it was indeed a very interesting time trial at the tour !
a have a lot more thoughts that i have time to type... lets start from the beginning...
1st off, about the podiumers yesterday... where the hell was hell-ner all forking season to only podium in the penultimate race of the calendar ? ? i am happy for him but feel lost for answers. also, a slight surprise at the manificat's relatively poor placing and a superb performance by belov. belov surprised b/c he had not shown any form in the tour and b/c he's known as a better classic man. but i must say, his skate-2 when on the screen, looks almost as aesthetic as sundby's. the heikkinen triumph in the mountains may have surprise some, but not this python. needles to remind, that his light frame and good engine had produced some superior performances where climbing was the mode, like on the lysebotn op last summer (won over legkov) and alp cermis 2016 (3d fastest).
now to the leaders...during my competitive years, in any interval race, i would make a habit to first break the course down into segments on the map and then actually cover them with my heart monitor and a tiny voice recorder. the purpose was always to target an optimum race pace for a given hill, turn, a flat run, make notes about the snow, weather etc. i dont know if sundby, northug and ustiugov trained on the very course at a race pace, but i doubt little that they reconned the course thoroughly. and it was shown by their splits, both relative to each other and a given check point absolute leaders.
generally, if there is a way to objectively analyze the contenders, there is no a better way than looking at the post race splits. luckily we had 3 timing stations. sure, some other clues can be obtained from a screen. things like face agony, style deterioration, usage of skate 1 vs skate 2, energy of a push-off before a downhill glide etc etc. but these things are only secondary to the actual split times.
so what did the splits tell me ? that all three were dead tired consistently increasing gaps to race leaders at each check. that they were leaking seconds to the leaders at about the same rate with sundby looking very slightly better and ustiugov slightly worse of the trio. of course, northug was slightly better of the 3 in the last 2.3 km. the difference were very small.we are talking of delta's in the range of no more than few seconds.
what conclusion do i draw for a final pursuit ?
given the trio bodies recovery stays were it was in the previous races here in canmore and given about equal skis, ustiogv WONT be caught. perhaps to within 5-10 seconds. but of course, as reasonable as i think my theory is, i could be proven wrong by the actual events. we'll see in about 10-11 hours
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