Go Green! Ski team alumni show picture-perfect form

Former UW-Green Bay Nordic skiers Alex Ostrander, Sam Behrends and Johanna Winters are getting a lot of visibility this winter among the highest echelons of North American cross-country skiing.

The three are front-and-center on the widely circulated promotional poster for the 2009 American Birkebeiner (www.birkie.com/). One of the world’s premiere cross county ski events, the “Birkie” has been hosted in Hayward, Wis., since 1973, drawing as many as 10,000 participants to the 50K (31-mile) course. This winter’s race is Feb. 21.

Ostrander and Behrends are in Phoenix Green, from left, in the poster. That’s Winters in blue, number 106. Ostrander competed for the Phoenix in the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons. Behrends spent one year with the Phoenix in 2006-07. Winters competed for the Phoenix for four years and graduated from UW-Green Bay in 2007.

Winters is training for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver with the Central Cross Country Olympic Development team. An exceptional student at UW-Green Bay, she was named to ESPN the Magazine’s Academic All-District V At-Large First Team in 2006. The art major was coached at UW-Green Bay by Bryan Fish.

(Credit: 2009 American Birkebeiner Poster created by Kay Lum Design. All rights reserved, American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation, Inc.)