Nathaniel Mah Interview
We bring you a new interview today with the first ever Nordic Combined athlete we've had on the show, the one and only Nathaniel Mah. In this chat Nathaniel explains the unique sport of Nordic Combined to us and carries us through his history of getting into the sport. We also talk to him about what it was like competing in Canada where the sport isn't nearly as prominent as other countries in the world. Nathaniel catches us up on what he's been up to since retiring last year, and of course answers our "My Name Is" series of questions.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
COLIN HILDING: Welcome to Off The Podium for episode number 98, one step closer to our 100th episode, and one more week closer to the 2020 slash 2021 Tokyo Olympics, which we're going to be coming to you probably daily for. But today we're continuing on in our current series of being able to talk to athletes and sports that we've never talked to anybody before. And we actually have a really good one today. We're going to be speaking to Nathaniel Mah, who is a Nordic Combine athlete or was a Nordic Combine athlete. And this is great because Nordic Combine is one of those sports that I don't know how many people are even familiar with it here in North America. I mean, even myself, I was sort of loosely familiar with it, seen a little bit during the Olympics and basic knowledge. And Nathaniel gives us a great description of the sport itself, which is really combining two other individual sports into one. And just how difficult it is to be a top athlete in two sports where the training is completely different. There are some countries in the world where Nordic Combined is a huge sport. Here in Canada, where Nathaniel is from and where I'm coming from, not nearly as well known. In fact, Nathaniel is technically the last Nordic Combined athlete here in Canada. And even at this moment, I believe still the last Nordic Combined athlete that Canada has had. I can tell you this is one of the more unique interviews we've done, because while we do get into his history in the sport and the sport itself, we also get really into detail on kind of the business side of the sport, which is something that we haven't had the opportunity to do much before. So everybody, please enjoy this chat with Nordic combined athlete, Nathaniel Mah.
COLIN HILDING: Well, we've been checking off the boxes of all the sports. We've never had a chance to talk to anybody from before. And today, I'm really excited because we get to check off technically two boxes, maybe even three, because the athlete we have on here today is a multi-sport sport athlete. As we get to talk to a Nordic combined athlete, Nathaniel Mah from Canada. Nathaniel, thanks so much for joining us today.
NATHANIEL MAH: Of course, yeah, excited to be here, excited to talk and spread some information on Nordic combined, which I'm sure a lot of the people listening have never even heard of before.
COLIN HILDING: Well, that's the interesting thing is, it's something that I see during the Olympics, but there are several athletes, biathlons and things like that. And sometimes it all gets jumbled in your head. And usually we start off these interviews by asking somebody how they got into their sport. But I don't think it's more appropriate to ask what your sport is. Because Nordic combined, it's a little bit unique. So you want to just kind of give a bit of a background on what Nordic combined is?
NATHANIEL MAH: For sure, yeah. So Nordic combined is combination of ski jumping and cross-country skiing. So how it works is we'll jump in the morning and we start the race based off of the jump results. So the person who wins the jumping is gonna start the race first. And the way the calculation works is it's, one point is four seconds or 15 points is a minute. So in ski jumping terms, that's if you're not familiar with how the point system works, basically the further you go and the better style you have, the more points you have. And that basically gets converted into time. So if I jumped first in the jumping, I get to start first and get a head start on the rest of my competitors. And then it's their job to basically catch me before the finish line. And whoever crosses the finish line is the winner over the dead. So the hard part about it is if you look at a ski jumper, you'll see very skinny, very lean features with virtually no upper body. And if you look at a cross-country skier, you'll see a lot more muscular people, you know, wide shoulders, big legs, big upper body, very, very strong. They're very different body types, and they're trading-wise is very different. So ski jumping is, you know, quick twitch, explosive muscles. Think about like a sprinter versus cross-country is more like a distance athlete, right? So slow twitch muscles, they don't have as much of that explosive, explosivity needed. So if you look at like a distance runner and a sprinter, they look very different, and that's for a reason, because they're doing very, very different sports. So in order to combine, you have to find the balance between the two. So, you know, you have to be good at both sports, and you have to be able to train in a way that is, you know, working and complimenting each other. So it's kind of a weird combination that in hindsight doesn't make any sense, but it makes for very interesting races as, you know, it's not just like the winner of jumping or the fastest skier is the one that wins the event. It's, you know, there's a lot of tactics that go into it, and there's a lot of things that change throughout the race that makes it interesting and a little unpredictable.
COLIN HILDING: And I could be completely wrong on this, but I'm going to guess that you and most athletes don't get into the sport saying, I want to be a Nordic combined medallist. You probably start out in one or the other sports and kind of, you know, find your way into it. But how did it start with you? Did you start, you know, as a cross-country skier, and then you decided one day at the Olympic park to try ski jump? I mean, how's your history with the sport end up with you becoming a Nordic combine athlete?
NATHANIEL MAH: Yeah, for me, I grew up in Calgary just about 10 minutes from Canada Olympic Park, which is the site of the 1988 ski jumping event. So I'm right there. We drove by it all the time. And I think I was three when I told my mum that I wanted to go off of them. And so she was thrilled to hear that, obviously. But, you know, Alpine skiing, I was always going up jumps and trying to go bigger and further. So for me, it was the allure of the jumps. You know, like, that's the biggest jump anywhere, really, especially in Canada. So that's what I wanted to go off of. So by the time I was six, we found the program Altea Snotic Ski Club, which I'm still part of today. And yeah, they were basically just, you start really small on basically going down the landing hill and going down like tiny little ski jumps where the takeoffs of foot off the hill and then progress from there. And so the way it works in Canada is it is very, I mean, there's not very many kids in Canada at all that grow up thinking, I wanna be a ski jumper or cross country skier or a Nordic combined athlete. Most of the time they get recruited through a multi-sport camp or through a different sport. In my case, I did wanna be a ski jumper, oddly enough, one of the few. And then by the time I got into it, you learn the cross country aspect as well. So we teach in our clubs, we always teach both sides of the sport to begin, and then we specialise later. And for me, it was when I was about 13, I began to focus in on Nordic Combine, and I knew that that's what I wanted to do. And that's what I wanted to be, is a Nordic Combine athlete. But so that's how it works in Canada. Most other sports, besides maybe the US, it's mostly kids growing up saying, I wanna be a Nordic Combine athlete, and they will specialise from an age of six or something like that. They go into it planning to be a Nordic Combine athlete. The nice part is they do have that option to change, and plenty of people, plenty of athletes do. They specialise down the road to ski jumping or Nordic Combine, and it happens at the high level as well. But for me, yeah, it was around that 13 years old that I narrowed in on being a Nordic Combine athlete.
COLIN HILDING: I never would have thought before we started interviewing athletes on this show that people do get into sports at such a young age. But every time I visit the Olympic Park in Calgary, you'll see these classes of kids who are probably like you are six years old or under, who are on skis. And I mean, here in Manitoba, it's a little bit different. I mean, they'll let us do cross-country skiing during gym class. I guess curling is big here. So I was in third grade, and we were curling as part of school. But just the idea of a six-year-old doing a ski jump, I can't imagine with my kids. I mean, I've got a son who's five now. I certainly wouldn't trust them to do that. How high were the jumps that you were able to take at that age?
NATHANIEL MAH: So they were tiny. I mean, we're talking, if you go to your average Alpine hill, you know, there's jumps on that slope that are going to be just as big as the ones that we start off on. The takeoff is only about a foot off the ground, and the speed is really, really low. So even, I mean, you're going to fall. It's inevitable, especially when you're starting out. But slow speed, small air time, the risk of injury is really low. And even at the high level, we're talking the Olympic size ski jumps, things are so controlled and dialed in that I think there's a lot of misconceptions and think it's a really dangerous sport. But we're never going that fast. I mean, Alpine goes up to what, like 130, 100 something kilometres an hour. I mean, we're going 100 kilometres an hour, but we're in tracks that are perfectly made. So we can't really go off the course more or less. And there's wind gauges everywhere. We're not going to jump if it's not safe. And it's monitored, every millisecond is monitored by the wind. There's a lot of safety and control things that go into ski jumping, where it's truly a safe sport, believe it or not. Obviously things do happen, but I mean, I look at a lot of other sports, and I'd be a lot more scared to go and play hockey or any contact sport, and to go off the ski jump. And especially at the young age, like, you know, speeds are so low, and the jump's so small that it's honestly, we even now, we barely, I mean, it's not common to see major injuries. You'll see the old sprained or broken limb, but, you know, I don't think at least in my lifetime as a coach, being a part of the sport, I've seen the worst thing I've ever seen is ACL tear, which is quite common in our sport, unfortunately. But that's, yeah, it's, I think it's a lot safer than other, a lot of the other winter Olympic sports.
COLIN HILDING: I guess part of the thing you have to get over is the conditioning, like you said, being able to train your body to handle one type of discipline and then something that would be the polar opposite, like you mentioned the body types and everything. What type of training do you have to go through in order to meet that middle ground?
NATHANIEL MAH: Yeah, it's definitely a fine line, and every athlete is different. So some athletes are gonna be naturally skinny, but still really strong. And I mean, those are the guys that you'll see at the top of the Olympic combine, where they look, you know, they don't look like cross-country skiers, but they're just one step up from ski jumpers, if that makes sense. Those guys are able to train, you know, really similar to a cross-country skiing athlete, or like a sprinting cross-country skier athlete. So one of the cross-country skiers that doesn't specialise in distance. So they have that quick twitch, but it is, I mean, the majority of our training is going to go into the aerobic side of things, because that is what takes longer. The ski jumping, it's very mentally challenging, but physically, the demand isn't quite as high. So training-wise, in my year, at least, I would say about 30% of my hours were ski jumping focused, and the other 70 were on the cross-country side of things. And every athlete's different. Talking about different athletes, I also trained with Taylor Fletcher from the US, who is one of the fastest cross-country skiers on the World Cup, but really struggles on the ski jumping side. So our training plans are completely opposite from each other. We don't align in any way because our focuses are different. But really, most of the time, you will spend more hours on the skis. But it's finding that balance. I could go out and ski as much as a cross-country skier and do the same weight training a cross-country skier does, but it's just going to negatively impact my ski jumping, right? So you have to find that balance. So I actually trained with a cross-country team here in Camor when I was home, and then I had a special ski jumping coach over in Europe. So I'd spend about three months home, and the other nine would be over in Europe training there. So while I was home, I'd be basically doing the same thing as the cross-country skiers, but the hours would be less and the interval and the intensity sessions would be less. So they might be doing four by 10-minute thresholds. I'd be doing four by five-minute zone fours, like a higher intensity, quicker pace. And it depends on what type of year as well. But it's just basically in short, when we compare us to cross-country skier athletes, we do less hours but very similar stuff. And when you compare us to a ski jumping athlete, we're going to do less jumps but similar training.
COLIN HILDING: No, absolutely. Is there no Nordic combined trainers? Is it typical? I guess it might be different in Europe, like you said, where it's a bigger sport. But is it harder to find somebody who can just be one solo coach here, or does it have more to do with, you want to go to different facilities that specialise in cross-country versus go somewhere that actually has a ski jump?
NATHANIEL MAH: What we're seeing now, most of the high-level teams, you'll actually have one of each kind of coach. Usually we have a head coach, and he's, or she rather is from a Nordic combined background or ski jumping background. But someone that's able to understand both sides of the sport and realise that you have to compromise and find a middle ground. And then they'll have a ski jumping coach, which is obviously specific for that side. So while they're doing their jumping sessions, that's the coach kind of running that training program. And then we have the cross country coach who's running just the cross country. So it's kind of the three, you have each side, ski jumping, cross country, and then the Nordic combined is there to, coach is kind of there to mitigate and find that balance. Because what I've seen in the past, if you get a ski jumping coach to try and run a Nordic combined program, obviously they're gonna focus a lot more on the jumping and vice versa with the cross country athlete. So most teams, you'll get people from different backgrounds kind of combining together and making training plans. In Canada, it's especially at the grassroots level, it's kind of whatever we could get. Obviously, ski jumping, like finding a cross country coach in Canada isn't that hard. There's tons of qualified coaches, but there's a select handful that are qualified to coach ski jumping. So most of the time, we do have a ski jumping coach who's running the entire program. And at the grassroots level, obviously, they have knowledge of cross country skiing, and so they're able to do it, but they wouldn't be able to coach a higher level program, basically. So for myself, because we don't have, I'm never gonna find a Nordic combined coach, really, in Canada, I had a Canadian cross country coach and a Norwegian cross country coach, and then I had a Slovenian ski jumping coach, and then all three trainers worked together to create my training plans and programs.
COLIN HILDING: Obviously, any sport you're gonna have, audiences attach themselves to hockey here. It's not even necessarily in America, the same as it is with hockey in Canada. But what's the difference between a place like some of these countries in Europe, where Nordic combined is a very popular sport and what the young kids go after versus here in Canada?
NATHANIEL MAH: The biggest difference is for one, it's on TV. I mean, the hockey has that presence. Those guys are superstars because you turn on your TV every weeknight or weekend night and they're playing, right? And there's that idolisation of them. And that's totally understandable. But the thing about being in Europe is that's how it is in Europe. You know, those kids in Europe are turning on their TVs and they're seeing Nordic combined athletes competing on the weekend. You know, they're seeing them on billboards and commercials and things like that. So they have that presence and they have that exposure to the sport every day. Versus here, I mean, like we said, it's not a discharge sport. There's a few reasons for that. I mean, a TV network, you know, major Canadian TV network is not gonna play Nordic combined because they don't see that it's gonna make money, which is completely understandable. And it's, you know, if you also think about the time change for competing in Europe at what, 8, 9 AM, and that's what, 2 AM or something here. So it's, unless you're playing on rerun, it's, you're not gonna see it. So it's a few things like that, but yeah, in Europe, you see those kids idolizing, they get into the sport because they see an athlete like Eric Frenzel or Yarl Magnus-Rieber, you know, competing on the World Cup and all over the place. And so that's what's gonna bring them into the sport. They want to be the next Yarl Magnus-Rieber. So we just don't have that in Canada. And that's, there's a number of reasons why, like I've already said, but I mean, the biggest thing right now is we only have one working hala in Canada, and it was built yesterday. So we don't have anywhere to do the sport, which is a big part of it.
COLIN HILDING: With you and your background, was there an opportunity to compete on a national level and then work your way up? Like, how did you get to the point where you got to that World Cup?
NATHANIEL MAH: Yeah, I mean, you start really small, just local club cops in Calgary. So it's just against people you train every day, but it's preparing you to get into the mindset of what a competition is like. And then we started going down to the US. The US has a ton of great facilities, like especially in Park City, the host of the 2002 Olympics, that's, those hills are in great condition. So, I mean, probably from the age of nine, I started going down to the US and we would do what was called the springer tournée, which is just summer competition where basically every ski jumper, Nordic Amine athlete in North America gathers to compete. And they have levels from my age, nine years old, on the tiny ski jumps, all the way up to the Olympic-sized hills. And you get to see athletes like Bill DeMong and Tom Lodwick and Johnny Spillane, those Olympic gold medals, competing in the same competition series as you. So it was really cool to see that aspect of the sport. But because Nordic Amine is, or ski jump again, Nordic Amine are relatively small in North America, we're always travelling to go compete against other people. When I was growing up, there's probably 30 kids in the club. So going down to the States, you'd be competing against a couple hundred kids. So we always started travelling. So that's, I mean, for most athletes in sport, you probably don't start competing internationally until you're into your late teens. Whereas us, we start from, as basically as nine years old for me and younger for other athletes, right? And that's just because of the size in North America. And then you graduate from there. So the first, the next step in sport is the Continental Cup, which is the step down from World Cup. There is another level called Fist Cup, but North Americans aren't allowed to compete in it, unfortunately, just European nations. So most athletes would go from their club comps and their little national comps into something like a Fist Cup. And then from there, graduate to Continental and World Cup. So for me, I had to go from competing just against North Americans to a Continental Cup circuit, which is, you know, it's just a step down. So I think I was 15 when I did my first Continental Cup and I'm competing, because I think Bill DeMong was there and he's Olympic gold medallist from Vancouver. So I'm in this little suit, 15 years old, like never really seen Nordica Minot's true form going into a competition with 30 year olds, who this is their occupation full time. So that was a little bit of a learning curve. And it wasn't until I was probably 18 where I started feeling really comfortable and competitive on that Continental Cup scene. But that's kind of, you know, in our sport, that's just how you have to do it. You just kind of get thrown in the mix and more or less have to figure it out because we don't have kind of those normal ladders of competition like you'd see in Europe.
COLIN HILDING: Like you said, most sports, I mean, most of the people we talk to on here, they're like, oh, you know, I started competing around 15 or whatever, right? Junior circuits and for nine years old, I mean, I would really be curious what your reaction was like at that age. Was it all nerves? Like, oh, I don't belong here, I'm too young for this. Or did you have that moment of like, I'm a superstar, I'm competing against world-class athletes. I mean, do you remember the first time you were able to travel outside the country and compete on a multinational level?
NATHANIEL MAH: No, definitely. Like for me, I was that superstar. Like, I get to finally compete against it. At my level, I think I was a little above the rest. I don't want to toot my own horn, but I was at the top of my age group without a doubt. So for me to be winning all these competitions in Canada and then go to the States, I finally had that competition, really, that it was interesting. It was really close. I remember there's two US athletes, like it was Ben Barron, who's still a good friend today, and Will Rhodes, who also is a good friend today, were out there on Three Hills competing neck and neck. For me, that was awesome. I mean, I'm nine years old. I'm competing internationally against these new people I've never met. It's a really close, exciting competition. So yeah, I mean, that was great. And then we also, I mean, the fact that you get to meet other athletes from different nations, especially at such a young age, is crazy. Like making friendships that I still have today when I was nine years old. I don't think a lot of people get to do that in different sports. So it was a really cool part of being a ski jumper in North Carolina is that you get that. You get to do all that at such a young age, whereas other sports, you may never even reach that level to where you're competing internationally, right? So it was definitely cool for me.
COLIN HILDING: One of the things that I found just before I did this interview is there was actually a really great YouTube video that you put up. I think this was last year or the year before, which was just talking about in part how there isn't the same type of financial funding here in Canada for Nordica combined. Maybe you don't even have an answer to this. Do you know how it's determined? Why do some sports get more money thrown behind them, like figure skating or obviously hockey, we would understand, right? But even other minor sports like ski cross, how does an athlete get more support for that? And then how do you go about supporting yourself when you are training to be on the World Cup? For sure.
NATHANIEL MAH: Let me make something clear. There is not enough funding for sport in Canada, period. Doesn't matter what sport. Unless you're hockey, they have so much private funding that those guys are gonna be fine no matter what. But even in sports like speed skating, figure skating, they don't have that financial backing that they need. And when you're talking about an organisation like Nordic My Canada or Ski Jump in Canada, we especially do not have that support. The way the system works in Canada, plainly, I mean, there's obviously a lot of different factors, but plainly, it's based off of performance of your top male, female athlete. So if your top male and female athlete both get Olympic medals, you're gonna have a good four years. By next year, your sport's gonna be funded. It's gonna be good. It's gonna be good for you. If your sport gets zero medals, you can pretty much say goodbye to your funding. Nordica Mines has never had an Olympic medal in any year, and it doesn't matter. We've never had an Olympic medal.
COLIN HILDING: And that's the history of the Olympics, like as far back as Winter Olympics go.
NATHANIEL MAH: Yeah, there's never been a Canadian Nordica Mines athlete with an Olympic medal. So we've had great success. I mean, we've had athletes, especially on the ski jumping side, Horace Bulow, athletes like that, who have World Championships medals. World Cup wins. But if it's not an Olympic medal, it doesn't. That is what Canada is looking for. And that makes sense, because that's all that gets shown. I mean, every four years, you see those sports like Nordica Miners, ski jumping, that you don't see. So you got one chance to make an impact, but you got to do it. Whereas we're not there yet. So it's basically, it's trickled down economics, more or less. It's the sports that get medals get money. But then the question is, well, how are the sports that don't get money ever expected to get medals? It's a bit of a chicken before the egg scenario. So when we talk to organisations like OTP, On The Podium, or Can Fund, and we're saying, we have athletes that are developing, but they're 15 right now, they're showing a lot of promise, but we need to invest them. They're saying, well, you guys don't have any medals, so we're not going to give you anything. But then you're saying, well, how do we get medals without money and support? So it's kind of a broken system, but it's kind of just the one we have right now. So working with Cross Country Canada, Biathlon Canada, which I've been doing since my retirement, even those bigger organisations, we're still seeing that problem with funding. People like to see four-year plans because it's based off the Olympics, and people like to see progression in charts and numbers. And that's all good, but sometimes you can't really see how well an athlete is progressing just based off of numbers and graphs, right? And it's even harder when you see athletes, I mean, look at Alex Harvey from Cross Country Canada. Cross Country Canada, after the Sarah Renner, Becky Scott days, there was a lot of money. They were doing pretty well, and in the cellular time, they stopped getting those results. Every year, the funding got cut, and the same year that Alex Harvey wins a world championship medal, he gets fourth at the Olympics, and they cut their funding. Think about that. You have an athlete that just won a world championship, which is the same level as the Olympics. It is the step down. It's the next thing, and he's one position off the podium, and they say, well, too bad. You lost your funding.
COLIN HILDING: That's insane, because I remember one of the first interviews we ever did on here was a race walker named Evan Dunphy, who had come in, I think he came in fourth. He was bumped from the bronze medal. And again, just that one difference of one spot, and now it's like, okay, I'm struggling. How am I gonna get myself out there? How are we gonna get our funding? And you are looking at an entire sport. It's not even necessarily just yourself. I mean, did you see a lot of teammates who maybe had frustration? Or at any point, did you think to yourself, hey, maybe I'll put Nordic Combined aside, and I'll focus just on cross country or just on, is that normal that somebody would say, you know what, maybe there's gonna be a little bit more support if I just do cross country or just ski jumping?
NATHANIEL MAH: Yeah, it definitely crossed my mind switching to ski jumping. They do have a tiny bit more support than Nordic Combined. To put it clear, Nordic Combined receives zero dollars from any sort of government sport support. It's the only winter sport in Canada that's received zero funding, to put it in perspective. Ski jumping Canada, luckily enough, and thankfully enough, does receive a tiny bit. And I don't want to step on toes. We are very grateful for that support. It's not nearly enough to cover our athletes' expenses. They're still paying out of pocket, but it's something, right? So I was at that level where I could compete with the Canadian ski jumpers. And it crossed my mind that if I switched teams, I might have a team to train with. I'm going to have a coach that I don't have to find my own coach and everything. Travel is going to be helped with, accommodations are going to be sorted out for me. It would be easier. But for me, it's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to be an order combined athlete. And I felt that I had the potential to be a great order combined athlete, whereas in ski jumping, just based off my body type, I knew that maybe I could have some decent results at that continental cup level. But I was never going to be a truly successful World Cup athlete. There was just, I looked at my body, and I looked at the successful ski jumpers, and I knew it was just never going to happen for me. I did not get that genetic gene pool that is needed. So it's just not what I wanted to do. And I knew it would never be something that I would be happy doing. So if that meant, you know, having zero funding, zero support, zero help, but being able to do the sport, I love it. It's what paid off for me. But ultimately, I mean, the amount of teammates. I mean, when I was 17, I had four teammates. I had a team, I had a coach. They turn 18 and have the choice of, you know, going down the road of having zero money, zero help, trying to make it in a system that is basically set up against you, or going to school and kind of moving on with your lives. And so without a doubt, that makes more sense. And that's what they did. So, you know, that's why in the last, since I was 18 years old, I was one of the last Nordic Combined Athletes in the nation because of that, because you're set up in a system that isn't designed to support you or help you or continue longevity in sport. And I think what you see in Nordic Combined is becoming more common in a lot of other winter sports as well. I mean, if you look at continuation after age 16 in sport, the numbers are going down every single year. And people are asking, well, is that happening? Why are kids? Because they like video games and they want to watch TV and stuff like that. And I think the answer is because in Canada, we don't see being an amateur athlete as a career or as a life choice. You see a professional athlete as a career. If a kid grows up wanting to be a professional hockey player and make a living doing that, it's not this crazy idea. If you hear any other sport, if you hear an athlete growing up saying, I want to be a cross-country skier, I want to be a downhill skier and make a career doing that, it seems a little far-fetched. And I think in our society, it is seen as not a real career choice. I mean, even my parents, when I told them I wasn't going to go to school and I wanted to continue doing sport, it was terrifying for them. And it caused a lot of friction in the family because no parent in Canada ever expects that their son is going to be, or their daughter, is going to be able to be an amateur athlete and live a sustainably financial life. And it seems foreign in Canada, from not just from athletes and parents, but even from, I would say, the organisation set up to do it. They're not promoting longevity in sport and promoting that this is something that kids could actually grow up and do. It's basically until you are at the top of your sport, you're the 1%, you're the Olympic medallist, that's when you're going to be able to do this as a job. Until you're there, too bad, you gotta figure it out on your own. And so, I mean, there's very few people that will, yeah, there's very few people that are ever gonna reach those levels. Even if they had all the help in the world, just may not. That's the sad part about some sports, is just sometimes, no matter how hard you work, how much help you have, you're just never gonna be at that top level. But the sad thing is, people don't even get the opportunity to try.
COLIN HILDING: And you said you were one of the last Nordic combined athletes in Canada. I mean, when you made the decision that you wanted to retire from the sport, were you looking forward to, hey, there's all these things that I could do for the sport, even if I'm not on the skis? You know, what was sort of your game plan and going, I guess, from this point on, are you involved in training and just getting the word out about the sport?
NATHANIEL MAH: Yeah, so I'm actually on the board of Alberta Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined now. I work for Biathlon Canada as a, there's their marketing and communications consultant. I advise with Altius Nordic Ski Club, which is that really grassroots program we have in Calgary. And I'm now a member on the board of the Nordic Combined Canada. And I plan to be part of the board for Ski Jumping Canada next month. So yes, I am very involved. Just this morning, I was out actually at the Cabmore Nordic Centre, scouting a place for a potential new ski jump. It's just a really tiny one, but something that we can actually get, allow athletes to start to learn the sport on. So that's not why I retired. It's definitely like I had a bit of an exit strategy and felt that where I was as an athlete, I need to focus on myself and not the future of the sport. So it was definitely part of my exit strategy is to stay involved with the sport and hopefully ideally make a difference. And not just in Nordic and My Name's ski jumping, but in all amateur sport in Canada, I think there's a huge void there. And so if I can make some sort of difference on that level, that is my main goal. But at the end of the day, the reason I retired was for a few reasons, but the biggest was I never felt that I could be competing against these teams that have $5 million budgets, when I'm out there supporting myself through private sponsors, right? Like I realised that there is no way for me to ever reach the level I felt I wanted to be at with the amount of support I had. And so it just started to have an impact on my enjoyment of the sport. I, you know, it started to be spending six months in Europe by myself was not fun anymore. It just felt like work. And, you know, it just, yeah, it really took the enjoyment of the sport for me. And so that's a big part of why I left is because it's just, I didn't think I was ever able to be at that high level with the amount of support I had.
COLIN HILDING: Is there any type of fundraising that goes on for Nordic Combined in Canada? Like how is the private funding done? Is it just, you look for a business, do you want to throw this many thousands of dollars just to support our trip here? Or are there fundraising events that people can get involved with and just fans of the sport watching can, you know, do an auction or throw $20, $30 out there?
NATHANIEL MAH: At the moment, not really. We don't have any athletes. So like, we're not fundraising at the moment. Everything right now is based long-term and basically figuring out, you know, how to one, survive until we're able to have a facility where we can actually start to develop athletes and get kids involved with the sport. Right now, yeah, we don't have an athlete competing. So there's no fundraising really going on. When I was an athlete, it was a lot of private sponsors. So a lot of emailing and calling and never getting responses, but...
COLIN HILDING: So you're literally cold calling, you know, hey, we need to make this World Cup trip or whatever, and we don't have enough.
NATHANIEL MAH: Basically, yeah, it was more or less, I had a resume. It's honestly, it's the same as a job. I have my athlete resume. It shows, you know, the media statistics for Nordic Mind, how many people are watching TV when I'm on there competing, what their exposure is going to be like, you know, how I promote people on my social media, the campaigns I come up with. That all went into my more or less resume, you could call it. And then that's when I would be reaching out to different brands or sponsors and more or less trying to make deals. So it would be, you know, you give me $500 for a sticker on my helmet, and I'm going to promote you on my social media, and you'll get the TV side of things, and you'll get my personal following side of things, right? So that's basically how it was. And, you know, luckily enough, my parents were really supportive. And so when I couldn't get it from a private side, they were able to help me, which is huge. I definitely wouldn't have been able to do it without them. So, you know, I'm glad I come from a place of means, but I'm from one of the few, because-
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, think about all the other kids out there that don't have any type, anything, or maybe they just don't have the ambition to be sending all the emails themselves. Meanwhile, they know that there's athletes in other sports that have people doing that for them, right?
NATHANIEL MAH: Well, it's funny in winter. I mean, summer, I think, is a little bit more accessible. In winter sport, I guarantee you're not going to find, or sorry, I'm not going to guarantee that, but it's going to be very, very rare to find high-level winter sport athlete that isn't coming from a place of means. That's not, you know, hockey, obviously, there's programs set in place, you know, Timbitts Hockey, there's those organisations that are allowing kids and supporting kids to do that, which is amazing. You don't have that in other sports. If you look at Alpine Canada right now, I mean, their team fees are, like, it is crazy how much those national team athletes are paying a year, and that's coming from their parents. I know a lot of them personally, and I know that that is coming from their parents, and you could not do that sport even at, you know, a fifth level, that kind of that, like, early teenagers, you could not do that sport without the financial support of your parents. And that's just the situation it is, right? So there's no program set in place for that. It's not like other, if you look at countries like Europe, that there are programs where you don't need to be coming from a rich family to do these sports, right? So it's, yeah, it's crazy. To me, it's crazy. It's just like, there's other countries that make this possible and make it happen. Why can't we just do that? Like, just do what they do, follow their model. They've figured it out and they have success.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I mean, there's obviously been a lot of changes in Canada, you know, even, I guess, leading up to Vancouver. It must have been even worse before then, because you hear about all these, oh, it's really great, you know, since you own the podium and stuff like that before that even existed, but obviously still so much further to go. I'm guessing at this point, there's not really any chance of a Canadian athlete in Beijing, but is there potential, you think, for the following Winter Olympics that we might see somebody from Canada?
NATHANIEL MAH: No, we won't see a Nordic Amine athlete on the World Cup level for at least another decade or two. We have athletes that are practicing Nordic Amine as we speak. They're under that 13 years old right now, but they lost their facilities at Canada Olympic Park when they decided to close the ski jump. So, I mean, those athletes haven't been able to actually train on real ski jumps year round for, what, like five, six years now. The fact that they're still involved with this sport shows how much they love this sport. I mean, this winter, they were just jumping in Ramsey Park in Calgary on a snow bump. It's not a ski jump, just a hill with a little jump on it, and they were out there three nights a week ski jumping, or trying to, rather. So, for them to be ready in the next eight years for Olympics would be quite out of the question realistically. In my mind, until we have a full development pipeline and long-term development plan set up, we're not gonna have any athletes at the high level. So we need to have grassroots level programs, we need to have the facilities, it's gonna be the biggest thing. And then we need to have coaching infrastructure and programs set in place that we can promote the longevity of athletes in sport. So none of that's there right now. So first, we need to figure out all of that, then we need to find athletes, and then we need time for them to develop and grow. So it's gonna be, it's a long-term project, but we are hopeful, we do have these plans set in place. Nordic YYC, which is going to, the plan is to have ski jumping bath on and cross country at a facility, one facility in Calgary. You know, that is a plan and that is a long-term vision. So I am hopeful that there will be another Nordic YYC athlete in the future, but not in the near future. On the ski jumping side of things, however, we do have athletes that are performing extremely well. Mackenzie Boyklaus, Matthew Sukup. Mackenzie just had his best overall World Cup result last year. He finished ninth as a personal best, and he had the best individual results of any Nordic sport. That includes biathlon across country. And he has, I would say, they probably have 10% of the budget that those other sports do. So, you look at Matthew Sukup, who's a younger athlete coming up, he just got his first Top 30 of the World Cup, which is there's only a handful of Canadian ski jumpers ever do that. On the women's side, we had Abby Strait. She finished Top 30 this year in Russia. I mean, we have athletes in ski jumping that are performing at a high level and that have potential next year at the Olympics. I mean, it's not out of the question that McKenzie may be on the podium. That is a very real possibility. And the fact that there's been no increase in support is kind of mind boggling to me, despite the fact that he had the best results of any Nordic athlete from all five disciplines of sport. Right, like that's. So, Nordic mind nothing, but ski jumping, we still have athletes, and they need help, and they need to be supported without a doubt.
COLIN HILDING: And people can just tune in. I mean, if anything, from what you were saying, TV ratings actually do matter in this case. So people tune in, watch it during the Olympics, and people start to wonder, hey, what's going on here? There's Canadians. I mean, look at what happened even in a sport like tennis. It's not like anybody in Canada watched tennis before we had Milos Ranić and Jeannie Bouchard. So it takes one person getting on the podium, and all of a sudden, maybe an uptick in interest, and Nerdacombine's back in 2020 something, 2030 something, let's say.
NATHANIEL MAH: Well, I mean, yeah, you need that. You kind of need that one person. You need that Patrick Chan or that John Montgomery to do that. I mean, how many people knew what Skeleton was before he was drinking a beer on the streets of Whistler?
COLIN HILDING: You can see him right behind me. I've got a picture on my wall. I wasn't watching Skeleton before that.
NATHANIEL MAH: Exactly. You kind of need that person. And, you know, Mackenzie would hate me saying this, but he kind of is that person right now. And I really do feel, especially going to this next year, that if there's any Nordic athlete that needs support and that has the potential for Olympic medal would be him. So if you're listening, I would say go to Ski Jumping Canada, do some research. It's super easy to donate. It's a charity, so you can tax, you can use it on your taxes. I mean, yeah, because any athlete, it's him, he's got all the potential going for him. And I mean, that being said, any Nordic sport right now in Canada is struggling, and they all need the help and support that they can get. We've got a number of females in cross country, and a male that has the potential for Olympic medal, and in biathlon as well. Emma Lunder, she finished ninth as the top result last year. She was in the top 10, I think, three or four times. Her and Christian Gao were fourth in the mixed relay two years ago, and sixth this year. I mean, that is an Olympic event, but they have the potential at podium yet, and it's going completely overlooked by Canada. So it's crazy to me, but any Nordic sport right now has that potential, and they're just one step off. So it's just a matter of getting that following, and whether it be from individuals that feel like they can make a difference, that's going to go a long way. But it really needs to start from the top down, and there needs to be a better distribution of wealth within amateur sport. It needs to be focused on development and longevity, and not on the top 1%.
COLIN HILDING: We're going to get to our final set of questions here, but just before we do that, where can people follow you online or anything you want to plug for any of these organisations that they can follow?
NATHANIEL MAH: For sure. Yeah. Ski Jumping Canada has a new Instagram. We have Facebook. We have a website. Just Google it. You're going to find all of them. It's really easy. And those are up to date. We have people that are constantly letting everyone know how the athletes are doing, the results from the World Cups, what's going on in the off season. For Nordic Amine, we just have a website right now, but again, we don't have athletes. Honestly, my work for Nordic Amine Canada is not in the public side of thing. It is all behind the scenes. Everything we're doing is long term. So really, you can go check out the website. There's not a ton of interesting stuff going on there right now. And for my personal social media, I'm not very up to date these days with how much other work I'm doing. I mean, my job is social media for other people. So that's definitely where my focus is. But if you feel free, it's just my name on Instagram.
COLIN HILDING: It's funny because we have a final set of questions here. We actually take this from the Team Canada website. And what they do is they get athletes to fill out questionnaires. Some of the questions are more serious sports related, and some of them are just more fun, but they fill out in their own handwriting. There's pictures and everything. And you actually mentioned the one that I pulled up for you, which is Christian Gao. So maybe we can compare your answers here and see how you guys match up. So, first question, your favourite Olympic moment is? It could be any sport, even if you have a North American. Yeah, all Olympics, all time.
NATHANIEL MAH: I got it. I honestly, I have to say Bill DeMong in 2010, to see a North American standing on an Olympic gold medal podium for Nordic combined was insane. And especially because it was someone that I knew personally, you know, seen them at the jumps in Park City, seen them around, even had the opportunity to compete against him and then seeing him on that Olympic podium to me was crazy. Especially, you know, it's Vancouver. We were there personally. I was there watching. So yeah, that's...
COLIN HILDING: Oh, you were in attendance for it?
NATHANIEL MAH: Yeah, I was actually like in the stadium when he crossed the line. So it was... Yeah, that was wild. Definitely have to be it.
COLIN HILDING: How about this one? As a kid, my favourite sports team was?
NATHANIEL MAH: Probably just the Calgary Flames. Yeah, I mean, every kid in Calgary is going to probably either be stamp eaters or the Flames. So that would have had to be it.
COLIN HILDING: How about this one? If I could be any superhero, I would be?
NATHANIEL MAH: I could fly. I guess just, well, I feel like, you know, everyone would say Superman, because you can literally do all of them. I mean, how would you not? And for me, flying is the big one.
COLIN HILDING: See, you're the smarter one here because Christian answered Batman. So he wants to have zero powers, but be rich.
NATHANIEL MAH: It's not a bad way to go. I mean, you don't have to even be a Superman. You can just still be rich. And that's the worst things. But yeah, flying is the big one for me. So I'll say Superman.
COLIN HILDING: How about your favourite music artists are right now?
NATHANIEL MAH: I've been I've been listening to this Canadian artist, Jaguar Sun, super small and obscure, but I've just been listening to his music nonstop lately.
COLIN HILDING: What type of genre is it?
NATHANIEL MAH: It'd probably be like indie or alternative would be the yeah.
COLIN HILDING: I'm going to add it to my list because I'm always looking for stuff to listen to.
NATHANIEL MAH: Yeah, I think he's just out of somewhere in Ontario, I believe. But yeah, he's he's good stuff.
COLIN HILDING: I recommend if I could eat only one food for the rest of my life, it would be these are horrible.
NATHANIEL MAH: These are so hard. Are we talking like, like, well, I think like potatoes because you could survive off of them because every other like every you're going to die. Ice cream. Well, yeah, you're just going to die if you eat ice cream or pizza all the time. Like it's not sustainable.
COLIN HILDING: Christian answered cinnamon buns. I would have said dill pickles, but now you have me rethinking this whole question that you're the first person who's answered logically.
NATHANIEL MAH: I don't know. Like you try and eat cinnamon buns only for like two days. It's not going to go well. It's going to be horrible. Yeah, I think, I guess, I mean, for fun answer, probably like, yeah, probably pizza because it can like diversify it enough. Does it make it different every time? But like for like a reasonable answer, probably potatoes. No joke.
COLIN HILDING: Potatoes is my new favourite answer because it makes sense.
NATHANIEL MAH: Well, I'm just thinking about logically.
COLIN HILDING: Have you ever seen the movie The Martian with Matt Damon?
NATHANIEL MAH: Yeah, exactly.
COLIN HILDING: He just yeah. It's potatoes for two years.
NATHANIEL MAH: Yeah, it's the that's why I'm like, well, it's got to be I guess it's got to be that.
COLIN HILDING: Do you have a favourite place to compete of all the places you've competed around the world? What was your favourite place?
NATHANIEL MAH: I really like competing in Planica, Slovenia. That's where I based out of. So whenever we had a competition there, it was like a home competition. All my best results are from there. I was, you know, 27th in Summer Grand Prix. It was the first time I saw Summer Grand Prix points. I was 26th, and then the Condom Cup there. That's still my best Condom Cup result. So like, you know, home advantage. And that's where I train most of the time. So it wasn't like the most amazing place in the world. I'd say like Seyfeld is probably my favourite place to be, to compete. But just from a performance side, it was definitely Planitza. That was home.
COLIN HILDING: Here's a final question here. And this is an interesting one, because I have a feeling that there's one or two. There might be an obvious answer here, but maybe you're going to go a completely different direction. If you could be an Olympian in any sport other than your own, which sport would you choose?
NATHANIEL MAH: Geez, probably freestyle skiing.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, yes.
NATHANIEL MAH: Just because, okay, I'm not going to say that they don't train hard, because I know that those guys train hard, okay? I'm well aware of that. But the fact that there are free days where they can just go ski pow, or heli-ski and get paid, and that's also considered training and their job, that sounds pretty good to me. So that would probably be it, because I mean, I alpine ski for fun and tour for fun, and those guys do it for a living. So yeah, I'd probably have to go with that one.
COLIN HILDING: Again, smart answers. You might be the smartest person to ever answer these questions on the show.
NATHANIEL MAH: I don't know about that. I might just be looking at them in a different way. There's lots of smarter athletes to answer these questions.
COLIN HILDING: It's been great having you on the show. I mean, it's always great to be able to hear about a new sport, especially one that I've sort of seen maybe every once in a while in the Olympics, but don't even fully understand. So I mean, you've given us a good explanation of Nordic combined as a sport. It's definitely something to be checking out in Beijing. And it's great to be able to hear just a lot of the behind the scenes stuff of the sport as well. So thank you so much for being on the show today.
NATHANIEL MAH: Yeah, for sure. I appreciate you taking the time and let me share some knowledge about the Nordic world to some of your listeners.
COLIN HILDING: And big thanks to Nathaniel for joining us here today. If you are listening to this episode, but you didn't see any of our posts on social media, you can follow us on social media, on Facebook, Twitter, and we are going to tag Nathaniel and as well some of the organisations he's involved with now. And that brings it into episode number 98. We have episode 99 coming up next, which will not say who the next athlete we're gonna be interviewing is, although we do have a few that we're lining up at the moment. I'll kind of leave that as a surprise. We are again looking to introduce new sports, so we've never talked to anybody before, so stay tuned for when that episode drops. And then following that, it's gonna be episode number 100, which exact plans what we're gonna be doing, we won't tell you, but you can expect some type of best of, and hopefully we may even be able to play clips of all of our interviews and all the episodes we've had over the last 50, because our last best of episode was at number 50. And we're counting down the days now to Tokyo 2020, coming to you one year in the future from 2021. And as I said at the beginning, you can follow us on social media, as well as subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, wherever you can find us. And stay tuned soon for episode number 99 coming to you soon, as well as episode 100, and then Tokyo 2020 slash 2021.
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