Kokoso said:
Kalla beat Norewgian - hence she's doper. Lol.
lol. yet, when looking at performance flags, i like to take a more analytical, longer view before jumping...
1. did kalla surprise every one today and by how much ? she certainly did and her advantage margin was around 5% over a runner-up legend of the sport that usually wins the discipline. 5% is quite significant, particularly, when it is over bjoergen who usually puts 5-10% almost over all non-norwegians.
2. did kalla have a ski prep advantage ? it does not look that way, though, post race she said the skis felt great. i say no, b/c if the swedes did have superior skis as a team, some other swedish girls would be closer. yet they were at least 1.5 min back. Also, today was not the weather that would typically be hard to figure - firmly below zero..
3. how did her gap to the runner up behave ? it was consistently increasing to max by the finish. a sign of her clearly superior aerobic state over EVERYONE.
4. did the course today particularly favour kalla ? Nope, at 60 kg she is not johaug (47kg)
all above enhance each other as a flag, yet would be consistent with her high altitude advantage if it is the one...then, on the other side are some balancing considerations.
who was practically the only one who could challenge the norge machine before in SKATING ? yep, only kalla. did she recently show us a sample of what we saw today ? yep, in sochi. is kalla a nobody like duerr suddenly bursting into the elites. no, by any stretch of anyone's imagination.
all i am saying is that an eyebrow shall be raise,
but not more. what we saw today is consistent with someone being ahead in conditioning with still 1 weak to falun. it is quite possible that the norwegian gals form is scheduled to max a tad later...then, if kalla in falun will have shown no edge we saw today, then it was a NOTHING
if she does - i'd raise a second brow.