'Team Avalanche' unites cross-country skiing Olympic hopefuls from small countries

Indian skier Bhavani Thekkada's lower leg was a mess at a race weekend in Finland — think blisters and blood. She turned to “Team Avalanche” on WhatsApp in search of ointments.

“I couldn’t find anything in the shop, so I just put a message in the group and there was this guy who said, ‘Hey I’m in Ruka, I have antibiotic ointment with me,'" Thekkada explained. "Then he comes and gives me the medicine. That’s really nice.”

The WhatsApp group with the catchy name is comprised of cross-country skiers who spent the past year or so trying to qualify for the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. They’re from non-traditional winter sports countries and mostly operate independently, so having a community to lean on can be helpful.

Trinidad and Tobago’s Nick Lau started it as a forum “for random tips and advice” for all the “small nation” athletes he kept meeting at ski races.

“For this sport, some of us, we had absolutely no upbringing in the culture, like a Norwegian would,” Lau said. “Some people have no idea what FIS (the governing body) is, and how does it relate to my being able to ski or not. What is a FIS license? Do I need a license to go to a race?”

It’s evolved into a place where athletes coordinate travel and training plans and join forces to defray costs, like for a waxing technician. There are more than 60 members and more than 40 countries are represented.

They might ask about crashing in a spare bedroom, as Thekkada did for a recent trip to Norway.

“I’m a self-funded athlete. Even five days of free stay was a lot of money I saved,” she said. “For me it’s like a family, it’s like a team.”

They’re from places including Mexico, Peru, Saudi Arabia, South Africa — some have qualified for Milan Cortina, others not.

They’re a smart bunch — working in fields including medicine, architecture, media, finance — and some have enough financial independence to help make it work. Some are dual nationals, many are in their 30s.

Regina Martinez of Mexico is an emergency doctor at a Miami hospital. The 45-year-old Lau is a former FIFA executive. Dylan Longridge of Ireland is a geophysicist specializing in the field of unexploded ordnance detection.

Matt C. Smith of South Africa is an entrepreneur and public speaker who has been chronicling his journey — and turning the spotlight on others, too — on his social media platforms.

“It’s a beautiful bunch of people who all support each other with various skill sets, and quite honestly are doing a great job to amplify the sport,” said Smith, who lives near Oslo.

“Everyone is intelligent, everyone is driven, everyone is trying to achieve things, because this is a very untypical, untraditional thing to do," the 35-year-old Smith added.

Mexico’s Allan Corona, who like his good friend Smith was doing triathlons before taking up skiing, moved to Norway during the COVID-19 pandemic — his wife is Norwegian and drives an ambulance.

“I did not know really what cross-country skiing was previously to moving here,” Corona said.

He took up Norway’s beloved sport as a change of pace, participated in a few races, and then got a call from Mexico’s ski federation telling him he's eligible to compete at the 2023 world championships. Corona described the race as “humbling” but motivating: “I got hooked at that event.”

Corona and Smith will compete in the 10-kilometer interval start at the Olympics next month.

Athletes had to satisfy two criteria to reach the Olympics: unlock a quota spot for their country — either the world championship in early 2025 or at a recent series of World Cup races; and maintain a good average score in sanctioned races through a complicated points system.

Lau said he and others in the Avalanche group successfully lobbied to get the World Cup races added as qualifying events — after what he described as limited opportunities in the pandemic-hit previous cycle.

“We escalated this quite a lot,” Lau said.

That doesn’t mean it’s easier. In fact, the points calculation has become tougher.

Smith said that in some past cycles, before he took up the sport, it was possible to “game the system” by competing in low-profile races in random spots like Kazakhstan to earn better points.

“Those days have come to an end. FIS are getting smarter with how they calculate points and make it more competitive,” Smith said.

Costs each season, Corona estimated, include 12,000 euros ($14,000) worth of skis and poles. Boots cost 1,000 euros and you need three pairs. Coaching runs at least 100 euros per hour in Norway. Traveling to a race will cost 1,000 euros per weekend for flights and other expenses, he added.

Smith estimates he’s spent about $100,000 of his own funds to achieve Olympic qualification.

“I’m quite proud to say that I’ve funded this myself, through my own work and my own businesses," he said. “I’ve never asked for financial help or sought after it.”

Smith has been dubbed a “ski-fluencer” in Norwegian media because of his podcasts and social media posts about skiing.

His exploits also got him hired by a professional club — Team Aker Dæhlie — which covers his travel and accommodation.

Lau, who grew up in Texas, advocates for easing some barriers to Olympic qualification. Like Thekkada, Lau didn't qualify for Milan Cortina.

“This is the irony. The IOC and the global sport community and even FIS, they are reaping the benefits of years of development,” Lau said. "The fact that you have people from the Caribbean, from Africa, from Asia now excited about skiing — you could view that as a success of development activities. But what are we doing now with all that energy?

“I think that’s where we’re a bit stuck and policy now need to be reviewed and strategies need to be adjusted.”

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Nicholas Lau (TTO) in action during the World Cup 10 km freestyle race in Granåsen, Norway on Dec. 7, 2025. (Geir Olsen/NTB Scanpix via AP)

FILE - Bhavani Thekkada Nanjunda of India in action during qualifying of the sprint free competition at the Davos Nordic FIS Cross Country World Cup, in Davos, Switzerland, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025. (Gian Ehrenzeller/Keystone via AP, File)

FILE - Matthew Smith, of South Africa, competes in the cross-country men's 7.5 km Interval Start Classic qualification race at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Trondheim, Norway, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bob Weir, the guitarist and singer who as an essential member of the Grateful Dead helped found the sound of the San Francisco counterculture of the 1960s and kept it alive through decades of endless tours and marathon jams, has died. He was 78.

Weir’s death was announced Saturday in a statement on his Instagram page.

“It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of Bobby Weir,” a statement on his Instagram posted Saturday said. “He transitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after courageously beating cancer as only Bobby could. Unfortunately, he succumbed to underlying lung issues.”

Weir joined the Grateful Dead — originally the Warlocks — in 1965 in San Francisco at just 17 years old. He would spend the next 30 years playing on endless tours with the Grateful Dead alongside fellow singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia, who died in 1995.

Weir wrote or co-wrote and sang lead vocals on Dead classics including “Sugar Magnolia,” “One More Saturday Night” and “Mexicali Blues.”

After Garcia’s death, he would be the Dead's most recognizable face. In the decades since, he kept playing with other projects that kept alive the band's music and legendary fan base, including Dead & Company.

“For over sixty years, Bobby took to the road,” the Instagram statement said. "A guitarist, vocalist, storyteller, and founding member of the Grateful Dead. Bobby will forever be a guiding force whose unique artistry reshaped American music.”

Weir’s death leaves drummer Bill Kreutzmann as the only surviving original member. Founding bassist Phil Lesh died in 2024. The band's other drummer, Mickey Hart, practically an original member since joining in 1967, is also alive at 82. The fifth founding member, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, died in 1973.

Dead and Company played a series of concerts for the Grateful Dead’s 60th anniversary in July at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, drawing some 60,000 fans a day for three days.

Born in San Francisco and raised in nearby Atherton, Weir was the Dead's youngest member and looked like a fresh-faced high-schooler in its early years. He was generally less shaggy than the rest of the band, but he had a long beard like Garcia’s in later years.

The band would survive long past the hippie moment of its birth, with its ultra-devoted fans known as Deadheads often following them on the road in a virtually non-stop tour that persisted despite decades of music and culture shifting around them.

“Longevity was never a major concern of ours,” Weir said when the Dead got the Grammys’ MusiCares Person of the Year honor last year. “Spreading joy through the music was all we ever really had in mind, and we got plenty of that done.”

Ubiquitous bumper stickers and T-shirts showed the band's skull logo, the dancing, colored bears that served as their other symbol, and signature phrases like “ain't no time to hate” and “not all who wander are lost.”

The Dead won few actual Grammys during their career — they were always a little too esoteric — getting only a lifetime achievement award in 2007 and the best music film award in 2018.

Just as rare were hit pop singles. “Touch of Grey,” the 1987 song that brought a big surge in the aging band's popularity, was their only Billboard Top 10 hit.

But in 2024, they set a record for all artists with their 59th album in Billboard's Top 40. Forty-one of those came since 2012, thanks to the popularity of the series of archival albums compiled by David Lemieux.

Their music — called acid rock at its inception — would pull in blues, jazz, country, folk and psychedelia in long improvisational jams at their concerts.

“I venture to say they are the great American band,” TV personality and devoted Deadhead Andy Cohen said as host of the MusiCares event. “What a wonder they are.”

FILE - Bob Weir plays guitar with his band The Dead, formerly the Grateful Dead, at the Forum in the Inglewood section of Los Angeles, Calif. on Saturday May 9, 2009. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel,File)

FILE - This undated file photo shows members of the Grateful Dead band, from left to right, Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh, Jerry Garcia, Brent Mydland, Bill Kreutzmann, and Bob Weir. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - Kennedy Center Honors recipients from left; filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, the legendary American rock band the Grateful Dead band members Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann Bob Weir and blues rock singer-songwriter and guitarist Bonnie Raitt, applaud at at the 2024 Kennedy Center Honors reception in the East Room of the White House, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta,File)

FILE - Bob Weir arrives at Willie Nelson 90, celebrating the singer's 90th birthday on Saturday, April 29, 2023, at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. (Photo by Allison Dinner/Invision/AP,File)

FILE - Bob Weir of Dead & Company performs at Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival on Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Manchester, Tenn. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP,File)