The National Nordic Foundation is proud to announce the new Trail to Gold Fellowship (T2G), which will provide promising women coaches in the United States the opportunity to gain international-level coaching experience at the World Cup this winter.
In facilitating this program, NNF is partnering with the US Olympic Women’s Cross-Country Book Project, Women Ski Coaches Association (WSCA) and US Ski and Snowboard to identify talented American women coaches, coordinate the fellowship, and provide support more broadly in addressing this key gender inequity in the US ski community.
The T2G Fellowship is the kind of initiative the NNF was founded to support. Led by an extraordinarily talented and pioneering group of US Olympic Women, this fellowship represents the ski community looking to put real resources into becoming a more equitable place for coaches of all genders to pursue their dreams and, in turn, build a more equitable environment for athletes of all genders.
T2G Fellows will receive funding to travel to Europe and join the US Ski Team coaching staff this winter for a 2-week competition period of the World Cup. They will gain exposure to the duties and responsibilities of coaching at the sport’s highest level, with the goal of furthering their elite coaching skills, and allowing them to take what they learned back to their own programs across the United States.
Applications will open next Monday, August 1st and remain open until August 31st. They will then be reviewed by a panel consisting of representatives from the Trail to Gold book committee and WSCA, US Ski Team coaches, and another retired Women US World Cup athlete. Coaches from across the competition levels are encouraged to apply. Please follow NNF on Facebook, Instagram, and our webpage to get the latest updates when the application is live.
Read the full Trail to Gold Fellowship Press Release from the US Olympic Women’s Cross-Country Book Project below:
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 1, 2022
World Cup Internship Opportunities for American Women
An exciting new opportunity for American women ski coaches and ski technicians is available for the coming winter. The Trail to Gold Fellowship will provide funding to the U.S. Cross Country Ski Team to cover the expense of bringing a small number of selected women coaches and ski technicians on World Cup trips, to learn, experience and actively engage as coaching and ski tech interns, with the American World Cup Team. The aim of this collaborative offering is to help raise the knowledge and experience level of American women cross-country ski coaches and to increase the number of qualified international-level coaches and service technicians.
The Fellowship takes its name from the book, Trail to Gold: The Journey of 53 Women Skiers, which came out in November 2021. Written by the U.S. Olympic Women Cross-Country Skiers, 1972-2018, Trail to Gold shares the collective journey of women skiers over five decades, culminating in the achievement of an Olympic gold medal by Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall in 2018. The book was led by a committee of eight of the fifty-three Olympians. Healthy sales of the book have resulted in having some net proceeds; most of which the book committee are choosing to donate towards the development of U.S. women coaches and technicians in the sport.
The National Nordic Foundation (NNF) has stepped in to both manage the Fellowship, and increase its scope through its own donations’ appeal. Members of the book committee, NNF, the U.S. Ski Team and the Women’s Ski Coaches Association (WSCA) are working closely on details of the Fellowship, and the application process.
Applications for the Fellowship open August 1st, and will close by September 1. The application can be found online here. A selection committee with members from the Trail to Gold book committee, the U.S. Ski Team, and WSCA will review the applications and choose the interns who will join the U.S. World Cup skiers racing in Europe for a trip length of approximately two weeks.
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