Well, Jürg Capol, the marketing director for FIS Cross Country stated that how is it that the Norwegian biathletes, alpine skiers, nordic combiners, freestyle skiers, etc have no issues competing and the cross country federation does? They really should have assessed this situation a bit better, and much earlier. The Norwegians AND the FIS. Maybe the Norwegians make a last minute decision to send their team to the TDS, at the least.
What I don't understand is Sweden's decision. Since the beginning of the pandemic, when governments were making decisions of shutting down, closing borders, closing restaurants, universities, schools, limiting gatherings to a few people, making masts compulsory, Sweden had one of the most relaxed measures in Europe, if not the world. It's not for me to decide whether it was smart or not, but if they didn't worry about it as much then, why are they so worried about it now? It's been almost a year since the first cases were recorded in China, and how long since the first recorded cases in Sweden? Why are they so worried about it now? What were they doing all this time?
I do agree that this is a hit on the world of cross country skiing. It's still a small sport outside of Europe, and if races start getting canceled and/or teams decide not to send any athletes to some or most of the races, the sport will suffer. Sponsors will pull out, TV and media in general will lose interest and that will be that. People will still go out and ski with their families, there will be local races, but I don't see how the World Cup will keep going.