Doping in XC skiing

[AmRacer]

Just watching a replay of the women's 50km - what a ridiculous first lap. All I could think of was Mühlegg *** ing off in the 30km in 2002 lol

It has been like this for many years.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

And in the Scandinavian Tour a few years ago they were as blatant as having a point-to-point race in heavy snow where they put machines out to clear the tracks right in front of their own skiers.

A lot of good points, but this is very wrong. The point-to-point race during the Scandinavian Tour in was not raced in heavy snow and Bolshunov won that race solo (search for ‘Bolshunov Meråker’ on YouTube for the summary of that race). There were some «Machines» involved in this race as they had camera scooters being just in front of the leaders and technically would give some draft. I don’t know if that happened in the women’s class as well, but in the FIS summary video on YouTube you can see that Bolshunov is going very close to the scooter after he dropped the last Norwegians, so the machines was not there to benefit the home skiers..

I think the snowfall race you think about is the chasing start in Trondheim. It was on the normal laps and Bolshunov lost a clear lead because he had klister and the Norwegian did not. I think he lost like more than 2 minutes and it was a complete wax fiasco from the Russians. However I don’t remember seeing any machinery out in the course that day, and it also doesn’t make any practical sense at all to “clear the tracks” with machinery ahead of the skiers as the snow need time to settle after being groomed. If you send out the grooming machines a minute ahead of the skiers during snowfall it should only lead to the course collapsing and being much more soft and worse conditions than if you have a couple of centimeters fresh snow on top of solid tracks.

So I think this point about Norway sending out machinery to clean the tracks for the home athletes are somewhat of a fake memory. I just wanted to point that out, as there are enough real things (like asthma misuse, pushing rules with ski testing/waxing etc, course design in Trondheim and so on) to be angry with.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

A lot of good points, but this is very wrong. The point-to-point race during the Scandinavian Tour in was not raced in heavy snow and Bolshunov won that race solo (search for ‘Bolshunov Meråker’ on YouTube for the summary of that race). There were some «Machines» involved in this race as they had camera scooters being just in front of the leaders and technically would give some draft. I don’t know if that happened in the women’s class as well, but in the FIS summary video on YouTube you can see that Bolshunov is going very close to the scooter after he dropped the last Norwegians, so the machines was not there to benefit the home skiers..

I think the snowfall race you think about is the chasing start in Trondheim. It was on the normal laps and Bolshunov lost a clear lead because he had klister and the Norwegian did not. I think he lost like more than 2 minutes and it was a complete wax fiasco from the Russians. However I don’t remember seeing any machinery out in the course that day, and it also doesn’t make any practical sense at all to “clear the tracks” with machinery ahead of the skiers as the snow need time to settle after being groomed. If you send out the grooming machines a minute ahead of the skiers during snowfall it should only lead to the course collapsing and being much more soft and worse conditions than if you have a couple of centimeters fresh snow on top of solid tracks.

So I think this point about Norway sending out machinery to clean the tracks for the home athletes are somewhat of a fake memory. I just wanted to point that out, as there are enough real things (like asthma misuse, pushing rules with ski testing/waxing etc, course design in Trondheim and so on) to be angry with.

You are right in that I was conflating the pursuit in Trondheim (in classic) with the Meråker race (which didn't end up as a point to point after the weather intervened, and was in skate) and you are right to pull that up as I had the wrong race in mind (and as you acknowledge, there was a race that fit the criteria I described but was misremembering which it was), but while I can't find more than a very short summary from FIS which understandably excises anything that might be commentable upon, a brief look at the posting on the regular Nordic thread from that day shows the following:

Anybody else watching the comedy show in Granåsen?

Yeah, cleaning the course for their own skiers, what a joke! There are people on track everywhere except in front of Bolshunov...

That's some of the dirtiest hometown cooking that I've seen in a long time. If the weather was better they'd probably get helicopter support like F. Moser in that infamous TT...

And they actually accused the snowmobiles of giving Bolshunov the draft in the mass start a few days ago. Bolshunov and the rest of the Russians have awful skis, it would have been difficult for him regardless, but ridiculous home cooking. Also in the sprint, when Valnes admitted he let Golberg go ahead at the finish to ensure he got more seconds. Look at the top 10, 8 Norwegians. If climate change doesn’t kill this sport, Norwegian hegemony most certainly will.

A shame that Bolshunov will lose the tour like this and will now have pressure the rest of the way for the overall World Cup.

Well nothing new here. Norwegians in XC skiing are the worst when it comes to unsportsmanship behavior. So as disgusting as it was, nothing to be surprised. That is just what they are like.
Anyway, did not matter in the end. Russians totally blew it today with their skies.

It is very true that Russia completely botched the ski preparation that day and it likely was a moot point, but the Norwegians were visibly and openly cleaning the tracks in front of their own skiers and regardless of the efficacy (or not) of this as an advantage, it was clear enough for multiple people to comment on.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

but the Norwegians were visibly and openly cleaning the tracks in front of their own skiers and regardless of the efficacy (or not) of this as an advantage, it was clear enough for multiple people to comment on.

Ah yes, that would be the course patrol (the quote from DenisMenchov) then, which usually is local juniors. That could definitively have happened in a way that would look (/would be) very biased towards the Norwegians. It was first and foremost your claim of using "machines" ("they put machines out to clear the tracks right in front of their own skiers.") that triggered me, because it's quite obvious that never happened.

 

[DenisMenchov]

Thank you for a rich and insightful post. I never knew many of these details. But it sounds a lot like the reason I suggested: All the XC events measure the same thing (and most monuments and GT do the same in cycling). We just have an illusion of versatility?

I'm not suggesting that he is not a good/great athlete, not at all.

I also listen to the real science in sport podcast where one XC expert from Norway said that the skiis can decide up to 5% of the finishing time?! Not sure if I understood him correctly, because if the difference between skiis are so big and norway is so much better/having more resources for/willing to win at all cost, then the race itself is kinda mooted apart from the Norwegians with the same skiis (?)

If you watched 50km for Men on Saturday you could see the difference the skiis make. On one side you have Iversen from Norway and then on the other you have Korostelev, who was an independent athlete. In the start list it doesn't look like Korostelev is at a disadvantage here, You can think, wow, he has the same chance as everyone else. But if you look deeper Iversen has a full Norwegian support of wax technicians with who knows how many tests performed and Korostelev has, well, maybe one or two guys. And then you see the Norwegians just inching further and further away on every downhill section and you see Korostelev double polling like crazy to close that gap and eventually it breaks him, he gets dropped from the group and is now sliding even further away. In the end results it looks like Iversen destroyed Korostelev, but in reality you had a guy riding a 2010 road bike and his major rivals riding 2026 state of art bike.