US cross country ski team gets its wish with two additional slots

Two more spots for US cross country ski team

The U.S. cross country ski team will get to take two more athletes to the Vancouver Olympics.

Holly Brooks of Anchorage, Alaska, and Garrot Kuzzy of Minneapolis were added to the team Tuesday with expanded quotas received by the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association.

The 10-member team is still much smaller than the 17 cross-country skiers the U.S. took to Turin, the result of the new Olympic quota system that allows nations that are dominant such as Norway and Germany to still take large contingents to the Winter Games.

The Americans, while vastly improved to the point they expect medals next month, are not among the heavyweights, so their team is much smaller. But they were able to add two athletes because some of the stronger nations didn’t use all their quota spots, resulting in a reallocation.