Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[dobrien]

I don't think France can come into the event with plausible medal hopes though; Claudel is their trump card and she has one win (in a pure climb) and a couple of podiums. That doesn't compare to the firepower that the US can bring to the table. If you didn't know about having to distribute the talent across the techniques, Swirbul/Brennan/Diggins/Kern is not that demonstrably weaker in terms of depth from Matintalo/Niskanen/Piippo/Pärmäkoski, and certainly not from Gimmler/Hennig/Fink/Carl. That's with Laukli not selected too, although I guess Germany could say the same with Krehl after the race they got DQed from a few weeks back.

But the classic skiers just aren't there. I feel that in the skiathlon, the freestyle is the more important part because with it being the same athletes doing the whole race, often the classic portion is raced conservatively because nobody except maybe the Niskanen family and the occasional Russian want to go all guns blazing in the first half of the race and then blow up, but in the relay the classic is the most important part because it's where the selection is made. The Finns have a similar deficit in freestyle to that which the US have in classic; all the best Finns at freestyle are sprinter types on the men's side and on the women's side they've often called in Mari Laukkanen/Eder to make up numbers in freestyle sprints in the past and even Pärmäkoski is better in Classic but is used as anchor because she's the best finisher they have at their disposal. But starting the second half of the race in the front group and able to hang on to the coattails of the leaders is much better than losing that time and having to ski alone to catch up. Piippo was able to stay with Østberg, Fink and Carlsson for much of her leg before dropping away which limited her losses, whereas as soon as Brennan dropped the Slovenes about 200m into the second leg the US was in splendid isolation, detached from the medal hunt but under no threat from behind. Diggins is the on paper best skier on that third leg (at least over this kind of distance as she has a much better palmarès in short races than Karlsson) but she had to ski her entire leg on her own with nobody to share the workload, which limited the gains that she could make.

A Hennig-Niskanen podium would definitely go down well with me. A family affair on the top step would be best.

A good post. One thing which kills the US is the lack of really knowledgable coaches at the developmental level, as well as the very random nature of the US skiing development pipeline. Skiing is at best (and frankly always will be) a cult sport in the US; here in Minnesota the sport is super strong at the jr/sr high-school level (for those not from the USA this would be ages from around 13-18 years of age). So right out of the gate, in a country of 330 million people there might be 30 Diggins level talents who will never even strap on a pair of skis let alone ski enough to be identified as world class talents. The numbers involved are a tiny tiny fraction of school age kids involved in other sports such as track and field, football, futbol, etc.

Unless a kid grows up in a skiing family they may already be 12-13 before they ski their first race, and frankly getting a Diggins level talent is a happy accident. Add to this the fact that many if not most of the coaches at this level (however game and motivated) just are not going to have the in depth knowledge required to really coach kids well in the many nuances of classic technique; honestly, it's semi-miraculous the US does as well as it does. There ARE some really good coaches in the US but by the time they get the top kids they are already fairly old compared to the age at which Scandinavian stars are identified. Frustrating to watch yet another ho-hum relay performance from the US today but that's where we're going to be stuck unless there are major changes all along the US skiing development pipeline (or unless classic goes away, which I hope it does not).

 

[search]

Does any athlete wax their own skis?

Probably talking out of my arse but in the pro ranks I'd say no. Ski waxing is such a high-tech, scientific thing these days, often times you'll see the wax techs get blamed for when a skier doesn't do well. That's not to say pros don't have an interest in or don't look in on when wax techs do their thing, but come race time I think they probably have other things to think about.

I'll be happy to be corrected by those who are more in the know.

don't know about any nordic guys, but Johannes Strolz in alpine skiing still did when he won his first World Cup last season. I guess that changed right afterwards, though.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Letting the heir apparent do the final leg as a junior skier is a ballsy move, but the have nothing to loose.

The other teams
Norway: Holund, Golberg, Krüger, Klaebo
Sweden: Häggström, Burman, Poromaa, Halvarsson
France: Jouve, Lapalus, Parisse, Lapierre
Italy: Nöckler, De Fabiani, Ventura, Pellegrino

I don't know about the Swedish team, it's gonna be warmer tomorrow and Calle in a 10km skating leg with really soft conditions could really backfire. I'd have used him in a classic leg. Kinda surprised about the lack of Toenseth in the opening leg on the Norwegian team.

 

[Mayomaniac]

don't know about any nordic guys, but Johannes Strolz in alpine skiing still did when he won his first World Cup last season. I guess that changed right afterwards, though.

Ilka Stuhec has her mother doing the job. At least in Alpine Skiing the skimen are usually contracted via the ski company, a guy from my hometown used to be the skiman of the reckless American downhill skier Andrew Weibrecht.
In Alpine Skiing the waxing is way more simple, it's more about getting the right edge angles for the conditions and their shapness is also really important. Too sharp and the ski's edge "grabs" the snow too soon, not sharp enough and you lack grip when you're cornering.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Fair enough, but the problem here is you just can't seem to leave it alone. We get it, we've heard it, over and over again, week in and week out. At some point it ceases to be simply your opinion and becomes spew which just pollutes the board. And I say this as someone who very much appreciates the huge contributions you make otherwise; you are obviously knowledgable and motivated to share that knowledge with other posters here. But the other crap is just relentless (same with your Sepp Kuss obsession) to the point I'm envisioning someone rolling around in the fetal position in a darkened room. We get it, we understand, we've been clubbed over the head with it and then some. Honestly, if you just can't stand it maybe the admins can have a separate "I Hate Diggins" thread over in the clinich or something.

Sure, but I'd said my piece, the toys had been gathered and put back in the pram and conversation had moved on, and as you can see from the second post of mine you quoted (that post has now disappeared it seems), about today's race and the US' weakness in relays due to the lack of competitive options for the classic legs, when divorced from the hype train, even I was commenting in a much more objective fashion, then somebody came in quoting me to make a post specifically about why people like Diggins. I'm not going to pretend I'm not guilty of repeating myself on the subject, but I'm not the only one, so why is it then me that's at fault for extending the conversation when I respond to a post which was specifically directed at me?

 

[OJRvE]

Imo Karlsson is really easy to read, when she's suffering her form really starts breaking down/her technique gets more sloppy. It's not like Diggins who is all herky-jerky from start to finish, once it happens with Karlsson she's suffering and she's probably gonna get dropped.

You are correct about Karlsson when tired she loses her technique completely in skate, almost like a sprinter.

Today she had bad skis, apparently some mistake in the rilling if understood correctly. But it’s clear 5km is not her distance. She cannot ski at her controlled 15-20k pace and when she start forcing she risks being tired. The downhill start in the 10k intervall may have benefited her because when she started to push it was just 8k left.

A lot of drama in Swedish media about the skis, waxing manager Myhlback (father of Alvar) had enough after the latest criticism and said Karlsson had good skis and just wasn’t good enough which seemed to annoy both Karlsson and her teammates. Now with distance they have regrouped and probably sort out the issue.

 

[Mayomaniac]

You are correct about Karlsson when tired she loses her technique completely in skate, almost like a sprinter.

Today she had bad skis, apparently some mistake in the rilling if understood correctly. But it’s clear 5km is not her distance. She cannot ski at her controlled 15-20k pace and when she start forcing she risks being tired. The downhill start in the 10k intervall may have benefited her because when she started to push it was just 8k left.

A lot of drama in Swedish media about the skis, waxing manager Myhlback (father of Alvar) had enough after the latest criticism and said Karlsson had good skis and just wasn’t good enough which seemed to annoy both Karlsson and her teammates. Now with distance they have regrouped and probably sort out the issue.

Well that's what you get when half the team always throws the wax team under the bus when something doesn't go their way. Certain things should be said within the team and not straight the media. Someone from the waxing team firing back at some point is no surprise to me.

I was thinking the same about the downhill start in the 10km race and then it was a longer, gradual climb, so her usual starting too hot and buring out near the end pacing strategy didn't happen.

 

[Tricycle Rider]

Ilka Stuhec has her mother doing the job. At least in Alpine Skiing the skimen are usually contracted via the ski company, a guy from my hometown used to be the skiman of the reckless American downhill skier Andrew Weibrecht.
In Alpine Skiing the waxing is way more simple, it's more about getting the right edge angles for the conditions and their shapness is also really important. Too sharp and the ski's edge "grabs" the snow too soon, not sharp enough and you lack grip when you're cornering.

Alpine seems like a whole other animal entirely. I get used to watching all these very thin athletes on XC skis, jump over to alpine and it's like watching muscular sprinters instead of emaciated endurance athletes. It's all good though, as long as there is snow and some nice scenery I won't complain.

 

[Lequack]

Meanwhile ski jumping world champ is walking around dressed as a flamingo

 

[Libertine Seguros]

After Piotr Żyła's post-victory escapades a couple of years ago and now this... I mean I knew ski jumpers were mad - you kind of have to be to take up that sport in the first place - but it's getting crazier.

 

[OJRvE]

Well that's what you get when half the team always throws the wax team under the bus when something doesn't go their way. Certain things should be said within the team and not straight the media. Someone from the waxing team firing back at some point is no surprise to me.

I was thinking the same about the downhill start in the 10km race and then it was a longer, gradual climb, so her usual starting too hot and buring out near the end pacing strategy didn't happen.

I agree that it is very bad culture and it has eroded many teams. I remember the finns had a situation when skiers and service team barely spoke to each other, never wish “good morning” and stuff like that.

I think it’s a bit of cultural change with the new generation growing up with more support. Before the skiers were more involved, now the service team does everything and I am not even sure if the skiers are able to wax as I presume their parents/club did it for them when they were younger.

 

[search]

Chappaz was very lucky today. In his quarterfinal that Swedish tree took out Taugbøl who fell right in front of Šimenc the Slovenian. Chappaz was behind them and simply came past on the inside. L

Taugbøl fractured his hand in consequence by hitting a pole out of frustration, by the way. His season is over.

 

[Mayomaniac]

After Piotr Żyła's post-victory escapades a couple of years ago and now this... I mean I knew ski jumpers were mad - you kind of have to be to take up that sport in the first place - but it's getting crazier.

And I was thinking that Germans are usually not like this outside of carnival (when they suddenly think that they are actually funny).

 

[YavorD]

After Piotr Żyła's post-victory escapades a couple of years ago and now this... I mean I knew ski jumpers were mad - you kind of have to be to take up that sport in the first place - but it's getting crazier.

I mean, Zyla's celebration was mad this year as well. I can't recall 2021 though. But I guess he is just mad.

As for Althaus, she's probably lost a bet. I can't imagine a German doing that.

 

[Mayomaniac]

I agree that it is very bad culture and it has eroded many teams. I remember the finns had a situation when skiers and service team barely spoke to each other, never wish “good morning” and stuff like that.

I think it’s a bit of cultural change with the new generation growing up with more support. Before the skiers were more involved, now the service team does everything and I am not even sure if the skiers are able to wax as I presume their parents/club did it for them when they were younger.

Yikes, that's bad.

On another note, what to you thing about the Swedish men's relay team and having Calle in the last leg? Frankly I'd rather have him in the 2nd leg.

 

[Tricycle Rider]

Meanwhile ski jumping world champ is walking around dressed as a flamingo

Costume aside I like the whooshing/gliding sound the ski jumpers make as they're going down the ramp, it sounds almost sci-fi.

 

[OJRvE]

Yikes, that's bad.

On another note, what to you thing about the Swedish men's relay team and having Calle in the last leg? Frankly I'd rather have him in the 2nd leg.

Yeah, someone from media asked Frida what did you miss under your skis, and she just “I don’t know what’s supposed to be there but the glide wasn’t as good as Östberg”

It’s a bit strange since Calle is better at classic now, but so is all the team except Häggström who is going classic,.. I think they wanted to have a fast man at the end and then it’s only Calle and Häggström, and. Häggström is likely to be dropped uphill just like Beijing.

In my opinion they should have gone with Burman in the first leg as he is better at masstarts (contrary to what he think), Calle would be perfect at the second leg as he could regain the time Burman would lose in the sprint quickly. Then I would have put Häggström at the third leg with the goal of minimize the losses, then hope for Poromaa to break the competition uphil and it’s not out of the question winning a sprint against Lapierre and/or Antola.

Now I guess the risk they lose to much time on classic, even if the opening leg is not so contested. And then I am not so sure what Halfvarsson could do at the last leg even if the shape is alright.

 

[eriksp92]

Hey y'all! New here, and huge fan of cross country skiing and several other winter sports - only a casual enjoyer of cycling, but more and more by the season.

In regards to waxing, the Norwegians tend to have the best skis on average throughout the whole season, no doubt about it, and also no doubt a lot of it is from the large budget and professional work of the waxing team over many seasons, and a by now extensive and organized lexicon of wax built over many years from each world cup spot they visit. As a Nowegian, I can't comment as extensively on other countries, but I assume Norway are quite far ahead of most other teams. There is however a very undercommunicated part of the equation of good skiis, and that's the individual skis themselves, their stiffness and their structure and so on, and this is usually why ski parks tend to be quite large for top athletes. The work of having a seriously competitive ski park is usually done during the off season, and is a large part of the reason why some teams and individual athletes often have siginificantly worse skis or significantly better skis. Bjørgen and Klæbo are prehaps the best examples of athletes who basically never had a bad pair of skis during an important race (excluding Sochi relay and 10k for Bjørgen), and that's the case because they spent a LOT more time during off season in preparing their individual ski parks, selecting and testing constantly. Generally, the men are the only ones really interested in this crucial bit of prep work for the season, so Bjørgen (and later Johaug) were outliers among the women. This is the reason why you will far more often see Norwegian women have subpar skis in a race than the men - they don't take adequate responsibility for the necessary prepwork, which is why I think it's usually in very poor taste to criticize the waxer when a race goes poorly, even if you did feel like your skis weren't the best. I also think that many of the Norwegian women understand this, and have thus wisely mostly decided to keep their mouths shut even when skis have been subpar - still an admittedly rare occurrence because the large budget allows them to be lazy without punishing them too much or too often.

The problem with throwing the waxers under the bus after a race is thus that you don't know if the bad pair of skis came from bad choices in the wax truck, or if it came from lack of personal testing and how familiar you are with with your own ski park. For Bjørgen, a good ski for when she was in form in classic was extremely stiff to be able to transfer the energy from her extremely powerful kick, whereas that ski would feel like a horrible ski for a day she was in less good form because it would be hard to work with if you didn't have a LOT of power in your legs that day.

 

[Discgear]

Inside info from Swe wax team (from another forum):
In classic the rug was ok but the glide was bad. In skate the skis were bad. Frida lost 6 seconds in the downhill in the middle of the track.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Yeah, someone from media asked Frida what did you miss under your skis, and she just “I don’t know what’s supposed to be there but the glide wasn’t as good as Östberg”

It’s a bit strange since Calle is better at classic now, but so is all the team except Häggström who is going classic,.. I think they wanted to have a fast man at the end and then it’s only Calle and Häggström, and. Häggström is likely to be dropped uphill just like Beijing.

In my opinion they should have gone with Burman in the first leg as he is better at masstarts (contrary to what he think), Calle would be perfect at the second leg as he could regain the time Burman would lose in the sprint quickly. Then I would have put Häggström at the third leg with the goal of minimize the losses, then hope for Poromaa to break the competition uphil and it’s not out of the question winning a sprint against Lapierre and/or Antola.

Now I guess the risk they lose to much time on classic, even if the opening leg is not so contested. And then I am not so sure what Halfvarsson could do at the last leg even if the shape is alright.

Yeah, I'd have placed Häggström in the final leg, but your idea would also be an interesting option.

About the Skis of the German women, apparently both Gimmler and Hennig skied with no-wax skis, despite Schlickenrieder being against it (that's probably why it went so well...). I wouldn't had thought that looking at Hennig's diagonal stride uphill, but her technique is really smooth.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Inside info from Swe wax team (from another forum):
In classic the rug was ok but the glide was bad. In skate the skis were bad. Frida lost 6 seconds in the downhill in the middle of the track.

Interesting, at least with Andersson it looked the other way around to me. She was double poling really long uphill (longer than both Niskanen and Hennig) and had a good glide, but not that much grip. At least that's how I saw it.

 

[eriksp92]

Weng and Slind also skied on no-waxed skis. A no-wax ski is notoriously hard to get right, and its feasibility is entirely dependent on whether the athlete has a good ski for it in their park or not.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

About the Skis of the German women, apparently both Gimmler and Hennig skied with no-wax skis, despite Schlickenrieder being against it (that's probably why it went so well...)

At this point it is basically, anything Schlicki says, do the opposite and you should be golden. Or, in this case, silver.

 

[BigCoward]

Inside info from Swe wax team (from another forum):
In classic the rug was ok but the glide was bad. In skate the skis were bad. Frida lost 6 seconds in the downhill in the middle of the track.

She got her arse handed to her by Oestberg on the hill, nothing to do with downhill.

 

[OJRvE]

Interesting, at least with Andersson it looked the other way around to me. She was double poling really long uphill (longer than both Niskanen and Hennig) and had a good glide, but not that much grip. At least that's how I saw it.

I agree, both Andersson and Ribom did double pole many of the climb, of course this is expected during these conditions and especially when you go with no-wax. Both are also extremely good at double pooling, Andersson even won a Ski Classics race two years ago without grip wax. Of course she would have preferred conditions where she could have used grip wax today.