Comment
Share
Posted on Wednesday August 26th at 8:42 a.m.
Tweet
Anglem is one of three New Zealand men vying for what will probably be a single spot in the cross-country skiing at Whistler, with strong competition coming from United States-based Ben Koons and Canadian-based Andrew Pohl, of Wanaka.
With the New Zealand team not named until January, Anglem is hoping four years of training will be rewarded with selection.
"You can only do what you can do. We try and support each other and try and ski as fast as we can. If any New Zealander goes it would be great. We haven't had anyone at the Winter Olympics in cross-country since 1988 when Madonna Harris skied for New Zealand.
"This year one of the women, Katie Calder, has reached the qualifying standard so she'll hopefully be selected, and hopefully one of the guys as well."
The competition between the three men could barely be tighter, said Anglem, who specialises in the freestyle discipline being raced at Snow Farm today, an exhausting event over 10km to 15km which requires an extreme level of fitness.
"We are all really similar. Every three months a new list comes out and on the last one I was just ahead of the other two. On the next one possibly Ben will be the best ranked of the three of us. It's quite close."
Anglem's parent's, Jim and Barbara, shifted to Christchurch from Invercargill a couple of years ago.
Jim taught at Kingswell and Aparima before working for the Ministry of Education while Barbara taught at Southland Girls' High School.
Also now based in Christchurch, Anglem went to James Hargest College before studying medicine at Otago University and returning to Invercargill to work at Southland Hospital between 1997 and 2001.
His wife, world champion multisporter Kristina (nee Strode-Penny) worked at the Southern Institute of Technology during the same period.
Anglem, who missed out on the men's final of the FIS Sprint at Snow Farm yesterday, said qualifying for the Olympics would be a massive personal achievement, but it was not his sole driving force.
"It would be really good. This has been a pretty intensive project for the last four years just trying to get as good as I can get and it doesn't really stop for me at the Olympics. "The main thing is to see how fast I can get on skis. If I can get to the Olympics that would be great. If I could go to the world champs in Norway that would be great, too, but skiing at Snow Farm is about as good as doing that, too."
Anglem will also race in the winter triathlon at Snow Farm on Saturday.
SOURCE: The Southland Times
ARTICLE: By NATHAN BURDON