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Maybe I'm selling him a bit short, but the other 2 were either a mass start or a pursuit on a rather easy lap, so it's hard to really gauge his ability as a distance stiker by looking at those 2 results. That said, he seems to have a good engine.
I am not aware he had any problems. Infact prior to season it sounded all his test values where in top. Ofcourse he is always better than his younger brother during preseason. Looking at the underlying statistics his preformance are not that as bad as his results but still the situation is not good for him. He was out of Hochfilzen relay team and already before Annecy experts like Ola Lunde demanded to replace Tarjeij with Endre Stroemsheim who dominates the IBU Cup. Now when Dale won and Stromaheim keep getting good IBU results the situation is even more critical. I read though Norway can enter 6 athletes per event in the Worlds if all athletes are top 15 in the overall which is likely to save him this time. But he really needs to up his game in January because otherwise he may be gone forever. Norway is reluctant put rescuers and to let older athletes compete in IBU cup. An example is Bogetveit who finished second in IBU Cup overall last year. The federation basically said they where not going to give him any more rescoures or opportunities but offered him a coaching position if he choose to retire (which he accepted).
There are hard tracks there, but as far as I know the hardest ones aren't the kind of shorter laps that the Fis likes.
Yeah, too short laps influence the results in individual starts a bit too much for my taste.
Ilar was 6th in Lillehammer 20k classics. Probably benefitted from the easy course but still a good result and she is not a sprinter so I guess she could do good in a hard race aswell. Ribom should be able to preform in distance race aswell even if she only preformed in sprint the last year. Then of course the big question mark is Svahn who now has done 3 races with mixed results. Looked okay in two sprints, one she won against poor competition and third behind Sundling and Svendsen in the second. Then she was awful in a skate distance race.
Yeah, Sweden is in a weird position with only 2 real distance skiers, but multiple sprinters who can perform well in distance races under the right circumstances (as you have mentioned before). How are the exact rules for the WC when it comes to the amount of skiers you can bring? Is there a limit to the overall number of skiers or just the max4 per race + the extra slot for the WC?
If I am not misstaken there is a limit of 12 skier per nation/gender + any reign champion but then this skier cannot be used in any other race (like Northug 2017 who was outside of Norways squad but did the sprint and 50k). Realistically it’s only a problem for Norwegian men as they would like 4 sprinters, 4 classics specialist, 4 freestyle specialists and a few more. But in the Olympics it’s was changed to 8 last so compared to that it’s a luxury.
Plus sprints seem to have the most carryover to biathlon and vice versa. From what I know the skiing training is also similar, more intensity and less volume than distance skiers.
Curious to see what Ida Dahl can do on the classic mass starts. She also won a classic race that finished on a climb that is 6kms at 8.6% last year in the ski classics, so her engine should hold up on the Alpe Cermis, if she actually races the whole thing.
If the skip the technical zone so that they she could double pole the entire race that would be interesting , if she is forced to diagonale I guess the result would be similar to Davos. Atleast we will be able to compare her performances with Slind.
Yeah, no idea how good her diagonal stride actually is, she is a double poling powerhouse and would really beneft from a lack of technical zones.
Svensson looked promising in Beitostölen but next week he missed the qualification in the Scandinavian cup. And he hasn’t done any distance race since the national opening (which he did as training) so you are not the only one curious. Last time in Val Mustair he double pooled the classics race and got his best result ever.
Fis once again ruining everything. The gaps after the sprint would be so short that the loop length wouldn't be a huge problem. We don't have enough snow for proper, wide loops so let's just make it a mass start seems to be their motto.
It doesn’t make sense to change the race formats because if that. I guess the 2,5 loop takes like 6-7 minutes which is well enough. It’s a absolutely ridiculous descion. From a sporting perspective you can argue that a mass start is better but you cannot change it 4 days before the start for a bogus reason.
The have done the same with the mess that was the mass start in Obersdorf a few years ago. Way too narrow tracks for a mass start, pretty much a rollerski race on snow, and Ustiugov ended up crashing and having to leave the Tour because of his injury later on. IMO the FIS is just totally clueless when it comes to what is reasonable and what is good for the sport.
I am curious how it looks in Oberstdorf this year. To be honest it seems Oberstdorf is not suited for CC in the beginning of January or the organizer doesn’t give a damn. The short course they use on Tour de Ski is a joke, they should use the Burgstall terrain or the Zimmeroy part and not this stupid golf course. The 2,5km is not even 2,5 more like 2,1 (the Finnish NC measured the course during worlds, because obviously having strong skiers like Herola and Hirvonen it’s important they ski full distance). The programme this year would require atleast 3,3 loop but preferably the 5k loop.
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