Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[Libertine Seguros]

My issue with doing a comparison like this is that the race times from chasing starts in my opinion gives a very wrong picture of the performance level.

In Toblach Diggins went alone the entire way, while Niskanen was alone only the first two kilometers and then worked together (basically only followed the group after Karlsson came by) with other girls the last 20 kilometer. In masstart events we always talk about how much stronger the athletes that are doing the work in front really are. I think it’s fair to say that this is a race where the difference between them in strength was much bigger than the time difference in the end showed.

In Davos the snow ruined the race in most ways. All gaps was neutralized in less than 3 km. Of course the ones behind put a little more effort into those first 3 km, but the difference in effort was nowhere near to be equal to the difference in time races until the group came together. The snow made the girls behind catch the lost time from the sprint almost for free.

——
When it comes to the balance of the sprints I think we both understand the points of the other, but we will not agree in the end. For example your last idea where you basically want to punish athletes for qualifying for the quarter final and semi final by not giving them bonus seconds and therefore gain nothing for the extra effort of 1 or 2 heats extra sounds very wrong to me. I’m not saying the bonus second system of today is perfect, but I think it’s much better than such a suggestion.

The problem is that the idea then is to stop people from coasting in the quarters/semi knowing that they've already gained time. It's hard to give 30 athletes all bonus time without winding up with stupidly exaggerated bonuses at the top that are far too significant if the race doesn't then balance it out with some much longer distance races or at the very least more individual start races where people's times are going to be a true reflection of the differences between them and not annulled by conditions like we see sometimes with the pursuit races.

I don't think pure sprint types belong anywhere near the business end of the Tour GC by the time we get to Val di Fiemme, let alone the Alpe, and having the bonuses be enough to keep them there for "balance" and make the entire race a shootout on the Alpe is a complete farce equivalent to giving 10 minute sprint bonuses to make sure Wout van Aert can compete to win the Tour de France in week 3. As I say, I think I'm a bit more hung up on what the Tour was supposed to be rather than what it's become, but there is no fair way of integrating the sprints without making the whole stage race concept moot; as I say, Niskanen completed the course, so to speak, ~39 seconds faster than Diggins - but Diggins skied somewhere between 6 and 7,5km further than Niskanen (can't remember exact lengths of the sprint course but they tend to be between 1,2 and 1,5km, and she did quarter and semi in Toblach, and quarter, semi and final in Davos, Niskanen DNQed both, so that's five sprint rounds she's done that Kerttu hasn't) and if you wanted to be pedantic about it neither of them finished the course of the Tour in full since neither went to both sprint final - but you can't be that pedantic cos you end up with a maximum of six finishers, all of whom are going to be sprinters.

I think certainly there should be much less bonus for those that don't get to the final. As noted, Niskanen beat Diggins by ~11 seconds in the individual start on stage 2, then started the stage 3 pursuit 28 seconds behind her. Given distance between them from quali being around 10 seconds that means Diggins got 30 seconds' bonus time for not even qualifying for the final. That to me is way too excessive.

But hey, FIS have been trying to "balance" the entire calendar into a 50-50 split of sprints and the nebulous concept of "distance" because they have lost sight of how to generate action in the latter and the sprint at least gives a guarantee of something happening every three minutes without FIS or race organisers having to do any thinking, so it's an easy solution for them. I wouldn't be surprised if, actually, they do want pure sprinters competing for the Tour GC. Perhaps influenced by cycling, though, I see a stage race GC as a measure of endurance, and therefore do not believe the sprinters should have any role to play in the GC, only in individual stages, and manipulating time bonuses to change that only serves to damage the credibility of the race and devalue it, which might help explain why they struggle to attract a fuller field even in a year with no championships.

 

[search]

The early years of the tour had a much more balanced schedule of races.

I guess it also depends on what the local organizers want, though? With venues like Nove Mesto, Oberhof etc involved, the situation was a bit different back then.

Now, those hosts are long gone, Oberstdorf is out as well, and for next year, also having stages in Switzerland isn't even secure yet (afaik). Davos was a one off, and Val Müstair (no money) and Lenzerheide (focus on Biathlon) are off the cards as well.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

I don't think pure sprint types belong anywhere near the business end of the Tour GC by the time we get to Val di Fiemme, let alone the Alpe, and having the bonuses be enough to keep them there for "balance" and make the entire race a shootout on the Alpe is a complete farce

I think this is the main issue in the discussion.

I would say that no pure sprint types were anywhere near the business end of the Tour GC after Davos.

In the womens class 10 athletes were within 2 minutes in the overall after 5 stages.
Diggins, Niskanen, Sundling, Weng, Karlsson, Slind, Svahn, Carl, Parmakoski & Brennan. Neither of this are anywhere near "pure sprint types". Sundling and Svahn are more sprinters than distance skiers of course, but they are nowhere near being "pure sprinters". Svahn has won 3 World Cup distance races, and have been 9-16-13-9-11 in the World Cup distance races before the Tour this season. Sundling was 4th in a brutal 30k in Beijing Olympics, she's been third in Holmenkollen 30 km, she's been second in a 10k individual start skating and in a 20km classic masstart. She's not anywhere near being a pure sprinter. Neither of them did horribly in the final climb either, even if they lost a lot of time to the fastest. They were just being very strong distance skiers like Brennan, Stadlober and Carl.

In the men's class number 10 was almost 3 minutes down after Davos. Top 10 was Amundsen, Dønnestad, Nyenget, Lapalus, Moch, Klee, Valnes, Pellegrino, Burman & Cyr. I'd say there are no pure sprinter types here either. Of course Valnes and Pellegrino clearly is much more sprinter types than distance types, but both have showed good distance skiing by some occasions. Valnes had 3-14-5 in the three World Cup distance races before the Tour and he was second in the interval start in Toblach. His strong final climb also shows he's nowhere near being a pure sprinter type. Pellegrino had a good season with solid distance skiing last year, a few podiums in long chasing starts, some top 15 interval starts and 10th at 50k at World Champs. Also him being top 10 in the final climb last year shows he's not a pure climber. Also worth nothing Pellegrino after Davos was 40 seconds behind top 6 after Davos, so he had no chance to fight for a podium in the Tour this year.

From top 10 in the Tour GC after 5 stages there were 4 out of 20 that is more sprinters than distance skiers, but all for of them are decent enough allrounders and none of them where close to being in the lead of the Tour (Sundling was over 50s down).

And it's not like there's a lot of them behind the top 10 and I just used top 10 to fit the narrative. In the men's class 11-25 was Golberg, Jenssen, Vermeulen, Schely, Faendrich, Lapierre, Johansson, Hyvarinen, Pooroma, Vuorinen, Bourdin, Patterson, Magnificat, Boegl & Halfvarsson. Only Vuorinen and Bourdin could go anywhere near being classified as sprinters, and both of them were in the top 25 by this point mainly because of a good chasing start in Davos and Vuorinen being 11th in the Toblach interval start.

On the womens side we have 11-25 Ribom, Eiduka, Faendrich, Stadlober, Hennig, Fosnæs, Bergane, Kalvå, Claudel, Laukli, Janatova, McCabe, Ilar, Kyllonen & Lohmann. Ribom is a great sprinter, but also a rock solid distance skier with 5 (of 6) top 10 in WC distance this year before the tour. Faendrich is also more of a sprinter type, but she was 5th at 10k in Seefeld WC for example, not a pure sprinter. The others are not anywhere near being sprinter.

I honestly feel this "pure sprinter types being near the business end of Tour GC" is a false narrative regarding the Tour de Ski this year.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Personally I don't really think that a couple of victories in mass start 10ks or anything like that make somebody who typically scores the majority of their points as a sprinter into a distance skier any more than I think getting to a couple of sprint finals makes Frida Karlsson a sprinter. Yes, agreed, the Beijing 30k is a much better counterexample, but at the same time Stina Nilsson won a 30k medal in Pyeongchang and was still very much a sprinter first and a distance skier second. The absence of Ebba Andersson from the field and the conditions forcing the bunch back together obviously didn't help, but Sundling being ahead of the likes of Karlsson and Niskanen after six stages of seven I do see as a problem of balance because Sundling has far more of the calendar at her disposal without necessarily being a better skier than them. It's not like a Diggins who has more of the calendar at her disposal because she's stronger all-round, because I don't rate Sundling's distance any higher than I rate Karlsson's sprinting, and the Tour de Ski is largely how the World Cup points overall has balanced the two in recent years.

I also value distance more highly than sprinting because I don't think the sport should be an even balance of "sprint" and "distance" like FIS seems to, but that it should be an even balance of three types, "sprint distance", "middle distance" and "long distance". Oh, and that there should also be an even balance of classic and freestyle, rather than giving out huge bonuses for sprints but only having them in skate like we had here. And as the TDS is scored on time, the fact that were it not for arbitrarily allocated bonuses the stages would have next to zero impact means that they intrinsically harm the value of the race for me, even before we get to the ridiculous inclusion of pursuits based on sprint bonuses.

I think there's also a secondary problem in that the women's field is still redressing the balance from several years of Johaug-related PTSD, where FIS sought to find solutions to the problem that women's distance races tended to devolve in just a few minutes to "how much will Therese win by?" and de-emphasized these races greatly for the sake of the spectacle. Sprints proliferated, we got things like pursuits in short stage races with copious sprint bonuses, mass starts, crappy courses to make it harder for her to just run away from everybody and try to keep things together longer. And it hurt the field too, because what motivation is there to be a pure distance skier when all you can hope to achieve is hanging on to Johaug's coattails a little longer? We lost a bunch of good, talented distance specialists like Nathalie von Siebenthal to early retirement because it simply wasn't worth it anymore; there were never replacements for the likes of Steira and Kowalczyk on the tour, and there were ever fewer races that type of athlete could do well in because even the distance races that suited them were being reprofiled to try to increase the number of people who could compete, making them more accessible to a durable sprinter type (the likes of Nilsson in the past, and the likes of Ribom or Svahn at present).

The sport needs types like Iivo Niskanen more than ever. Why is he such a popular figure? Not because he is somebody that wins often, but because he provides entertainment over a greater period of time than will ever be possible for a sprinter, as sprint races are too short to compare, and their tactics in distance result in the kind of pack racing that the sport should want to disincentivize (Iivo is also popular of course because a lot of us are purists and the fact that he stands for an old school style of racing that is being progressively marginalised makes him a figure to rally around too, but that's a separate issue). There are limited races that suit him, and so he goes hell for leather to maximise those races because he has no other chance.

That situation is improving with the progression of young distance specialists like the likes of Bergane or Laukli, but the thing I find is... for the pure distance types, this is one of their only chances to win all season and neutering it to give a chance to people who FIS already give half the calendar to makes it less worthwhile to be that kind of skier. Now that we have athletes that can give the calendar the variety it had been lacking, I would like them to have more chances to showcase themselves to make it worth being that kind of skier, because the sport needs that variety. But of course the problem there is that there are men's competitions too, and FIS has clearly hitched its wagon to the Johannes Hosfløt Klæbo train, and races that suit him are likely to suit those with a fast finish after hanging on too. We need more races to be like the Val di Fiemme 50k in 2011 or the Oberstdorf 50k in 2021, not more races like the Lahti 50k in 2017. FIS unfortunately seems to be labouring under the same assumption that has plagued us for years as cycling fans: organisers thinking that a close finish automatically means a good race.

The problem is that I don't think there's a way to satisfactorily implement that and reinstate something along the lines of the original intentions of the Tour without diluting the startlist yet further. I guess increasing the value of stage wins to the overall World Cup or making the points bib more valuable - or maybe introducing a climbing bib like they have on the Ski Classics although it would be hard to set that in such a way that the Alpe wasn't decisive because how do you call somebody the best climber of the Tour if they didn't win the Alpe - would be the only obvious way.

 

[BullsFan22]

I guess it also depends on what the local organizers want, though? With venues like Nove Mesto, Oberhof etc involved, the situation was a bit different back then.

Now, those hosts are long gone, Oberstdorf is out as well, and for next year, also having stages in Switzerland isn't even secure yet (afaik). Davos was a one off, and Val Müstair (no money) and Lenzerheide (focus on Biathlon) are off the cards as well.

Calle Halfvarsson is right in what he recently said. I agree with him.

 

[dobrien]

Calle Halfvarsson is right in what he recently said. I agree with him.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/27/sport/calle-halfvarsson-frozen-penis-skiing-spt-intl/index.html

You agree he froze his penis?

 

[BullsFan22]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/27/sport/calle-halfvarsson-frozen-penis-skiing-spt-intl/index.html

You agree he froze his penis?

I don’t need to know the details 😂

 

[dobrien]

I don’t need to know the details 😂

I just want to know what he said that you agree with; I looked but couldn't find anything... got a link or quote? Thanks in advance, btw!

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

When confronted by Swedish media that he won 0,- prize money in the Tour, Calle said "I guess I need to go back home and get a job"

 

[BullsFan22]

I just want to know what he said that you agree with; I looked but couldn't find anything... got a link or quote? Thanks in advance, btw!

Längdskidor: Calle Halfvarssons kritik mot touren: ”Ingen framtid”

Calle Halfvarsson riktar stenhård kritik mot Tour de Ski som koncept. – Man gör den tråkigare och tråkigare. Då har man ingen framtid i det, säger Halfvarsson.

www.svt.se

 

[dobrien]

T

Längdskidor: Calle Halfvarssons kritik mot touren: ”Ingen framtid”

Calle Halfvarsson riktar stenhård kritik mot Tour de Ski som koncept. – Man gör den tråkigare och tråkigare. Då har man ingen framtid i det, säger Halfvarsson.

www.svt.se

Thanks much for the link, very much appreciated. I also agree with him.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

The sad thing is that the Tour this year (3h 41m for the men) is one of the longest of all time. In 2016 it was 6 minutes longer winning time, but it was one stage more, so this year should probably count as harder.

All others after the 2011/2012 tour has been shorter, many of them under 3 hours. 2012 was 4h 33min. But it was also 9 stages back then. 2011 was maybe harder, 4h 28min over 8 stages. In 2010 it was also over 4 hours, 4h13min over 8 stages.
08/09 was below 3 hours. 07/08 was 3h38min. 06/07 was 3h29min.

From this I see two things. In general, the championship free years are the longer ones with 2010 and 2011 as exceptions from that rule. That makes me sad, because that’s an indication that we can probably expect a shorter tour next year.

The other thing is that they tried increasing the length of the tour 2010, 2011, 2012 but shortened it after that and made the tour shorter. I put a lot of blame on skiers like Bjørgen and Johaug that started skipping Tour de Ski to fully prepare for Championships.

 

[BullsFan22]

The sad thing is that the Tour this year (3h 41m for the men) is one of the longest of all time. In 2016 it was 6 minutes longer winning time, but it was one stage more, so this year should probably count as harder.

All others after the 2011/2012 tour has been shorter, many of them under 3 hours. 2012 was 4h 33min. But it was also 9 stages back then. 2011 was maybe harder, 4h 28min over 8 stages. In 2010 it was also over 4 hours, 4h13min over 8 stages.
08/09 was below 3 hours. 07/08 was 3h38min. 06/07 was 3h29min.

From this I see two things. In general, the championship free years are the longer ones with 2010 and 2011 as exceptions from that rule. That makes me sad, because that’s an indication that we can probably expect a shorter tour next year.

The other thing is that they tried increasing the length of the tour 2010, 2011, 2012 but shortened it after that and made the tour shorter. I put a lot of blame on skiers like Bjørgen and Johaug that started skipping Tour de Ski to fully prepare for Championships.

What made some of the early tour longer, is the Cortina to Toblach race, which was over 30km.

This season there were 30 women that finished, so 40% + of the field abandoned. This is not a good look, especially in a non championship season.

No Russians, Andersson abandoned, Karlsson not in form due to Covid, Hennig had to deal with illness right before the tour as well, Stadlober not in form. Weng and Niskanen came back to life a bit.

On the men’s side the Swedes disappointed, apart from Anger getting on the podium in the Toblach sprint and Poromaa in Val Di Fiemme. The Central Europeans though, did really well.

Interested to see what the actual viewership numbers are from the central countries, especially Germany. I heard that German tv didn’t show much.

 

[DonAragona]

She was in fine form the last two years. Others were just better. When were ‘her skis bad?’

You sound like the British Eurosport cheerleaders. “Oh her skis were slipping.” “Oh her form isn’t good.” “Oh she didn’t sleep well enough.” “Oh she misses her teddy bear.”

The ski conditions the last two races haven’t allowed for major pace changes and therefore the gaps aren’t there.

You're incessant hatred of Diggins is frankly weird it's even weirder when you consider you friend requested her on Facebook.

The idea that is she at the same level this season as previous but others are worse is utter nonsense.

Did she leave you unread?

 

[DonAragona]

The issue is that if Sophia becomes somebody successful enough to be marketable, FIS' attempt to get a greater foothold in the US might get them to start tailoring the circuit to her and not f***ing Diggins, and that will mean lots of longer and harder races and would be far better for the sport than the current homogenous drivel they serve up.

Kidding on the square, of course - Sophia might well become a lot less interesting and entertaining if she was to give up the things that help her have fun and be fun to follow.

Another season of irrational hatred towards Diggins...let it go.

The girls ski longer/harder races now than at any point in the history of the sport.

 

[BullsFan22]

You're incessant hatred of Diggins is frankly weird it's even weirder when you consider you friend requested her on Facebook.

The idea that is she at the same level this season as previous but others are worse is utter nonsense.

Did she leave you unread?

First, I don’t have Facebook. 2nd, Andersson and Karlsson both had Covid just before the tour, so clearly they were not in form. Stadlober has had better tours than this. Hennig was also sick before and wasn’t sure she would even race. Weng and Parmakoski have had much better tours than the ones they’ve had this year. No, Østberg, no Nepryaeva no Stupak. Stina Nilsson managed to get on the podium in the tour, she switched to biathlon, as did Lampič. Only 30 women finished the tour. Where is the competition?

Two years ago, Diggins was taken out by Karlsson in the quarterfinals of the Oberstdorf sprint, so she lost a lot of time on that stage. Last year was a strange one, I’ll give you that one.

 

[DonAragona]

Okay, I think perhaps that is a view colored by the cycling sport where there is a heavy tradition to design courses for specific riders.

When it comes to the changes in the Championship program for example I think there is nothing that points one way or another for Diggins. If anything the changes in the skiathlon and the 30 k to 50k could be seen as something that is heavily favoring the Swedes, and especially Ebba Andersson.

When it comes to the Tour program this year I think that if they had any plans on making it fit Diggins better than for example Ebba, they did a very, very bad job removing the bonus seconds from the chasing starts and to make the classic race in Davos a chasing start meaning Diggins advantage from the sprint the day before was not worth much. I would say that with the two chasing starts the organizers tried to make it about the last weekend in the Tour (which we all known from cycling GTs where organizers want to keep things close) and I think it's a bit weird to think this first and foremost is a advantage for Diggins. I would say it's more a benefit for Ebba which normally loses a lot of time in the sprints, would benefit from erasing this time loss in the chasing starts and than would have a suitable program in the last weekend.

A rare sensible post on here.

FIS did everything they could to stop Diggins from winning the Tour.

In Toblach, at the final hours after the classic, they tried to change the course(to an easier loop) to stop her skiing away with the Tour and then in Davos, they had 20 ski patrol watching from the sides instead of clearing the snow to ensure the bonus seconds from the sprint were worthless.

Diggins was a very deserving winner, she's skiing at the highest level of her career and only someone who has developed an irrational mind listening to Patrick and Mike(press mute if you're that bothered) would argue otherwise.

 

[DonAragona]

But the thing with the chasing starts is that while you can say that in theory it punishes success, at the same time to finish together, the skier who lost time in the sprints has to work much harder because they have to ski x amount of time faster. Diggins' advantage from the sprint the day before was worth the fact that she didn't need to complete the course as fast as somebody who didn't get given ridiculous time bonuses from sprints in order to be level with them going into the final weekend.

Yes, the flip side to that is that the athlete that starts in the wave doesn't have to enter the sprint rounds, but we've seen over and over again that FIS overvalues sprints and given the small size of the fields I understand them not wanting to run the sprinters out of town early.

I don't think it's that far fetched to say that FIS is riding Diggins' success hard. Just a cursory look through the news articles' cover images of the last few days:
- Niskanen's win is accompanied by a podium photo showing her with Brennan and Diggins
- Svahn's second win is accompanied by a picture of Diggins bumping fists with her
- Roundup clips on NYD about both genders' TDS catchups is accompanied by a picture of Diggins and no picture of Amundsen
- Article about Diggins winning pursuit with picture of Diggins
- Report on pursuit race won by Diggins (only stage to get two articles until the final climb)
- Article about Niskanen winning the 10k headlined with Diggins leading the race

Yes, she's prominent in the sport and where she wins and is leading the Tour that should be acknowledged, if I go to the FIS site expecting them to not acknowledge the current World Cup leader I'm an idiot, I get that. But the number of images of Amundsen accompanying the articles across the same period of time are far lower, and the number of images where the winner is shown alongside Amundsen or with multiple athletes shown are practically non-existent on the site's articles on the men.

FIS are simply responding to the market.

If you look at FIS Insta page, the girls races are attracting 2/3x as many likes/comments as the boys races.

It's simply reflecting cross country at the moment, the girls races are engaging whilst the boys races(without Bolshunov etc.) are boring...it's the same on here as FIS.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Another season of irrational hatred towards Diggins...let it go.

The girls ski longer/harder races now than at any point in the history of the sport.

A rare sensible post on here.

FIS did everything they could to stop Diggins from winning the Tour.

In Toblach, at the final hours after the classic, they tried to change the course(to an easier loop) to stop her skiing away with the Tour and then in Davos, they had 20 ski patrol watching from the sides instead of clearing the snow to ensure the bonus seconds from the sprint were worthless.

Diggins was a very deserving winner, she's skiing at the highest level of her career and only someone who has developed an irrational mind listening to Patrick and Mike(press mute if you're that bothered) would argue otherwise.

FIS are simply responding to the market.

If you look at FIS Insta page, the girls races are attracting 2/3x as many likes/comments as the boys races.

It's simply reflecting cross country at the moment, the girls races are engaging whilst the boys races(without Bolshunov etc.) are boring...it's the same on here as FIS.

And as I've said before, many times now, I wouldn't like Diggins even if Patrick and Mike weren't there. She has the kind of personality I just don't jive with, too much artificiality, too much "look at how fun I am!". However, without them it's "I hope she doesn't win", and with them it's "I hope she goes away and never comes back". We've had several days of perfectly civil discussion now, why try and stoke up an argument just so you can demand criticism be silenced?

Diggins was a deserving winner, she is skiing at the highest level of her career, but that doesn't mean we can't have problems with the course layout or race design and what it meant for the racing or the spectacle, or that we have to like it.

And if you look at my point on the FIS page, it's more about how Diggins repeatedly appears in articles about other athletes' wins but they do not appear in articles about hers suggesting a conscious media push. Svahn wins? Picture of Svahn and Jessie. Niskanen wins? Picture of Kerttu and Jessie. Diggins wins? Picture of Jessie on her own.

The main problem with the men's races is that even if there is as much variety in the victors in terms of number of athletes, they all have the same flag next to their name and unless you're Norwegian (in which case you probably aren't going to the FIS direct for your skiing news and views) it's hard to get all that enthused by it.

 

[search]

And if you look at my point on the FIS page, it's more about how Diggins repeatedly appears in articles about other athletes' wins but they do not appear in articles about hers suggesting a conscious media push. Svahn wins? Picture of Svahn and Jessie. Niskanen wins? Picture of Kerttu and Jessie. Diggins wins? Picture of Jessie on her own.

Diggins was leading the Tour de Ski after both those stages, so I'd honestly think this is the normal way to do press work, no matter who it's about.

Personally I'm doing this kind of stuff for a small cycling race, and if I had a picture of both the stage winner and the leader at hand, I'd definitely use it as well.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

In Toblach, at the final hours after the classic, they tried to change the course(to an easier loop) to stop her skiing away with the Tour and then in Davos, they had 20 ski patrol watching from the sides instead of clearing the snow to ensure the bonus seconds from the sprint were worthless.

This looks a bit weird.
From what I know the plan all the way up to some days before the Tour was to do the skating mass starts out in the fields (I assume it would be an easier loop), but they had to use the normal race courses instead. This was clear before the Tour started and I haven't heard anything about any late minute attempts on changing it back to the fields. Do you have a link to support this?

The "20 ski patrol" I assume you're talking about Davos, right?
On a 10 km loop it would be extremely hard to make the tracks suitable for single skiers/small groups stay away with that snow. I don't think there is any reason to blame FIS for this.

---

In Val di Fiemme they would've really needed those "20 ski patrol". Norwegian TV talked with organizers of Val di Fiemme, asking about the ski partol and the organizers answered that they only had 6 people with skis on ski partol duty! That's really bad organizing unfortunately.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Diggins was leading the Tour de Ski after both those stages, so I'd honestly think this is the normal way to do press work, no matter who it's about.

Personally I'm doing this kind of stuff for a small cycling race, and if I had a picture of both the stage winner and the leader at hand, I'd definitely use it as well.

No pictures of Amundsen used in equivalent scenario.

In fact, no picture of Amundsen used on article on rest day about Tour leaders. Only a picture of Jessie.

Yes, I guess there are more pictures to hand of Diggins because she has won more and was probably expected pre-race to be a favourite whereas Amundsen would not have been until Klæbo dropped out, but that's what makes it stand out even more to me.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

Andersson and Karlsson both had Covid just before the tour, so clearly they were not in form. Stadlober has had better tours than this. Hennig was also sick before and wasn’t sure she would even race. Weng and Parmakoski have had much better tours than the ones they’ve had this year. No, Østberg, no Nepryaeva no Stupak. Stina Nilsson managed to get on the podium in the tour, she switched to biathlon, as did Lampič. Only 30 women finished the tour. Where is the competition?

You could basically list something similar for every single Tour de Ski (as you can do for most Tour de Frances etc also).

To the last point, only 30 skiers finishing.
That's actually not that special. During Wengs two victories it was 30 (2017) and 32 (2018) finishers. When Østberg won in 2019 only 28 girls finished.

Some of the names you mentioned would've offered a challenge, like Østberg in peak form and the Russian girls. Andersson and Karlsson was there, but not in peak form. That happens every year that some 5 biggest candidates are not there top form or get sick during the race. It's happened every year.

Stadlober and Hennig has never been on the podium. Even in their peak shape there is nothing that suggest they would be near challenging Diggins.

Parmakoski is old. It is natural that there are older athletes that are not as good as they used to be. She hasn't won a World Cup race since 2018. Last season she was only on the podium twice. There was no reason to expect her to be much better than she turned out to perform this Tour de Ski.

For Weng it goes much the same as Parmakoski. Since she won the Overall Tour de Ski in 2018 she's only won Alpe Cermis 2 times and that long race in Engadin. 3 wins the last 6 years. It's obvious that she's not as good as she used to be, but it's a looong time she was really good. And this season she's been doing very well, with a couple of podiums before the Tour and a solid Tour where everything went her way being carried in both the long chasing starts and a lot of the GC battle to come down to Alpe de Cermis.

Nilsson had a podium back in the days, but let's remember that was a Tour de Ski where no races were longer than 10 km and they did both a 5 km masstart and a 5 km interval start! (We are disappointed with how the Tour course look like this year, but it was much worse back in these days..) Girls like Sundling and Svahn would also be competitive on such a Tour. I don't think there is any reason to believe peak Nilsson could challenge for the Tour overall on this years course. No version of XC Lampic we've ever seen would be relevant for challenging Diggins in the GC.

The exact similar argument about the names you mention could be used against Karlsson last year, just switch her and Diggins which was performing horrible. No Ebba. Weng being out of form. Pärmakoski dropping out midway being 3rd overall (and 1 year closer to her Beijing form than this year), no russians, no Østberg. No sprinters turned biathletes (Nilsson & Lampic). No Sundling or Svahn.

Of course there are years with limited competition. On the womens side especially it's always been like this with Bjørgen being the best skier in the world for many years and outright skipping the Tour to be preparing for the World Champs. But there are never any races where all the best are theres, they are in or close to their career peak and they are in good form. Every year you can point at a bunch of athletes and say stuff like "she was better before", "she's been sick", "she's been unlucky" etc.

 

[Sciatic]

You're incessant hatred of Diggins is frankly weird it's even weirder when you consider you friend requested her on Facebook.

The idea that is she at the same level this season as previous but others are worse is utter nonsense.

Did she leave you unread?

Definitely not as weird as you looking to see what’s happening on Libertine’s or Bullsfan’s (or Jessi’s) Facebook pages, which is kind of creepy.

 

[Sciatic]

No pictures of Amundsen used in equivalent scenario.

In fact, no picture of Amundsen used on article on rest day about Tour leaders. Only a picture of Jessie.

Yes, I guess there are more pictures to hand of Diggins because she has won more and was probably expected pre-race to be a favourite whereas

I don’t know what FIS are trying to do, but there’s no hiding that media’s (especially in the US) attention to Jessie is in part commercial sexism based on physical appearance. NBC (or whichever had the last Winter Olympics) went all in on making her one of “America’s Darlings” for the games, playing up her looks and small-town Midwestern background. They do that for every Olympics, but Jessie fit their template perfectly.