Discgear said:Good and valid points. If I may stet into your and Dukoff's discussion, one parameter not discussed is skiing technique. It seems to be consensus that the Norwegians were late adopters of the skating technique. Alsgaard though, was a very good skate technician, especially later in his career. Dählie and Ulvang was much more about the raw power.
Despite his technical shortcomings Dählie took 8 medals in the Skate discipin, and if you also count combined pursuit, where half the distance is in skate, you can add another 5 medals in skate during the 90s.
Gold 1992 Albertville 50 km Skate
Gold 1998 i Nagano 50 km Skate
Silver 1994 i Lillehammer 30 km Skate
Gold 1991 Val di Fiemme 15 km Skate
Silver 1995 Thunder Bay 50 km Skate
Silver 1997 Trondheim 30 km Skate
Bronze 1993 Falun 50 km Skate
Bronze 1999 Ramsau 30 km SKate
Gold 1992 i Albertville 15 km combined pursuit
Gold 1992 i Albertville 15 km combined pursuit
Silver 1998 i Nagano 15 km combined pursuit
Gold 1993 Falun 25 km combined pursuit
Gold 1997 Trondheim 25 km combined pursuit
Torgny Mogren was a very good skater, as were most of the swedes, that is actually one major explanation to the Swedish success in the late 80s. American Bill Koch invented the technique but the Swedes were early dopters.
This video is very revealing both in terms of glide and technique from WC Falun 1993, the last individual medal for the Swedes in the 90s (except Ordinas bronze in 1995 which was probably fishy). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi4tscwk9P0
I’ve made time marks, it's from the same section of the race so you could look at the glide and the technique.
Mogren 2,02 (66)
De Zolt (67) 5.20
Smirnov (69) 5,55
Dählie (78) Ulvang (77) and Mühlegg (75) 8.00
The last guy in that quartet is Jan Ottosson, the worst skater in the Swedish team.
This clip is before the last lap when Dählie is still in the lead and most skiers don’t show much fatigue, so I guess it’s a quite fair example of both glide and skating technique. Enjoy!
Ver interesting, thakns!