Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[Miss Violet Smith]

I have also just taken a look to the World Cup calendar next year and its really bad once again, only two races above 20km, only one individual start race above 10km and the only individual start in the Tour de Ski its a 10km classic once again.

This is so sad for the sport.

 

[Skitimetrial]

Hello. Russian races were discussed here. Time trial races from Russian competitions will be available on the Skitimetrial YouTube channel (World Cup and other competitions are also planned). With graphics in Latin and detailed information about the race. True, in a somewhat specific form.

I have developed a number of innovations to improve the television coverage of time trial races. Some of them are relevant not only for cross-country skiing, but also for cycling. You can check them out on the channel and express your opinion. Today the first video was posted, the description of which also contains text materials about innovations.

 

[Tricycle Rider]

This is so sad for the sport.

What's with the short distances and the ever-shrinking number of classic style distance races? Who wants this? This is not the sport I grew up watching...

 

[Mayomaniac]

What's with the short distances and the ever-shrinking number of classic style distance races? Who wants this? This is not the sport I grew up watching...

Nobody watches anymore, yet Fis insists with it's changes.
Frankly the sport is dying and the Scandinavians have nothing to do but cry about the fluor ban and how someone could mess with their Skis by putting such a product on the snow (mainly the Swedes are the one complaining)

 

[Mayomaniac]

Also, with the recent COVID cases amon Norwegian skies I expect Heidi Weng to walk around with an actual gas mask on her face, in Addition to the usual stuff she already does (3 neck warmers, a Hijab and 2 face masks whenever the temperatur goes down to around 0 degrees Celsius)

 

[Tricycle Rider]

Nobody watches anymore, yet Fis insists with it's changes.
Frankly the sport is dying and the Scandinavians have nothing to do but cry about the fluor ban and how someone could mess with their Skis by putting such a product on the snow (mainly the Swedes are the one complaining)

I'm not sure why I even bothered, but I just paid $60 for the '24 ski season coverage here in the States. At least for that price I won't be getting just the Klaebo show, it includes Alpine, ski jumping, Nordic combined and some other stuff too. (If it was that much for just the Klaebo show I wouldn't have bothered.)

 

[Mayomaniac]

I'm not sure why I even bothered, but I just paid $60 for the '24 ski season coverage here in the States. At least for that price I won't be getting just the Klaebo show, it includes Alpine, ski jumping, Nordic combined and some other stuff too. (If it was that much for just the Klaebo show I wouldn't have bothered.)

It's brutal how much they tailored the various Editions of the TdS towards Klaebo over the Last few years.

Frankly It was as boring when all the Norwegians skipped the Tour and the Russians dominated at will

 

[dobrien]

I'm not sure why I even bothered, but I just paid $60 for the '24 ski season coverage here in the States. At least for that price I won't be getting just the Klaebo show, it includes Alpine, ski jumping, Nordic combined and some other stuff too. (If it was that much for just the Klaebo show I wouldn't have bothered.)

I don't even bother watching the men any longer; outside of the occasional interloper like Poromaa or my hero Iivo, the races all too often end up like the Norwegian nationals. (And with Holund retiring I'm even less interested than usual). At least on the women's side there is still some parity and decent racing without the Russians; thank goodness Parmakoski and Niskanen didn't retire as I thought they might.

So disappointing to see FIS doubling down on the very thing (IMHO) killing the sport; Nordic is in a death spiral.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

What's with the short distances and the ever-shrinking number of classic style distance races? Who wants this? This is not the sport I grew up watching...

Old men in suits representing the sport tell old men in suits representing advertising executives what they think young people like, and the old men in suits representing advertising executives nod sagely in agreement that it must simply be that young people just don't respect their elders as the old men in suits representing the sport couldn't possibly have completely screwed up the sport they're supposed to represent. After all, they wouldn't be old men in suits if they weren't worthy of respect, so they must know what young people like.

 

[Tricycle Rider]

Old men in suits representing the sport tell old men in suits representing advertising executives what they think young people like, and the old men in suits representing advertising executives nod sagely in agreement that it must simply be that young people just don't respect their elders as the old men in suits representing the sport couldn't possibly have completely screwed up the sport they're supposed to represent. After all, they wouldn't be old men in suits if they weren't worthy of respect, so they must know what young people like.

It's starting to look a bit like the X-Games - if only the old guys in charge understood that us older(or even younger) folk would prefer to watch XC-skiing just as it traditionally was. (At least in my mind XC-skiing was always meant to be difficult, no rock-n-roll bands needed to spice up the show.)

 

[Libertine Seguros]

It's starting to look a bit like the X-Games - if only the old guys in charge understood that us older(or even younger) folk would prefer to watch XC-skiing just as it traditionally was. (At least in my mind XC-skiing was always meant to be difficult, no rock-n-roll bands needed to spice up the show.)

The problem is, they've gotten so wrapped up in changing things in pursuit of their idea of what a new audience would want that they've completely lost how to market the original version of the sport. They're in the process of running off the sport's existing audience - and any new audience that would be attracted by the traditional version of the sport - in pursuit of a hypothetical new audience that may not exist and if it does, it's become their white whale.

And they've become so entrenched in their opinions that they're not listening to what the audience wants, they're telling the audience what they think it wants and doubling down regardless of the feedback they're getting. They know what the audience wants, damnit, even if the audience doesn't realise that what FIS is serving them is what they should be wanting.

 

[Tricycle Rider]

The problem is, they've gotten so wrapped up in changing things in pursuit of their idea of what a new audience would want that they've completely lost how to market the original version of the sport. They're in the process of running off the sport's existing audience - and any new audience that would be attracted by the traditional version of the sport - in pursuit of a hypothetical new audience that may not exist and if it does, it's become their white whale.

And they've become so entrenched in their opinions that they're not listening to what the audience wants, they're telling the audience what they think it wants and doubling down regardless of the feedback they're getting. They know what the audience wants, damnit, even if the audience doesn't realise that what FIS is serving them is what they should be wanting.

I'd love to ask - who is this new young audience that loves to watch XC skiing so much?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I'd love to ask - who is this new young audience that loves to watch XC skiing so much?

It's not that they do. It's that there is this perceived potential audience of young people - but to tap into that audience, the logic goes, they have to change the sport to make the sport appeal to those people. As their existing audience ages out and isn't replaced because the sport is becoming increasingly homogeneous, standardised and predictable, the pursuit of that hypothetical new audience that will save the sport and make it mainstream entertainment becomes ever more essential to those executives - a need which only becomes more significant with every Denise Herrmann, Anamarija Lampič or Stina Nilsson defecting to biathlon, the administration of which has many, many of the same flaws but is run far better.

But the sports executives are just as out of touch as ever; they don't understand what young people like and simply follow the usual stereotypes of the older generation towards the younger; "no attention span" "needs to be shorter and more colourful" and so on, and they're so convinced of how right their interpretation of the problem is that they aren't listening to any voices that aren't telling them what they want to hear.

Of course it isn't helped by FIS' ideas receiving reinforcement from vocal quarters within the teams being absolute morons like Schlickenrieder who will actively handicap his own team's strengths in pursuit of justifying his own mediocre career by pushing the disciplines he was best at.

 

[BullsFan22]

Training races from Russia:

Sprints:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmqvvGp1Tmg&t


Distance skate:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB-l4a6hse8

 

[Mayomaniac]

Meanwhile in the finish prep race Iivo ahead of 6 Norwegians, but Pellegrino finishing 9th in a 10km classic individual start and only 18sec behind someone like Golberg is a good sign. Graz being 20th in a classic race when he's the one Italian guy who is much better in skating also bodes well for tomorrow.

On the women's side Hennig dominated, she won 41sec ahead of Gimmler. The big surprise is Ganz finishing 3rd, 1sec behind her and Kerttu only finishing 5th. Francesca Franchi finished 12th, she's a lightweight and usually also much better in a hard skating race.

 

[Mayomaniac]

It's not that they do. It's that there is this perceived potential audience of young people - but to tap into that audience, the logic goes, they have to change the sport to make the sport appeal to those people. As their existing audience ages out and isn't replaced because the sport is becoming increasingly homogeneous, standardised and predictable, the pursuit of that hypothetical new audience that will save the sport and make it mainstream entertainment becomes ever more essential to those executives - a need which only becomes more significant with every Denise Herrmann, Anamarija Lampič or Stina Nilsson defecting to biathlon, the administration of which has many, many of the same flaws but is run far better.

But the sports executives are just as out of touch as ever; they don't understand what young people like and simply follow the usual stereotypes of the older generation towards the younger; "no attention span" "needs to be shorter and more colourful" and so on, and they're so convinced of how right their interpretation of the problem is that they aren't listening to any voices that aren't telling them what they want to hear.

Of course it isn't helped by FIS' ideas receiving reinforcement from vocal quarters within the teams being absolute morons like Schlickenrieder who will actively handicap his own team's strengths in pursuit of justifying his own mediocre career by pushing the disciplines he was best at.

At the same time all the publishing houses are trying to increase their social media presence because freaking Tiktok actually got teenagers back into reading books. He'll big book store chains now run Tiktok channels and upload lots of videos (the German chain Hugendubel would be a prime example).

Also, making all races the same makes the individual races mean a lot less.
The Ski Classics can't take over soon enough...

 

[Bavarianrider]

German women, especially Henning absolutely flying. Let s see if that will still be the case when the World Cup starts. The men race did not really bring any shake up or suprises. I am quiet disapo7nted that the Russians adapt the Fis Formats in their series. I had hoped at least they would have some long ditance races.

 

[Mayomaniac]

German women, especially Henning absolutely flying. Let s see if that will still be the case when the World Cup starts. The men race did not really bring any shake up or suprises. I am quiet disapo7nted that the Russians adapt the Fis Formats in their series. I had hoped at least they would have some long ditance races.

Has any woman better classic technique that Hennig? Her technique looks sooo smooth, almost effortless.

Some others might have a bigger engine, but her technique is 2nd to none...

 

[dobrien]

'Retired' 45 year old Riita-liisa Roponen best of the Finns today at Muonio 10k skate; of course very early days but with the Tour de Ski only 6 weeks away that can't be the most encouraging result for Parmakoski et al. (Parma and Roponen were in the US training together earlier this year..) Ruka will tell more of course, this will have been not much more than a rust-buster for some.

Victoria Carl looking very strong, solid showing for Laukli. Between the flouro ban, COVID, no worlds or Olympics, could be a strange season.

Petter Northug starting today, that should be interesting.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Also top 10 results for Ganz (one podium, a 5th and 7th place for her this weekend) and Franchi.

My impression is that Sweden and Norway will probably be hit the hardest by the fluor ban, they are the most vocals about potential problems and usually had great skis in fluor-friendly conditions.

 

[dobrien]

Northug, Niskanen, De Fabiani all DNS.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Northug, Niskanen, De Fabiani all DNS.

Pellegrino and Graz the fastest during the first half of the race and fading a bit in the end.

Moch win the win and the 2nd fastest 2nd race half, behind Krogh, who finally shows signs of life.
Still, a podium for Graz is a good result and the Italians usually only get better in Central Europe.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Well, it might be early, very early, but maybe the rest of the pack will be a bit closer to Norway this seson.
Sossaus result is certainly suprising. He was never really considered a Talent on Mochs level. So his rise is certainly somewhat unexpected.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Well, it might be early, very early, but maybe the rest of the pack will be a bit closer to Norway this seson.
Sossaus result is certainly suprising. He was never really considered a Talent on Mochs level. So his rise is certainly somewhat unexpected.

Yeah, to me he also is the big surprise.
On the Italian side Barp and Graz have been big talents since forever, only that in the pre-Cramer era they tried to turn them from allrounders who are better in skating into sprinters after the junior ranks.

I'm sceptical about the fact that they made Doro Wiere's husband the coach of the Italian MJ XC team. Yeah, he has some experience coaching the Trentino regional youth team, but only Ventura and Daprá came out of that, so yeah...
He has also been a Biathlon shooting coach. Screams of the classic Italian mistake of someone getting the job because of his connections and affiliations...

 

[dobrien]

The interesting thing about Laukli's result is that she's been killing it in international trail running and just locked up the Golden Trail Series overall championship in Italy on 21st October!?! She is clearly super fit but has been doing vastly less ski specific training than the majority (if not all) of her competitors; I imagine her most important goal of the season is to win on Alpe Cermis and towards that end this result today is very good news.