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                                                                                1992 WINTER OLYMPICS, Page 52

The Viking's Conquest


Cross-country superstar Vegard Ulvang of Norway finds glory on
the ski trail and fulfillment off the beaten track

By JAMES L. GRAFF/LES SAISIES


    At the end of last June, when most other Olympic hopefuls
were lashed into rigid training programs, Norwegian
cross-country skier Vegard ("the Viking") Ulvang was hunkered
down somewhere in central Greenland, pondering the vexing little
problem of survival. He and his best friend, Frenchman Pierre
Gay-Peret, had set out seven days before to ski 355 miles across
the world's largest island. Though the speediest previous
crossing by their chosen route had been 25 days, they had
brought enough food for just 20. "We wanted to go fast,"
explains Ulvang. But their pace during the first week had been
crabbed by a snowstorm that had obliterated the horizon. "We
were forced into a situation where we had to make a really
important decision," says Ulvang. A decision to turn back?
Hardly. The question was how much to eat. They halved their
rations, picked up the pace and completed the trip in 15 days
and two hours.

    Ulvang, 28, the most exhilarating Nordic athlete at
Albertville, savors such moments of truth. "It's the idea of
managing the elements that I like," he says. "In the wilderness
or in competition, it takes planning and preparation to
succeed." Norwegian ski officials were as mortified over
Ulvang's Greenland trek as they had been the previous year when
he climbed Alaska's 20,320-ft. Denali, the former Mount
McKinley. But not even the most timorous Norwegian trainer is
complaining now. Ulvang and his teammate Bjorn Daehlie each won
three golds and a silver, leading the national team to 20
medals, a phenomenal haul in light of Norway's population of
only 4.2 million. Ulvang's four-medal streak sparked such
jubilation in his Arctic hometown of Kirkenes that the local
stock of champagne has run dry.

    He started off with gold in the 30-km event, the only
men's cross-country race that Norway had never won. "That's the
one I came here to get," says Ulvang, who won a bronze medal in
the event in the Calgary Games. "The rest of them were extras."
Ulvang stormed to a dramatic and unexpected victory in the
10-km, despite breaking a pole and skiing with only one for more
than 1,600 ft. For three weeks before the Olympics, a hip
injury had kept him from practicing the skating technique used
in the 15-km free-style pursuit race, but that didn't stop
Ulvang from finishing second to Daehlie. He won a third gold
when Norway breezed to victory in the 4 X 10-km relay. Ulvang
finished only ninth in the 50-km free-style, but Daehlie won it
to complete Norway's sweep of all five men's cross-country
golds.

    With disarming naturalness, Ulvang seems to embody the
Olympic Charter's principle of creating "a way of life based on
the joy found in effort." He's a winner cut from fresh,
unbleached cloth. Perhaps a champion whose training segues so
perfectly into his recreation can only emerge in a sport that
doesn't need jumps or rinks, just snow and distance.

    Ulvang enjoyed plenty of both at home in Kirkenes. "I can
walk a week in any direction and not see a person or cross a
road,'' says Ulvang. He's not being figurative. Every September,
Ulvang and his two brothers set off from home and walk for a
solid 14 hours in one direction or another. At dusk they pitch
a base camp, and for the next week they roam the wilderness
hunting ptarmigans.

    But for all the passion Ulvang devotes to hiking and
climbing, fishing and hunting, they've been but helpful adjuncts
to grueling training of a more specific sort. Ulvang spends 250
days a year with the Norwegian Nordic team. Since September
they've been running on treadmills high in the Alps to acclimate
themselves to the mile-high Olympic course at Les Saisies. "In
the long races, the decision always comes in the last 5 km,"
says Ulvang. "All my training has been aimed at saving something
to go maximum at the end." The payoff: Ulvang's lungs absorb
oxygen at almost twice the average rate, and his resting pulse
is only 35 beats per min.

    With the Olympics behind him, Ulvang will head off in
April for the relaxing diversion of climbing the highest peaks
of every continent but Asia and Antarctica. "When you reach the
top of the mountain, you're at the finish line," he says. "But
that's a short-lived triumph. What you remember is the climbing
that got you to the summit, and the training that paid off in
victory." No eyebrows should arch when Ulvang says that after
the Winter Games at Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994 he intends to
launch an assault on Mount Everest. For Norway's star
performer, it will merely be survival as usual.