Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[BullsFan22]

So according to Diggins she feels good it is just something she cannot control (like waxing and conditions). She tried to stay positive and keep a good mindset (“I got the chance to training on running herringbone”)

Kerttu Niskanen also blamed the skis, but the fact is she’s an awful descender and probably slided all her grip wax far away.

Not surprising Karlsson won, she likes these conditions and the shape is good. Will be interesting if she can maintain or extend the lead tomorrow, generally she is better at pacing in longer race.

I haven’t read anything in local media about a return of Tour if Scandinavia, they did it very bad last time, among other thing having the uphill sprint in Åre without booking sufficient numbers of hotel rooms. Instead I think they will do a trip to North America racing in Canmore, Minneapolis and Cable. Of course this was before the idea of FIS Games (which I guess still is on even if heard nothing about any possible organizers, Norway like to host it 2028 though).

The NA races are on next season's calendar.

 

[Mayomaniac]

So according to Diggins she feels good it is just something she cannot control (like waxing and conditions). She tried to stay positive and keep a good mindset (“I got the chance to training on running herringbone”)

Kerttu Niskanen also blamed the skis, but the fact is she’s an awful descender and probably slided all her grip wax far away.

Not surprising Karlsson won, she likes these conditions and the shape is good. Will be interesting if she can maintain or extend the lead tomorrow, generally she is better at pacing in longer race.

I haven’t read anything in local media about a return of Tour if Scandinavia, they did it very bad last time, among other thing having the uphill sprint in Åre without booking sufficient numbers of hotel rooms. Instead I think they will do a trip to North America racing in Canmore, Minneapolis and Cable. Of course this was before the idea of FIS Games (which I guess still is on even if heard nothing about any possible organizers, Norway like to host it 2028 though).

If they wanna go to America they should probably take a page out of Alpine Skiing's book and have races in the Rocky Mountains at the start of the season, when venues in central Europe still struggle with lack of snow. Have those races in Utah or Colorado where people actually practice the sport (isn't Brennan from Park City?). You havve venues in Soldier Hollow, Keystone and Frisco, so you could clearly do something there.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Perhaps Diggins still hasn’t recovered from the effort in Davos two weeks ago. There they had to scrape her off the snow.

As far as I know it was because she didn't blink on the final descent, her eyelids froze and she could no longer open her frozen eyes for some time after the finish.

 

[BullsFan22]

As far as I know it was because she didn't blink on the final descent, her eyelids froze and she could no longer open her frozen eyes for some time after the finish.

And after almost every classic race, her skis/wax get the blame?

 

[OJRvE]

The NA races are on next season's calendar.

Yeah that’s were I picked it up. But have you seen any later draft than this one. I think it’s is from spring 2021 or something.

https://assets.fis-ski.com/image/upload/v1622648679/fis-prod/assets/draft_WC_Calendar_CC_2023-25.pdf

 

[Mayomaniac]

And after almost every classic race, her skis/wax get the blame?

Nah, I was talking about the problems she had in Davos after winning the race.
If course her classic technique isn't great, just look at her skiing!

 

[BullsFan22]

No, I get you. Obviously her technique is awful, it was even worse when she was younger. The thing is the US ski team doesn’t work on technique, they are there mostly for logistical help. Her personal coach is actually one of the national team coaches, but I doubt he cares enough about her technique.

Julia Kern has the best technique in the us women’s team, both classic and skate. On the men’s it’s Gus Schumacher. Ogden is usually better in classic, but yeah, didn’t expect a 6th from him. A top 20 if everything fell into place, but not a top 6. Others like Cyril Fändrich also seemed to benefit from rocket skis. In fact, three Swiss men finished in the top 20. German team seemed to have struggled, both men and women.

 

[Tricycle Rider]

Am only just now watching replays of the Oberstdorf races - the only thing more disheartening than watching the Norwegians win practically everything is seeing no snow. No snow in Bavaria (I lived in Bavaria many moons ago) in winter is a sad, sad sight.

 

[Mayomaniac]

No, I get you. Obviously her technique is awful, it was even worse when she was younger. The thing is the US ski team doesn’t work on technique, they are there mostly for logistical help. Her personal coach is actually one of the national team coaches, but I doubt he cares enough about her technique.

Julia Kern has the best technique in the us women’s team, both classic and skate. On the men’s it’s Gus Schumacher. Ogden is usually better in classic, but yeah, didn’t expect a 6th from him. A top 20 if everything fell into place, but not a top 6. Others like Cyril Fändrich also seemed to benefit from rocket skis. In fact, three Swiss men finished in the top 20. German team seemed to have struggled, both men and women.

Wait, the American team doesn't work on technique? I guess they have a rather liberal approach of just providing the logistical framework and letting everyone do his own thing, but that sounds like a lot of untapped potential to me.
I mean, Cyril is a talented guy, but I rate him in skating races, not classic. Look at how much time the lost to Nöckler a few weeks ago in the Alpen Cup (over 1min and over 2min last spring in Sappada when Nöckler also won the race) and the young Italians usually also finish ahead of him in classic races. The guy is a top 15 classic skier in the Alpencup on a good day, so this one is clearly an outliner and mainly down to the Swiss team having awesome skis.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Am only just now watching replays of the Oberstdorf races - the only thing more disheartening than watching the Norwegians win practically everything is seeing no snow. No snow in Bavaria (I lived in Bavaria many moons ago) in winter is a sad, sad sight.

The weather has been brutal for the last 2-3 weeks. Today the had around 15°C and rain. I have to say that the race organizers did what they could under those circumstances.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Ok, that's a fair point. I hope you know that Diggins would boss that kind of event in Toblach, those tracks are like her backyard...

Sure, but what do you think the 40km of classic before that are for?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

OK, so listening to Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Winterton used Karlsson's performance today to illustrate "doesn't this just show how much harder it is to win a pursuit or a mass start than a time trial".

Well yes, when you are a distance specialist with no sprint finish, of course that's the case (unless you are a Therese Johaug level outlier). I get it, Patrick, you love Northug (remember, it's his individual start wins that shut up a lot of his haters) and don't know how to commentate on individual starts because you have to learn something about athletes outside the World Cup top 5, but Mike actually does know how to commentate these races and finds stuff out about those athletes (he was giving us bits of information about Bergane and Kälin throughout the early part of the race), so let him do it and you can concentrate on selling the adrenaline in the races where the front 5 are always on screen, capiche?

It's like having a permanent audio track of Schlickenrieder's thought process, if he had an unhealthy obsession with American Things in general, and Jessica Diggins in particular.

 

[Mayomaniac]

So how are the rules for the pursuit tomorrow? Is it one of those weird pursuits with the athletes starting according to today's stage result (and not the gc) but in the end the individual overall skiing time counts for the gc (I remember that kind of stuff happening in Toblach) or will the stage result count for the gc (as it probably should)?

 

[BullsFan22]

The start times are based only off of today’s race. As far as bonus seconds/tour points/WC points…I have no idea. Not sure FIS knows either…

 

[Mayomaniac]

The start times are based only off of today’s race. As far as bonus seconds/tour points/WC points…I have no idea. Not sure FIS knows either…

As far as I know bonus seconds are only awarded in the classic mass start in Val di Fiemme, at the bonus seconds sprint. But as far as what's gonna count for the gc, the stage result or just the fastest skiing time, no idea.
It's FIS doing FIS stuff, they make the UCI look like the greatest sports federation ever.

 

[search]

should be only the skiing time which counts for GC - that's what they did in Toblach two years ago at least, and I also can't really see another way to handle this.

 

[Bavarianrider]

What an absolute dogshit of a race.

 

[Mayomaniac]

What an absolute dogshit of a race.

I only looked at the results a few minutes ago, must have been pretty bad...

 

[Mayomaniac]

At least guys like Roethe and Moch gained a ton of time on Klaebo today.
Did nobody tell the Norwegians that the pure stage time counte for the gc? On one hand it's nice to see someone like Kaebo being punished for racing passive, but you'd think that Krüger would have had an incentive to ski hard from the start.
Klaebo needs hope that the lightweights don't do well in the classic sprint and smash the classic mass start in Val di Fiemme, because starting the Alpe Cermis stage with only a small lead while not being in last year's monster shape could be a bit of a problem.

Well, I hope the women see that and draw the right conclusion.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Lmao what a mess.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Lmao what a mess.

No surprise, FIS doing FIS stuff, as usual...

 

[BigCoward]

At least guys like Roethe and Moch gained a ton of time on Klaebo today.
Did nobody tell the Norwegians that the pure stage time counte for the gc? On one hand it's nice to see someone like Kaebo being punished for racing passive, but you'd think that Krüger would have had an incentive to ski hard from the start.
Klaebo needs hope that the lightweights don't do well in the classic sprint and smash the classic mass start in Val di Fiemme, because starting the Alpe Cermis stage with only a small lead while not being in last year's monster shape could be a bit of a problem.

Well, I hope the women see that and draw the right conclusion.

I don't know what you are on about, the FIS website is telling me it was a 'tactical masterclass' by Klaebo.

 

[Mayomaniac]

I don't know what you are on about, the FIS website is telling me it was a 'tactical masterclass' by Klaebo.

The guy could take out half the field in a crash and their website would praise him. Unless he was unaware of the way the times were gonna get taken for the gc he had every incentive to ski hard from the start and try to convince Krüger to collaborate with him after getting caught, to keep the rest at bay.
The whole format is kinda stupid, cause it pretty much punishes you for doing well in the individual start the day before.

 

[KZD]

The guy could take out half the field in a crash and their website would praise him. Unless he was unaware of the way the times were gonna get taken for the gc he had every incentive to ski hard from the start and try to convince Krüger to collaborate with him after getting caught, to keep the rest at bay.
The whole format is kinda stupid, cause it pretty much punishes you for doing well in the individual start the day before.

After Ruka's and today's borefest, I hope FIS realises that the 10k TT + 20k pursuit doesn't work. Either they increase the distance of the individual race to 15k or 20k or they shorten the pursuit distance to 10k or 15k.

In this Tour de Ski they could have actually make this format work but they needed to use the gaps of the overall instead of yesterday's. Ironically I think Klæbo benefitted from this because otherwise Krüger would have caught him anyway and he wouldn't have a 33 second gap anymore. Now Krüger will need to beat his best in the Val di Fiemme races or hope for a subpar Klæbo. Pellegrino took advantage from the pursuit to recover a lot of ground but I think the 15k mass start will be a bit too long, still amazing race from him so far. Golberg has not been very convincing in this TDS so I don't think he can stay with Klæbo in Val di Fiemme and although it would be great to see Moch fighting for the TDS, I think that its wishful think as he is already more than 1 minute behind and should lose at least another minute in the Val di Fiemme classic races.

At least in the women's there is no borefest and Parmakoski and Karlsson are destroying the field.

 

[Mayomaniac]

After Ruka's and today's borefest, I hope FIS realises that the 10k TT + 20k pursuit doesn't work. Either they increase the distance of the individual race to 15k or 20k or they shorten the pursuit distance to 10k or 15k.

In this Tour de Ski they could have actually make this format work but they needed to use the gaps of the overall instead of yesterday's. Ironically I think Klæbo benefitted from this because otherwise Krüger would have caught him anyway and he wouldn't have a 33 second gap anymore. Now Krüger will need to beat his best in the Val di Fiemme races or hope for a subpar Klæbo. Pellegrino took advantage from the pursuit to recover a lot of ground but I think the 15k mass start will be a bit too long, still amazing race from him so far. Golberg has not been very convincing in this TDS so I don't think he can stay with Klæbo in Val di Fiemme and although it would be great to see Moch fighting for the TDS, I think that its wishful think as he is already more than 1 minute behind and should lose at least another minute in the Val di Fiemme classic races.

At least in the women's there is no borefest and Parmakoski and Karlsson are destroying the field.

Karlsson was ruthless in the end and I mean that in the best possible way. Raced at a more moderate pace at the start, let Pärmakoski (who had a big incentive to gain time on the gc) and Weng do the work, followed Pärmakoski when the later dropped the 2 Norwegians and then dropped her with one brutal acceleration on the final lap. Sure, Krista being further down on the gc and having to gain time helped her a lot, but that was a really smart race and in the end she was one of the strongest besides her.

I agree with you that actually having the gc gaps at the start of the pursuit would have added a lot to the men's race today.

Not that sure about Pellegrino, he's a lot better in mass starts than in individual starts and the shorter, steep hills in Val di Fiemme and the final Zorzi climb should be good for him. He was also already decent for a sprinter on the Alpe Cermis last year against a clearly stronger field (top 20) and he and Cramer have worked a lot on his ability as a distance skier. I mean, he's not gonna finish on the podium, but I expect a really respectable result for him in the end.