The beginning of the 2022-23 season has already begun and the BSF Pro Team is over 4 weeks into training. At the start of the training year I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to Egypt with my mom for the first week of May! We walked in awe through and around the pyramids, visited the last ancient Egyptian ruled city, Alexandria, swam in the mediterranean, and got to scuba dive around the most beautiful reefs in the Red Sea! It was an amazing trip!
After returning home it was time to get to work with training as I would be heading to Bend Oregon, for my first camp as a member of The US Ski Team! I was officially named to the B team on May 10th. I was nominated based on objective criteria set by the US Ski Team: For a birth year of 1998, a skier whose rank is in the top 90 in the world of all skiers qualifies for the B team! I was super excited to be named and to be able to train with all the best skiers in the US for two weeks! We had excellent conditions at Mt. Bachelor and great biking and trail running in Bend. I am now back in Bozeman and the pro team is training full time together again!
My rise to professional nordic skiing started quite late relative to most. I had never classic skied until my senior year of highschool. I was also never in the US Ski Team pipeline because it took me a while to develop my strength and endurance. I was training maybe 400 hours when other skiers my age and even younger were hitting nearly six or seven hundred. Nevertheless, I have proved myself as a top distance skier in the US and I know with another year of high volume training and specific strength, I have the ability to compete against the best in the world! I am really looking forward to a strong summer and fall of training here in Bozeman with the pro team, and seeing how much farther I can take my skiing.
While the season is still early and World Cup nominations have yet to be made, I have some general goals already in my mind. These goals push me every day at training to remain focused and motivated. And my teammates here help me to enjoy the process and have fun, while also pushing me each day to be better. I hope to prove myself this winter as a top distance skier and consistently ski competitively against all the best skiers in the world! I also am looking to represent the US at the 2023 World Ski Championships in Slovenia!
I am excited to continue to train hard and smart this summer and fall with all my teammates here in Bozeman while also utilizing resources offered from the US Ski Team!
Finn O’Connell
