Veteran coach Gilbertson named World Cup-B nordic combined coach for USSA

Veteran coach Gilbertson named World Cup-B nordic combined coach for USSA{mosimage}PARK CITY, Utah – Chris Gilbertson, jumping and nordic combined coach for Colorado’s award-winning Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club, has been named U.S. nordic combined coach for World Cup-B, the sport’s Continental Cup series, Nordic Director Luke Bodensteiner said.

Gilbertson, the 1987 junior national jumping champion, was a development-level jumper with the U.S. Ski Team into the 1990s. He was a member of the 1991 World University Games team and graduated from the University of Colorado in 1994 with a degree in international affairs and a minor in economics. He coached in Steamboat for the last nine years with the SSWSC and was both a development coach for the U.S. nordic combined team during the 1998 Olympic season and with the jumping team for three years starting with the ’99 season.

He also was a coach at the 2004 and 2006 Junior World Championships. Among young athletes, Gilbertson has coached at one level or another a handful of Olympians – 2003 nordic combined sprint world champion Johnny Spillane (Steamboat Springs, Colo.), three-time combined Olympian Bill Demong (Vermontville, N.Y.), Olympic jumpers Alan Alborn (Anchorage, Alaska) and Clint Jones (also Steamboat), and, among others, former world juniors nordic combined silver medalist Alex Glueck and bronze medalist Nathan Gerhart, both from Steamboat.

Bodensteiner said Gilbertson would continue to live in Steamboat with his wife Kandise and their son Gunnar, 3.

– USSA