They have what it takes to compete against the world's best.
Now they have to narrow the performance gap.
To do that, they need more of the nation's high-performance sporting knowledge and capital channelled in their direction.
Most of New Zealand's five-strong national cross-country ski team are aged in their 20s and still have a long way to go to reach their peak.
New Zealand has not had a cross-country skier at the Winter Olympics since Madonna Harris, also an Olympic cyclist, competed in Calgary 1988.
The present crop of athletes are not without talent and commitment, but competition for the nation's high-performance training resources is fierce.
Sport and Recreation New Zealand invests in and supports elite sport through the New Zealand Academy of Sport, but that support is contestable and mainly campaign-based.
Sparc this month begins the process of determining which sports get support in 2010, with the decisions due on November 18.
The criteria include creditable performances at Olympic, Commonwealth or world cup/world championship levels.
Katie Calder (28) of Tauranga is Harris' likely successor in Vancouver next year after meeting the Olympic A qualifying standard in international races earlier this year.
She now has a International Federation of Skiing-subsidised start in world cup events this northern hemisphere winter.
The New Zealand Cross Country Skiing Association has chosen four more elite athletes to compete in various northern hemisphere races over the next three months, in the hope Calder might have company at Vancouver.
United States-based Ben Koons (23) is a strong qualifying prospect after missing by just half a point during the Winter Games in August.
Andy Pohl (20), of Dunedin, Andrea Fancy (28), of Wellington, and Nat Anglem (36), of Christchurch, also have the ability to meet the standards, according to NZCCSA chairman John Alexander.
The association is confident its athletes and facilities have earned international respect.
Now they need financial support from home.
"It is possible to get by while racing by sleeping on couches, doing dishes, hitching rides with other teams, etc," Koons said in a recent interview.
"But your performance suffers and it is not feasible when you are racing at the world cup level.
"A realistic figure for racing in Europe for three months would be about $20,000, not including equipment."
Some support presently comes from Snow Sports New Zealand and its cross-country steering group, which helps pay administration costs and gives other practical assistance.
But while major teams, such as those from Canada, the United States and European nations, travel with large entourages, including specialist coaches, a physiologist and wax technicians, New Zealanders tend to do for themselves.
Athletes usually find work at an overseas base - Pohl is in Canmore, Canada while Calder's base is Davos, Switzerland - to earn local currency to pay competition and wax expenses.
They take time off work without pay so they can race and earn FIS points to qualify for major competitions like the World Championships or the Winter Olympics.
Because they are widely dispersed, the Kiwi athletes have no common coaching programme or sponsor.
Alexei Sotskov, who has dual Russian-American citizenship, coaches team members while they are in New Zealand and also travelled with team members to Continental Cup races in Australia this year.
Sotskov and Alexander are negotiating a New Zealand team camp in Finland before the end of the year.
The final piece of the jigsaw puzzle is the Snow Farm.
It is no secret the owners, John and Mary Lee, want to retire after 30 years in the snowsports industry.
So the Pisa Alpine Charitable Trust has been formed to buy the land, with the aim of transferring it to the Queenstown Lakes District Council for designation as a recreation reserve to be held in perpetuity for various user groups.
