The end of the World Cup season means many things for me. It means the snow conditions are degrading to a point where skiing becomes “spring skiing” involving shorts and sun-tan lotion. The bike comes out of the garage and the soccer/football cleats come out for another great summer of kicking a ball around. For the athletes, the end marks the beginning of a month or so of relaxing and well deserved holidays. Some go back country skiing and pursue the outdoors, while others play on the beaches in Thailand, play poker in Vegas or contemplate whether to continue in this cut throat sport of skiing. Either way, the athletes are able to unwind and step away from the athlete lifestyle to recharge their batteries.
This year was a memorable year on the World Cup, we saw many amazing performances, everyone has their own view but here are my most impressive stories of the past six months of racing:
1. Petra Majdic – You’ve all read and heard it already; how horrific the accident was and how heroic it was for Majdic to come back and win bronze. We saw the likes of Kowalczyk are “tough” racers, willing to do that extra little to win. But the toughness that Majdic showed on February 17, 2010 if on a whole new level to anything that ski fans had witnessed before, or probably after this event. On that day, we saw just how much human was behind that bubbly characters and the already huge fan base the Majdic had grew tremendously as people saw the video of her accident over and over and over and then heard the news of how badly she was actually heart. It Majdic hasn’t earned you’re respect, you obviously haven’t seen or heard about the incident yet, or you’re just a dense @sshole that can be pleased by no one.
2. Justyna Kowalczyk – Many people will say that the star of the women’s season was Bjørgen and I tend to agree, but how can you not vote for the athlete that just won ALL three Crystal Globes. The great athlete only known as “Justyna” in Poland was there from the first race in Beitostølen to the last race 119 days later in Falun. If we take a look at Kowalczyk’s year, it becomes even more impressive when we consider no female has ever won the World Cup by such a big margin; she had 63.9% more points than runner-up Bjørgen. She also earned more World Cup points – 2064 – than any other athlete ever on the circuit. And to do this AND win a couple medals including a gold in Vancouver is an amazing feat to accomplish.
The stories of here insane training regiment came out during the Olympics where she trains 5-6 hours a day so I can only imagine that her month away from skiing will involve something totally normal like a leisurely ascent up Mt. Everest. Afterwards, she’ll still have time to write a book about it, which naturally will become a New York Bestseller. Oh ya, she’ll do all the translating for different countries too since she speaks four to five languages.
3. The Bjørgen/Northug Show – Here’s the general emotions in Norway during the first two races of the Olympics: Bjørgen wins gold! Absolute jubilation and no better way to start these Games. Next day: Northug in 41st… “Let’s burn this place to the burn”, “We’re cleaning house and first go the waxers and all coaches, let’s re-build this program…RIGHT NOW!!!” Ok, that might be a little extreme, but reading the papers from Norway the day after the 15km, you think King Harald V was assassinated. The feeling of despair could be felt on the other side of the Atlantic.
Thankfully, that day Northug simply forgot his lucky racing socks which threw him off his grove. The next five races went much better and had it not been for a broken pole in the pursuit, he probably would have stepped on the podium every single time. He earned the right to be the Norwegian flag bearer at the closing ceremonies, even over the “Queen of Vancouver” herself. But his accolades for the season didn’t stop there. In this year’s World Cup, Northug stepped on the podium a modest 15 times en route to winning his first World Cup Crystal Globe.
Bjørgen was the other half and arguably more dominant skier for the deadly Norwegian duo as they doubled the podium in the final two weekends of the season. Even though she didn’t win the Crystal Globe for the best overall skiers, she was deemed the “Queen of Vancouver” not for only cross country, but for all sports. A great title indeed. She raked in three gold, one silver, and one bronze to be the most decorated athletes at the Games in February. She continued her tear after the Olympics too winning six of the final eight races while being on the podium for the other two. If she manages to keep her current form, it will be very exciting to see her, Kowalczyk and Majdic butt heads at Holmenkollen next year.
4. Sweden: I was originally going to make a best of 10, but then I realized the Swedish teams took up four of those spots, so I cut the list down and grouped Sweden as one. The introduction of Gunde Svan into the Swedish program has turned the team upside down, for the better. Before him, they were mediocre at best lead by the Fredriksson brothers who were near the end of their career. Svan help rebuild the program and can take great pride in how far it’s gone in the past couple years.
The distance teams are some of the strongest, if not the strongest in the world. The women are led by Charlotte Kalla and Anna Haag who got it done in the Olympics, add youngsters Pajala and in a couple more seasons, junior stand-out Brodin and you will have a quartet that can rival the Norwegians. The men are undoubtably the strongest quartet on Earth right now. Led by Hellner who showed this year he can do it all, the also have one of the gutsiest skiers on the scene in Södergren who is never afraid to put the hammer down. Add in the extremely experience Johan Olsson and lanky, but very talented Daniel Rickardsson and this foursome will be winning relays for a long time to come. At this point, the only team I can see challenging them when they’re at their best could be the French, but they have a weak link in Jonnier. Obviously, Norway and Northug, but we saw in the Olympics the current lack of World Class depth they have on their team.
On the sprint side, it’s just as promising. Even though the veteran Anna Olsson is retiring, there is ample talent to plug the hole that she will leave. We saw the emergence and soon to be superstar (and my vote for Rookie of the Year) Hannah Falk who already has two World Cup victories in eight starts. That’s a 25% shooting percentage, not too bad for a 20-year old. We also have Ingemarsdotter and Pajala who have made giant steps this year towards being household names. Of course, there’s Haag and Kalla who have the all round capabilities and with Hannah #2 (Brodin) still 19 and making it into the semi-finals in her first World Cup start in Rogla, she has a promising future ahead.
The men disappointed many at the Olympics failing to bring home a single sprint medal with the likes of the 2006 sprint Champion Lind and the unstoppable Emil Jönsson who was the odds on favourite to keep the Olympic crown in Sweden. Well, that didn’t happen and the sprint relay went horribly wrong as Jönsson got sick and the fresh Tobias Peterson fell a couple times and they failed to even make it to the final finishing 15th. It was unfortunate, but when World Cup racing resumed, the great results continued. The likes of newcomers Modin and Peterson show they belong while Jönsson was able to win the Sprint Crystal Globe. The team may not have the insane depth that the Norwegians do, but they have the quality and that is something that is hard to come by in the sprinting world.
5. Canadian Distance Men at the Olympics: This will seem slightly biased to many, but the Canadian men were mighty impressive when it counted the most, sure they didn’t win any Olympic medals, but they had Canadian bests in almost every race they entered. The Olympics started off with Babikov and his great 8th place in the 15km. Next race was the best for the Canadian men which saw all of them in the top 16 including Babikov 5th, Grey 8th, Harvey 9th, Kershaw 16th. The only country stronger than them on that day was the Swede’s who had the gold and bronze and Södergren in 10th. With that race, they were immediately bumped up to contenders for the team relay. Unfortunately, the pieces didn’t fall into place and the team finished a somewhat disappointing 7th, which four years ago would have been celebrated as a victory. The final race was the 50km which saw Canada come closest to the podium in the for of Devon Kershaw’s 5th place where he was outlunged by Angerer for fourth while Johan Olsson finished 0.5 seconds ahead of them. It was a bittersweet result, but proved that Canada was a country to be reckoned with in the coming years of cross-country.
They failed to match any of those results after the Olympics, but they proved that they can show up for the big events and throw down and at the end of the day, that’s what you want most out of athletes isn’t it? To be able to perform on the biggest stage of all, and they did.
Honourable Mentions: Jurg Capol and his ability to evolve cross-country skiing so that the traditionalists aren’t too offended and new spectators to the sport see it as viable entertainment. The introduction of intermediate sprints and ability to changes skis has brought a new dimension to mass start racing. No longer is it a 49km slog-fest for the men where they sprint the last 500 meters, but tactics are now more important if you want those bonuses. We’ve seen athletes go hard for those bonuses and eventually ski away from the pack (Bauer in the 30km during the Tour de Sk), but we’ve also seen many times athletes go for the bonuses early on only to realize they spent too much energy and fade from contention.
In a slight bit of news before I go, the president of Russia’s cross-country ski federation, Vladimir Loginov, has resigned after pressure from the athletes for better support. They handed a letter to the President of Russia Dimitri Medvedev which demanded certain improvements for athletes and team personnel.
I hope to have another little post before the end of the week to wrap-up the season so stay tuned.
Til Then.
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