill building

After Ryste, Felix McGrath became the BSK Alpine Skiing general manager from 2011 until starting work for Burke Mountain Academy in 2019. He knew BSK from the inside after having coached there since 2007. Soon, McGrath began developing a sports plan which is still in use today.

McGrath explains to Ski Racing how he and the club’s U16 coach back then, Øystein Bakken, asked themselves: “How would you develop a skier from age 10 to 20?” They both brought in personal experiences and perspectives as racers and coaches, but from different generations with Bakken being about 20 years younger than McGrath.

“The main point behind it was, how do you develop a good skier?” McGrath says. “It wasn’t about how to develop an Olympic champion, because at BSK you have all different levels of skiing and commitment levels.”

McGrath and Bakken also thought: “What experiences from your own career would you maybe do differently?”

“Then we tried simplifying it based on what kind of skills are needed to be a good skier. And how much do you need to become as good as you can be? It was very systematic in terms of ‘don’t overdo it when you are 12’. Add a little bit more skill-building each year. It was about building a good skier and not being result-oriented,” McGrath says.

“We were already doing a fair amount of what ended up in the sports plan. It just wasn’t written down. Having the sports plan made it much easier when we had parent meetings. It really helped with the communication as to why we were doing what we were doing. You could say, this is what we are doing at age 12, what we are doing at age 14, and what we are doing at age 16. Here is why we’re doing it.”

How to use a skier’s time

“We had the plan, which was all fun and games to write and put on paper, but then you’ve got to execute it. And it’s not as easy to execute it as it is to write it down,” the former U.S. World Cup racer laughs.

“That’s where BSK comes into play as a (whole) club, not just on the alpine side. It has a good environment. With that environment and the possibilities with lights and skiing after school, how do you put a value on the time they’re skiing? And how do you use it? How do you keep them engaged so that you don’t overdo it when they’re too young so that they burn out by the time they’re 15?” he continues.

The sports plan helps coaches focus on how the young skiers spend the time they have available for training and how much they should train at various ages. The skiers themselves must want to show up on the hill committed and excited to go skiing. Creating the BSK sports plan “was like trying to find a middle area between making sure that they were good skiers and that they wanted to do it.

“We were very specific on how we ran the training and how we made the mixture of slalom and giant slalom and speed training. Becoming a good, adaptable skier so you could ski everything – that was the message. When it was a rainy day and it was really difficult, that was the message to the skiers and the parents. Like, ‘Hey, you want to be a good skier? Then you’ve got to be good at this.’ So, we did it, and it worked. Not perfectly, not exemplary by any means. But we stuck to the plan,” McGrath says.

Unique energy

Everyone Ski Racing has talked to in connection with this article series highlights the atmosphere they experienced in BSK and the Kirkerudbakken ski area. They describe a setting where everyone is included, no matter their ski racing goals (or lack of goals). The kids have fun together. The skiers, parents, and coaches are enthusiastic about the sport and the club. There is unique energy during training and on the hill in general, plus an inspirational tradition and culture in the club for creating good ski racers.

When asked about the biggest reason for BSK’s success as a ski club, McGrath says: “There are a lot of reasons, obviously, but I’ve got to say the biggest reason is just the commitment of the people.  It’s BSK and Kirkerud. It’s just something about the place that brings people there and they want to ski. They want to be out on the hill, and they’re engaged. If they’re having a good time, then they’re going to come back and be on point.

“I think that’s just the impact of the club. The way I could simplify it is that the mid-level skier in a ski group being super committed will help the lower-level skier be more committed and will also push the upper-level skier to continue to be committed and work hard. So having engaged, committed families and skiers – it’s just so powerful. I think we had that, in many of those groups, where people just wanted to come out to Kirkerud and go and work and have fun,” McGrath says.

Parents’ involvement

The engagement among parents went beyond the local hill, McGrath says about his days there. “All parents in U12 and U14 always came to the camps; they were a big part of the daily thing. And it was necessary because we might have 30 kids and two coaches and then you need two or three parents to help you execute the training. They were great, and the environment was positive.

“Some kids are better than others, but it almost didn’t matter. As long as a skier was engaged, it really didn’t matter what level they were at. They were just equally involved in each training session. I think that was because the parents were committed to it and were really part of what was happening,” McGrath explains with enthusiasm.

Children in sports

Ensuring children’s enjoyment and mastery of physical activity and sports are values grounded in Norwegian society. The Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sports (NIF) has adopted provisions regulating sports for children up to age 12. “The goal is to develop positive sports activities for every child as an individual,” according to NIF, as described in the first part of this article series: The Norwegian Development System.

The BSK sports plan clearly states that the Alpine Skiing group is open for children and youth of all skiing abilities. At the same time, BSK strives to be an attractive club for young skiers with high ski racing goals. “The club achieves both these objectives by offering one plan that is sufficient for the development of the most eager athletes, while the less eager can choose to participate at a lesser level. It is encouraged, though, that in order to achieve good progression according to ambitions, 80% participation is recommended,” BSK’s Langehaug states.

The BSK Alpine Skiing group aims to help skiers become the best they can be through their U8-U16 program. This includes assisting skiers with high goals to become “ski academy ready” by the time they finish in U16. After U16 they are old enough to enter ski academies (high school) in Norway. The fact that BSK owns the Dønski Alpin ski academy and that the BSK general manager is involved with the academy creates a long-term vision and solid development path.

Philosophy and values

The sports plan for the BSK Alpine Skiing program states the vision, goals and philosophy of the club. The club encourages positive values such as teamwork, fair play, respect for rules and the people around you, and to include everyone in the group.

All coaches, staff, skiers and their parents are informed and reminded about the club’s core values and that everyone should strive to follow these values and be part of creating a positive environment in the club.

To create a good social culture, the club has a clear policy that cell phones are restricted during ski club activities such as practice, meals and social gatherings organized by BSK.

In addition, BSK seeks to copy the well-known, strong team culture within the successful Norwegian Alpine Team, according to Langehaug. In the national team, everyone works together and supports each other, shares knowledge, and respects each other.

The concept of ONE

Langehaug explains some key factors that help create a positive culture in BSK Alpine Skiing:

One club, one team, one program: “Everyone within an age group is offered the same program. There is no A or B group. You participate in the parts you wish to participate in. This is one club and one program. That way, we create one team.”

One coach: “In BSK, this is a clear policy: the coach is the coach and nobody else. Of course, some parents have opinions and can disagree, but there is a policy that we try to give the coaches the authority they should have,” Langehaug states. The skiers should not get overwhelmed by lots of different input.

As a result, the BSK parents generally give the coaches space, according to Langehaug and McGrath. “Ultimately, the coaches that are doing the work on the hill with the kids need to be focused on that,” McGrath says. As a general manager, McGrath was a buffer between the coaches and the parents. The parents could share their thoughts and opinions with him, and he would pass on to the coaches what was relevant.

Coaches

The club aims to create an attractive arena for competent coaches. It offers opportunities for development through completing coaching education, learning from more experienced coaches within the club and internships with the BSK-owned ski academy, Dønski Alpin.

BSK has some full-time coaches, plus many on hourly wages for the younger groups. There are no separate dryland coaches; the coaches within each group do the job. They post a weekly program in a private Facebook group explaining the club’s dryland sessions and the training the kids should do independently.

While in BSK, McGrath looked for a few characteristics in coaches:  

“I was looking for somebody super engaged. They wanted to be there; they wanted to do it. Big passion for the sport, curious to get better.”

The coaches also needed technical skills, some education, and a particular coaching skill: “They needed what I call ‘the eye,’ which means they needed to be able to watch a skier and see what was going on. Not every coach out there is able to do that. That is a very important element, and we had a lot of coaches with ‘the eye,’” McGrath says.

With a high athlete-to-coach ratio, the coaches also needed to be versatile in ski and equipment knowledge. “I think that’s a real strength of the club system in Norway,” McGrath says and explains: “Other countries are breaking it into different pieces. As you get into national teams, they have servicemen (in Norway as well). But when the kids are younger, they have a coach who’s all in on all aspects; then they really get to know the skier.”

Trust the process

The BSK Alpine Skiing group’s sports plan outlines the program’s training methodology, dryland and ski training plans, as well as other areas for each age group from U8 through U16. After U16, the racers typically attend and train with ski academies, either in the local region or sometimes in other geographical regions.

One of the principal building blocks of the BSK training methodology is long-term development through gradual progression and focus on learning solid technical skills, rather than a short-term focus on race results. Skiers, parents and coaches are encouraged to trust the process of this long-term development and with long-term goals.

It’s not always easy to focus on the future instead of focusing short-term on next weekend’s race. If skiers stick to the long-term development plan, they might not be the fastest racers during their younger years – and that’s okay, according to BSK.

“Are you going to spend your time preparing for ‘Bama’ (a Norwegian, national children’s race), or are you going to spend your time becoming a good skier? Those are two very different things. So, that’s ‘trust the process,’” McGrath says.

Consistency and structure

In Norway, children’s sports clubs are to a large degree run by volunteer parents who do a great job in many ways. However, as a result, coaches as well as volunteer parent-coaches and volunteer parent-administrators often come and go with their child’s involvement in a sports program or in a certain age group. This might create a more coincidental developmental program and training plan, possibly with great variation from year to year and from age group to age group.

One of the greatest benefits of the BSK Alpine Skiing sports plan is that it ensures consistency and structure. There is stability and progression in the training framework for all age groups, year after year. The framework and values offered by the club is not dependent on which volunteers or coaches are involved from one year to the next.

BSK’s season starts in May and lasts through April the following spring. The U12-16 skiers sign up for next season’s program in April-May. At this point, everyone in these age groups pays a flat fee, no matter how much they will attend. This ensures a stable club economy and the possibility of employing full-time coaches.  

Coaches present the sports plan to each age group in May. Then skiers and parents know the concrete numbers for what the club offers for their age group in the upcoming year. This gives skiers, parents, coaches, and everyone involved predictability through a well-developed plan.

Sticking to the systematic, structured sports plan also allows for a relatively high coach-to-athlete ratio of around 1:10, according to McGrath. This ratio is necessary to keep the BSK alpine skiing programs affordable.

Activities and frequency

The sports plan shows how many days or evenings per week the club offers dryland training, on-snow training on the home hill and during training camps. There is a recommended number of races where the coach will be present, as well as a set number of social activities organized by the club.

The ski training sessions offered at the home ski area, as listed in the plan below, usually take place on weeknights. On weekends, the athletes typically take part in ski races, attend the ski club’s winter camps (when available), ski on their own or with their families, or take a break from skiing. The activity level depends on the skier’s age as well as each person’s level of involvement and goals.

Framework for BSK activities offered per season:

McGrath thinks the USA does good work with its ski evaluations, so he brought the idea with him to BSK. He simplified it into essential areas that could be ranked, and the results were passed on to skiers and parents in a manner such as, “Okay, here are the areas that you really excelled at, and here are the areas where you need to continue to build your skills,” he explains.

Gates vs. free skiing

A clear goal for BSK is to develop a solid ski technical base in its skiers. The coaches use a combination of freeskiing and drills (with and without gates) as tools. The sports plan states, “Basic and racing skills are not the same, and both need to be learned! Basic skills always come first!”

The sports plan presents pie charts for each age group with various percentages of freeskiing, drills and gate training per discipline. There is progression from the younger years through U16. Drills are more common during springtime ski camps, and younger skiers do more drills as part of their gate training.

There might be as many different views on prioritizing freeskiing vs. gate training as there are coaches. Ryste, in his current role as the national team alpine director, believes coaches need to be very intentional with their division between gate training and freeskiing and that it is the coach’s responsibility to ensure the right balance.

Ryste suggests counting how many training sessions skiers can really get in gates during a winter. Start with the number of sessions during the season, from when the home training hill opens until it closes. Subtract school vacation days when there will not be training and a few days for when skiers might be ill or not present. Then, divide the remaining training sessions between slalom, giant slalom and so on, and estimate how many runs they can achieve in a training course per discipline during the season.

“You cannot give away any of those training sessions; that will end up being too few! My point is that the organized training needs to be ‘red-blue.’ Freeskiing is extremely important, but it should be in addition,” Ryste says. He adds: “It’s great with twin tips; jump and get air and be creative.”

Various disciplines

The sports plan estimates the club’s percentage of ski training per discipline:

Equipment

BSK wishes to make alpine skiing accessible for all; the club does not want equipment to be an excluding factor. The sports plan lists the number and type of skis needed per age group. This helps families make reasonable decisions and plan for what comes next:

Home-hill advantage

BSK owns Kirkerudbakken and the ski area plays a significant role in the ski club’s success. Note that this is not a vast ski area. There are two parallel main hills. The training and racing hill is 462 meters long with a 140-meter vertical drop. The top elevation is a mere 164 meters above sea level, and the base elevation is 24 meters. Still, Kirkerudbakken has hosted World Cup slalom races on four occasions, in 1968, 1979, 1981 and 1984.

As a short hill with a T-bar and a Poma lift, Kirkerudbakken facilitates efficient training with many runs each training session. There is good snowmaking equipment and flood lights, and this has always been a resourceful ski area, in Ryste’s opinion: “It has opened early in the season. It has good snow, such basic things. Then skiers who are interested and wish to become good skiers have had the opportunity to ski often and a lot, which is a prerequisite.”

Ryste also points to the large BSK training groups in Kirkerudbakken: “There is matching there (with other skiers) and you attract competent, enthusiastic coaches. I believe competence, culture and enthusiasm are passed on, and big training groups attract new, large groups, so it continues to go well.”

McGrath agrees that Kirkerudbakken is a professionally run ski area and a good facility for training. “I think the unsung hero there is Hans (Kristiansen, the ski area general manager). He’s just committed to the place and really engaged in it. If there was ever anything specific and he could execute it, he would do it,” McGrath says, thinking back to his previous years with BSK in Kirkerudbakken.

Point proven this January, when Kristiansen dove into the ice-cold creek close to the ski area base, only wearing swim trunks and a snorkeling mask. His mission: to fix the below-surface water intake for the snowmaking equipment since no scuba divers were available on the weekend.

The sum

For the people involved in BSK and Kirkerudbakken, it seems like the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Skiers, parents and coaches enjoy their time together and work hard on the hill. The enthusiasm and environment make them return year after year.

Granted, there are discussions in this ski club, like in most others. However, discussions can be used constructively as part of evolving, improving, and moving forward.

Ryste, the Norwegian alpine director, thinks back to his early coaching days for BSK and says:

“I had a fantastic time there. I got caught up in the enthusiasm and ended up in this game because of the environment and the great people I met there. So, that is the essence. Plus, Kirkerudbakken is like a motor: First to open, snowmaking equipment, groomed, ‘in Ordnung,’ all set. When new generations come in, they enter a set system. Everyone has a little hand on the wheel, but for the individual to come into something that is at a higher level rather than to start from the bottom – I think this is BSK’s great advantage, plus a good, strong, healthy culture.”

BSK World Cup skiers Lucas Braathen, Atle Lie McGrath, Mina Fürst Holtmann and Kajsa Vickhoff Lie talk about their young ski club years in part 3 of this series: Norwegian World Cup Racers Share Ski Club Experiences – soon to be published.

Norwegian skier development – the whole series:

Part 1 – The Norwegian Development System:  The Alpine Director for the Norwegian Alpine Team, Claus Ryste, discusses the Norwegian model, where ski clubs and ski academies play the lead roles on the path into the national team.

Part 2 – Possibly the World’s Best Ski Club: A view into a successful Norwegian ski club, its sports plan and thoughts from the plan’s creator, ex-U.S. Ski Team racer and coach Felix McGrath.

Part 3 – Norwegian World Cup Racers Share Ski Club Experiences: Norwegian racers Lucas Braathen, Atle Lie McGrath, Mina Fürst Holtmann and Kajsa Vickhoff Lie share their views on what worked well during their young ski club years.