Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[BullsFan22]

I mean, what do you expect. Korostelev is probably having a nice party with his buddy Barp right now, both finished inside the top 10 on the gc.

Yes, and I think those two guys will only get better as the season goes on, not to mention their careers. Barp is 23, Korostelev is 22.

 

[BullsFan22]

Also, both Korostelev and Nepryaeva missed the heats in both sprints. That's a huge disadvantage. What is surprising is Iversen, at 34, and with his size, was able to get on the podium. I know the course has been made easier since they went to the mass start format on the final day, but still. Korostelev definitely didn't gage his efforts as well as he could have. He still had a strong race, but the excitement of his first Tour, his first (senior) international starts, did him in.

 

[esp123]

Also, the Scandinavian media is hailing Iversen as the ‘savior’ for not letting Korostelev on the podium 🤦🏻‍♂️

As a Norwegian I have genuinely not seen this at all. Do you have a link?

Iversen has since last season trained with Klæbo and followed his relatively extreme regime. For the first time in his career he is being a serious athlete when it comes to important stuff like diet, sleep etc.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

Strong races from Nepryaeva and Korostelev. The thing is, they are not even the strongest skiers in Russia at the moment. Had Ardashev and Stepanova or Krupitskaya or Pekletsova been there, they would have contended for the overall.

Why do you belive Ardashev is clearly better than Korostelev?

This season Korostelev raced 6 distance races in Kirovsk and Tyumen before he entered the world cup.
19/11 - 10 km (classic?): Korostelev won, Ardashev 2nd 6s behind
22/11 - 15 km (skate?): Spitsov won, Korostelev 2nd +14s. Ardashev 3rd +24.
26/11 - 15 km (skate?). Korostelev won, Spitsov 2nd, Ardashev 3rd +21
29/11 - 15 km (classic?): Ardashev won, Korostelev DNF. No idea why.
3/12 - 10 km (skate?): Korostelev won, Ardashev 2nd +17.
6/12 - 20 km masstart (classic?): Korostelev won, Bolshunov 2nd, Ardashev 3rd +2s.

That means from 5 distance races Ardashev only beat Korostelev in the one race where Korostelev didnt finish, and Spitsov was the only one beating Korostelev in one single race. In distance races Korostelev therefore seems clearly better.

In the same period Korostelev have also raced 2 sprint races. The first one I think was skating (28/11) and Korostelev was 3rd in the prologue and then knocked out in semi final and finished 9th. Ardashev was 24th in the prologue, but made it to the final and was 4th. Egor Mitroshin won that race. The second sprint was classic (5/12) and Korostelev won the prologue 1.7s ahead of Ardashev. In the final Ardashev won, ahead of Terentiev and Korostelev in 3rd. So in sprint Ardashev seems clearly better, but his prologues seems week (also in the races since Korostelev went to the World Cup Ardashev have been doing very mediocre prologues).

Of course, since Korostelev went to the World Cup Ardashev have been winning almost every race, but I do find it strange to make this mean that Ardashev IS the best as he was beaten by Korostelev almost every distance race they raced together in the first part of the season.

And its not like Ardashew was clearly better than Korostelev last season either. In the Russian Championships (Ardashev - Korostelev), Ardashev was only better in the 50km where he won the sprint 0,2s ahead of Korostelev.
Sprint Classic: 5 - 3
Skiathlon: 7 - 5
10km Skate: 5 - 2
50 km Classic: 1 - 2
And in the regular Russian Cup Korostelev won 5 races and podiumed 3 more times, while Ardashev won 4 and podiumed 5 more times. And then in the final Korostelev podiumed 5 races and finished 2nd behind Bolshunov in the minitour, while Ardashev podiumed 2 races and finished 8th in the minitour.

So to summarize it:
Why do you belive Ardashev is clearly better than Korostelev?

 

[KZD]

I have to say that I was impressed with Simpson Larsen yesterday, it was her first time on Alpe Cermis and she still won after leading almost all the way. I wouldn't be surprised if she pulls a Ragnhild Haga at the Olympics, though Andersson and Diggins remain the favourites for the 10k.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I have to say that I was impressed with Simpson Larsen yesterday, it was her first time on Alpe Cermis and she still won after leading almost all the way. I wouldn't be surprised if she pulls a Ragnhild Haga at the Olympics, though Andersson and Diggins remain the favourites for the 10k.

Norway surprisingly only announced 4 women today so she will probably get a decent number of starts too.