Re:
Cloxxki said:
Oestberg being of a lesser slight build than Johaug, may well have put in a higher W/kg performance here. Not bad for an absolute top sprinter. More suspect than Johaug, as she was out-skiing all the non-sprinters by a good margin.
Johaug being so slight does offer her some ski-tech rules advantages in my opinion. Low drag having full sized skis, easy to get grip in classic as her high tempo requires little transfer of energy through the grip zone.
Kowalczyk more and more looks to have gone pan e aqua. If so, it's worth 3 minutes over 15km. If this is a factor, I suspect she's really only gone partly clean. How much would full Bassons clean vs. full Armstrong *** be worth in a race like this? Certainly more than the gaps at the front.
Not sure how talented Bassons was vs Armstrong's talents, but you can't compare the two sports, race gaps wise. If you tried to do what Johaug did today, for example, in a bike race, you would blow to smithereens before you reached the finish. I doubt Kowalczyk would just now, all of a sudden, be racing clean. I think she lost motivation and she's been battling some form of depression in the last coupe of seasons. She said so publicly. Her form has steadily dropped since Sochi. I think her height was reached in that 10km classic, just like Cologna in the 15km classic the very next day. Neither of them has won a race since then, if memory serves me right. Maybe I am wrong, maybe they are cleaner, but they've won everything there is to win, and they've single handedly put their respective countries on the map and made themselves extremely popular. That may be completely off on my part, but it's certainly possible.
Look at Legkov and Chernousov. Say what you will about the Russians, but their lives have completely changed since Sochi. Legkov, from a skiing standpoint, had a injury and illness filled pre-season and ski season last year, and this year he changed coaches after like 5 or 6 seasons of working with Knauthe and Burgermeister. He's slowly bringing his form up, but I am not sure when and if he finds his old form back. He won the most important race of his life, the Sochi 50, and then ended 2014 on a high, finishing 3 overall. I think having an Olympic gold probably relaxed him too much and he too lost some motivation. Chernousov changed coaches, now coached by Vegard Bitnes (a Norwegian), got married, has been training by himself and/or traveling around Europe training in different, ever changing groups. That's not easy to do. I think this year being a non-championship year might also play a big role.
The biggest shock for me is how horrendous the Swedish men have been this year. Sure, Halfvarsson has been sick, Richardsson focusing on marathons, so too Olsson, but Hellner is mysteriously on a funk, so too Peterson. Nelson, one of the heroes of 2014, has completely disappeared. Joensson is still fairly competitive in sprints, but he is slowly making way for younger sprinters. Where is everyone else? The guys at the tour de ski are waaaay back or getting sick one after the other. Northug jokingly said that perhaps the Swedes should bring back Per Elofsson back to racing. I thought that was pretty funny. Another little poke by Northug on the Swedes. Seriously though, maybe they should bring back Elofsson, Fredriksson...even Svan and Wassberg!
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram