Olympic hopeful finds way to offset costs to compete in his sport

Tom Stephen is an engineering student at the University of Calgary.  He’s also on Canada’s national cross-country ski team.

Stephens' goal is to compete in the Olympics but he says it’s very costly.

“There’s a high price tag to skiing at a very high level,” said the 22-year-old, a former CTV Athlete of the Week. “It’s becoming quite unaffordable for a lot of athletes so we have to find ways to be able to afford our season.”

Started his own business

For example, the last World Cup period was three weeks long and it cost each athlete $9,500 to compete.

That’s just a small portion of what each Olympic hopeful must fork out each season.

To help offset the cost, Stephen decided to combine his love of engineering with his love of cross country skiing.

He built and started selling Nordic Up, which is a ski stand.  Stephen says it serves a lot of purposes.

“So you can store your skis in there over the summer,” he said.

 

 

 

 

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“I store my skis in there between training sessions. When you’re waxing your skis it helps the wax cool so you’re not putting your skis together when the wax is still warm.

“It also helps protect them," he added, "so when you’re done your ski session you can put them in there and they’ll be safe and not going to be falling or stepping on them or anything like that.”

Business booming

The Nordic Up sells for $250 and Stephen says business has been very good.

“I came up with this idea a couple of years ago of making a ski stand to sell to my friends and family originally,” he said. “But then it started to grow and I started to get more interest in it so they  started selling it across the country and even to people in the United States to try and help subsidize my season.”

Taken pressure off

Making some extra money has no doubt helped relieve some of the financial stress on Stephen.  He says so far it’s been a good start to his cross-country season.

“It’s early in the year but it’s looking promising,” Stephen said.

“I raced some Canadian Cup races earlier this month and did quite well.  I won the first two races and came in second in the third race so it’s looking like it’s going to be a good season for me.”

If you’re interested in the ski stand you can go to nordicup.ca