by Tyler Fransen
“I think my mom laughed” Emma Malmquist said, when asked to describe her parents’ reaction to the news of their daughter competing on the international stage.
Malmquist, a junior at Colorado Mesa University, is competing in January for the Universiade, the second largest gathering of athletes behind the Olympics. She is one of eight women competing in the United States for nordic skiing, and the only one from Colorado.
Her experience with skiing began in her hometown of Bend, Ore. She started racing her freshman year of high school and became good enough to qualify for nationals and finish in the top 25.
Malmquist took a year off from skiing to go play soccer in California, but she said she was ready to quit after her second week.
“I told my mom, ‘I don’t want to go’ and she said, ‘well it’s too late now,’” Malmquist said.
When she decided to get back on the mountain she joined the CMU ski team, which was originally a varsity sport. However, the school recognized the nordic ski team as a club which Malmquist says gave them more freedom to the things they wanted to do.
Dave Aschwanden is the coach of the CMU nordic ski team, and has been one of Malmquist’s influential leaders on her journey to the world stage.
“He’s always kind of inspired me to be the best that I can be,” Malmquist said. She added that all the coaches she’s had throughout the years, “never pushed results, but always pushed for you being a better skier and a better person, investing in your whole life instead of just results.”
Her training for this competition is filled with hard days with long hours, intertwined with days of rest, where she says she does nothing, but, “lie on the couch with food, and not move.”
The most intense weeks of training for a nordic skier like Malmquist consists of twelve hour weeks during school and nearly 22 hour weeks when not in school. These will typically last for four week training sessions with each week getting incrementally more difficult.
She says she will often spend two to three hours training for six days a week, including Saturdays where some of her most intense training takes place.
Among the more dangerous aspects of training when not in season is the “roller ski.”
“You’ll have all of your winter stuff, but [the skis] are on wheels [and] it’s scary because they don’t have brakes so it’s either into the bushes or on the pavement or you just gotta learn to stay up,” Malmquist said of roller skiing.
All that training, however, has led Malmquist to possibly the biggest stage she will see for her collegiate career.
The Universiade–a cross between the words “university” and “olympiad”–will take place in Almety, Kazakhstan where temperatures on the mountain can get to as low as -11 degrees fahrenheit.
To counter for the cold temperatures and high altitude, several precautions are taken to ensure the skier’s safety, including using a rebreather mask. The rebreather heats the air to make it breathable, which Malmquist says is, “absolutely vital.”
However, Malmquist will not be wearing thick coats and layer upon layer during her competition, in order to–somewhat counterintuitively– not freeze.
“The funny thing about nordic is that we don’t wear much,” Malmquist said. “The worst thing is to wear too much and get too hot and then when you take your coat off right before the race you freeze.”
Her preparation and dedication, even at the expense of freezing cold temperatures, has brought Malmquist to an event where she will be competing against 2,500 athletes from around the world. The most exciting part for her she says will be, “to meet new people.”
Placing high or finishing with a top 10 score is not something Malmquist is incredibly focused on. Instead, she is looking forward to the opportunity to compete, and do the thing that she loves doing most: being out in the snow.
“I live for the day that I get to be back out there on the snow,” Malmquist said. “Last year, actually, on my birthday at the end of October, was the first day I got to go skiing, and I think I just laid in the snow for a good five minutes because I was so happy to be back.”
The Universiade in Almaty, Kazakhstan, will take place Jan. 29 through Feb. 8
