Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[eriksp92]

The Norwegian NCs are always split in two, with the relay, sprint, skiathlon and 10/15 km held during part 1 in January/February and team sprint, 5/10 km and 30/50 km held during part 2 in March/April.

In other news, Ragnhild Haga retires after this season, which I think is a wise move after a surprising and unlikely win in the 50k she's unlikely to repeat in coming seasons anyway.

 

[dobrien]

In other news, Ragnhild Haga retires after this season, which I think is a wise move after a surprising and unlikely win in the 50k she's unlikely to repeat in coming seasons anyway.

Very wise move but sad to see; she was always one of my favorites. But talk about going out on a high note; that's the way to do it. Good luck to her.

 

[Silhouette]

Why was there only a 5km classic individual start for the Women at the Norwegian NC, lack of snow?
The snow situation at the Italian one in Toblach is terrible, weather wise we're one month ahead compared to usual. They had to shorten some races, change all the races to skating races and use shorter laps. On the "bright" side both the women's and the men's mass start races got turned into individual start races, 20km for the women, 30km for the men.

It's probably because of the weird situation where the world cup is testing new distances while the world and Norwegian national championships have kept the old competition formats.

I doubt there are problems with snow in Tolga, I guess they have about the same amount of snow as as where I live and that's 50+ cm. It's been snowing a lot this winter and temperatures are still well below 0C at night.

I wish there was a way to redistribute some of this snow (and amount of skiers, the number of competitors are very high) to countries further south.

 

[Mayomaniac]

So Wierer won't retire and she was at the Italian XC NC to support Sanfilippo (who won the sprint and the teamsprint).

The whole day (yesterday) was ruined by tragedy. While the Folie sisters competed in the team sprint (Ylvie finished 2nd in the junor race) their mother died under an avalance and the whole award ceremony was cancelled.

The men's team sprint was won by De Fabiani and Gabrielli, who had almost managed to surprise Pellegrino in the sprint final by going full gas from the start, but was beaten in the end. Hellweger finished 3rd, after doing yet another impressive qualifier (he was 7th in the world cup one in Tallin) where he finished first, ahead of Pellegrino.

 

[BullsFan22]

FIS doing FIS things, they keep shortening everything. Now the men’s relay will be shortened at major championships, from 4x10 to 4x7.5. I wouldn’t be shocked if they make the sprints shorter as well. How long will the 50km last? Surprised they haven’t lowered it to 20.

 

[OJRvE]

So an all Nordic December in the new calendar. Trondheim could be great, and would make a nice addition even after the WCH but Ruka, Gällivare and Östersund are really depressing. Dark, cold and no audience.

I am aware of the snow situation but a top FIS priority should be to find new venues for December.

https://www.fis-ski.com/en/cross-country/cross-country-news-multimedia/news/2022-23/fis-cross-country-committee-spring-meetings

 

[BullsFan22]

So much for trying to ‘globalize’ the sport…

 

[KZD]

The last FIS congress or whatever its called confirmed what we expected that the individual and skiathlon races are going to be reduced to 10k and 20k in the World Championships making it equal for both genders. It seems that FIS thinks that Klæbo's dominance in the World Cup is not enough and should be extended to the World Championships as well and given that in 2025 they are going to be held in Trøndheim, so I expect an easy course, I wouldn't be surprised if he wins 5 gold medals even if the Russians come back. IOC is still going to make a decision about the distances in the Olympics but I see no reason to expect anything different.

Another change will be the creation of the FIS games in 2028 which will unite 16 different sports under the FIS umbrella. I personally like a season in which the skiers focus 100% on the World Cup so I don't really like this idea and don't think that will do much to increase the number of viewers especially if the races remain the same that we see during the rest of the season.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Hmmm, that will also freeze Quebec, Sweden and Finland out of hosting as well I assume, given the lack of mountains of sufficient size for the downhill?

 

[Mayomaniac]

Hmmm, that will also freeze Quebec, Sweden and Finland out of hosting as well I assume, given the lack of mountains of sufficient size for the downhill?

FIS is run by an incompetent crook who only cares about Alpine skiing and still manages to ruin that sport, no surprise.

It's sad if freaking Northug is the voice of reason when it comes to race formats, distances and Central Europe loosing any interest in the sport.

Meawhile the internal drama with the Norwegian team and it's budget cuts is interesting, to say the least. Iivo is also no longer training with the Finnish team. On the Italian team the technical director Alfred Stauder left because of internal politics and hasn't been replaced. At least Cramer is still the headcoach and coach of the WC team (Dapra, Mocellini, Barp, Pittin & Franchi are now on that team from the start of the season).

Also, the more I hear about Karlsson the more I'm convinced that she and Poromaa deserved eachother...

 

[dobrien]

FIS is run by an incompetent crook who only cares about Alpine skiing and still manages to ruin that sport, no surprise.

It's sad if freaking Northug is the voice of reason when it comes to race formats, distances and Central Europe loosing any interest in the sport.

Meawhile the internal drama with the Norwegian team and it's budget cuts is interesting, to say the least. Iivo is also no longer training with the Finnish team. On the Italian team the technical director Alfred Stauder left because of internal politics and hasn't been replaced. At least Cramer is still the headcoach and coach of the WC team (Dapra, Mocellini, Barp, Pittin & Franchi are now on that team from the start of the season).

Also, the more I hear about Karlsson the more I'm convinced that she and Poromaa deserved eachother...

Missing a lot of context here which sounds very interesting re: Norwegian drama and Karlsson? Care to offer a more detailed take on this stuff? NP if you can't, just wondering!

 

[Mayomaniac]

Missing a lot of context here which sounds very interesting re: Norwegian drama and Karlsson? Care to offer a more detailed take on this stuff? NP if you can't, just wondering!

Norwegian team had budget cuts because a big sponsor pulled out. Lots of drama because of people not getting selected for the national team and the team now selecting the same number of male and female athletes, despite the atm much deeper talent pool on the male side. Klaebo is no longer part of the national team and apparently banned from training at the Olympiatoppen training center.

About Karlsson, she caused a car crash shortly before the WC (from what I've heared she was playing around with her phone while driving), taking pictures of Svahn squatting down and urinating and posting it on social media. Add in older stuff like taking pictures of herself giving the middle finger to the wooden, ornated doorframe that she broke by doing pull-ups on that in a hotel in Toblach (had to pull out of the TdS because of the resulting muscle related injury) and posting it on social media and you get the picture. Doesn't seem to be the sharpest tool in the shed.

 

[Ghirmay4Ever]

FIS are murdering cross country, thought the standardisation of race distances for both genders last year was not the worst move, but now to reduce the men's distances down to the old women's distances to accommodate for it will further kill the sport.

The disrespect towards distance racing in the past number of years has been abysmal for the sport, the last thing we need is the likes of Klaebo who already have far too much of a foothold in the sport being able to win literally every race now through sprinting abilities.

Just two races over 20km in the entire season (one of them being only a 25km), what an absolute joke!

 

[Mayomaniac]

Since this is a cycling forum, some news about Winter Sport athetes in big cycling granfondos recently:
Best girl Lisa Vittozzi finished 4th in the short version of the Maratona dles Dolomites. Meanwhile Austrian Nordic Combined Start Lamparter raced the Ötztaler and finished 71., after being in the front group for most of the race. Austrian Ski Jumping legend Goldberger also raced the Ötztaler, but the guy also did lots of MTB upill races last Summer and even started the Crocodile Trophy before crashing out of the race. Probably still good enough to make Roglic his whipping boy.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Schlickenrieder testing his latest idea, the Hyper Sprint

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[Rider]

https://assets.fis-ski.com/image/upload/fis-prod/assets/Coop_FIS_Cross_Country_World_Cup_2022_23_short.pdf

Almost every metric is worse vs. 2021-2022. Let you continue without Russia, boring clowns).

 

[BullsFan22]

https://assets.fis-ski.com/image/upload/fis-prod/assets/Coop_FIS_Cross_Country_World_Cup_2022_23_short.pdf

Almost every metric is worse vs. 2021-2022. Let you continue without Russia, boring clowns).

As long as people like Erik Røste are at the top echelon of FIS, it will only get worse.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

With Lipowitz performing in cycling, I am very concerned for the well-being of German nordic skiing as Ralph Denk will harass all promising young talents for years to come.

 

[OJRvE]

Impressive performance from Laukli at Lysebotn Opp. Only 30 seconds behind Ebba Andersson and comfortably beating all Norwegians. Urevc strong too in third place.

Needless to say Kreuger won the men’s race.

 

[Mayomaniac]

As long as people like Erik Røste are at the top echelon of FIS, it will only get worse.

You know it's bad when freaking Northug of all people is one of the voices of reason and pointing out how bad the sport is doing.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Fie upon the non-believers, Sophia, they shall join my side in anointing you the real star of American cross-country as soon as course design catches up to what it should be.

 

[OJRvE]

Andersson 6 minuter and Dahl 10 minutes behind Slind in Blink Classics is a bit surprising, and it’s was not like Slind completely smashed everyone since a group of Norwegians with Lotta Weng arrived 1.30 behind her.

Musgrave won the mens race in “Remco-fashion” with Northug second in the bunch sprint behind Joly. I think Petter looked strong and he could really leave a mark on next years Ski Classics. Junior World Sprint Chmapion Anton Grahn looked strong as well but he mistimed the sprint and finished 9th.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Andersson 6 minuter and Dahl 10 minutes behind Slind in Blink Classics is a bit surprising, and it’s was not like Slind completely smashed everyone since a group of Norwegians with Lotta Weng arrived 1.30 behind her.

Musgrave won the mens race in “Remco-fashion” with Northug second in the bunch sprint behind Joly. I think Petter looked strong and he could really leave a mark on next years Ski Classics. Junior World Sprint Chmapion Anton Grahn looked strong as well but he mistimed the sprint and finished 9th.

Yeah, Petter talked some of bs about lung volume being his weakness, but he just needed at least 2 seasons of specific training for Ski Classics, that means absurd volume of double pole training.

Dahl did lots of ice cream rides in Croatia and other places. With her flying at the start of the last season and fading towards the end (after having Covid + fever at some point of the season) I can totally see her starting a bit slower and trying to peak for Vasaloppet.

Seriously, with how FIS is handling things it's probably just a question of time until the Ski Classics become as big (or bigger) than the world cup...

 

[OJRvE]

Petter Northug was really impressive in Aure sprint last night where he won semi 1 convincingly and beating world class sprinters like Jouve and Chanavat. Young Alvar Myhlback also very impressive and managed to get third in the final where Petter stumbled, his younger brother Even won though, so the day ended with a Northug on top. Exciting to watching a final with Petter (86), Even (95) and Myhlback (06).

Sweden 1-2 with Dahlqvist and Hagström in the womens sprint, but competition was rather poor. Slind dominated the women’s Ski Classics event and Riege won the mass sprint in the men’s edition ahead of Joly who backed up his second place from the Blink festival.

Today it’s Skiathlon race on the upcoming WCH-courses on the menue. Meanwhile swedish biathlon championship kicked off with a XC-race won by Elvira Oeberg ahead of her sister and Anna Magnusson. Stina Nilsson and Mona Brorsson far behind. Linn Persson had double surgery (groin and shoulder) and is not ready to race yet. In fact it’s not even certain she be on the start line in December.

Last weekend Vittozi and Laegerid dominated the Wiesbaden show and next week the Biathlon WCH and the Trollhättan action weeks takes place, so a lot of racing going on now before most team head to altitude camps in September.

 

[dobrien]

Seriously, with how FIS is handling things it's probably just a question of time until the Ski Classics become as big (or bigger) than the world cup...

Uggh, I really hope not. While I greatly admire the incredible strength required to double pole as they do, it's just not appealing to watch at all, at least for me. Doesn't even seem like XC skiing as far as I'm concerned.