An Ode To Those Moving On: 2010 + News Bits

It’s a part of sport, as athletes get older they retire. It’s a fact of life, just like when people get older they die. I know, I know, a morbid analogy. This spring is no different as we have seen a handful more athletes decide to hang up the competitive skis and turn their lives attention to other ambitions.

Biggest team to take a hit was the Swiss, who had four of their athletes retire: Peter von Allman, Reto Burgermeister,  and Laurence Rochat. The Swiss men’s team didn’t take a hit with regards of their top four as Livers, Colonga, Fischer, and the ever improving Curdin Perl will all be back for another season.

Milan Sperl of the Czech Republic also retires after 10 years on the circuit. Like almost all the athletes I will talk about, he will leave a hole in that Czech relay team that seems to pull out those surprise performance (ie. Olympics) as they turn into “Team Synergy”. When I was doing a bit of background, I was surprised to see that he had no World Cup podiums, but even more so only 51 starts in his career. That’s averaging a mere five World Cup starts per season!

But the biggest names to leave the ski world on a competitive level were Sabina valbusa, Rene Sommerfeldt, Sara Renner, Anna Olsson and the great Virpi Kuitunen. For the Finns, it’ll be a big blow, especially after the mediocre season their women’s team had, but they did see some good progress from those in the shadows of Kuitunen and Saarinen, particularly Roponen who turned out to be one of the teams most consist skiers. The question is who will be filling Kuitunen’s spot for the relay team come Holmenkollen in eight months. They have some options such as Krista Lahteenmaki, but at 19 years old, she is still very raw for a distance skier.

Like the Finns, The men’s German team will miss Sommerfeldt. Though his those regular top results were becoming fewer and far between, he was a integral part of the relay team. We will probably see more of Sommerfeldt though. He has already expressed his interest in coaching, but I don’t think he’ll make the jump to coaching as quickly as Hetland did, but could very well see him with a national team in a couple of years. The question I ask whenever I see an elite skier like Sommerfeldt step away from the World Cup is who will replace him in the relay team? Well, there’s Tom Reichelt who is still making steps to be up there with the best, but also the youngster Tim Tscharke who made massive improvements this year, highlighted by his performance at the Olympics.

The last name Valbusa has become a household name for skis fans over the past 18 years. With older brother Fulvio Valbusa being quite successful in his time with 13 World Cup podiums, Sabina Valbusa was also quite the accomplished athlete. She hit the World Cup start line an impressive 219 times in her career where she debuted way back in 1992 in Ramsau. She had one World Cup victory back in 2004 and coincidentally it was the last of her nine individual podiums. That kind of experience and wisdom will be surely missed in the Italian ranks.

Could you write a better perfect ending for Anna Olsson’s career? Winning the final sprint race of the season and her career on home snow was amazing to see, and what a way to retire… on top. She experience will be missed especially for those young Ingemarsdotter’s, Pajala’s, and Falk’s who are transitioning to the big show, but at the same time, the women’s sprint team depth is impressive and still has that experience in the form of Lina Andersson who has been on the circuit now for 12 years and has 94 World Cup starts to her name.

Another story book ending had to be the final World Cup race of Sara Renner’s career. Though Sara wasn’t quite as prolific on the World stage as those mentioned above. She did have some results that many athletes are envious of, including her silver medal in the sprint relay from Torino and World Cup medals on the tough course of Davos in February 2006, and of course her sprint bronze medal from the World Championships in Oberstorf amongst a sea of Swedes ( Emelie Öhrstig, Lina Andersson, and Anna Dahlberg (now Olsson)). Her bronze medal in Canmore year was another fairy-tale like ending as she was able to medal on her hometown course in her 124th and final World Cup race. Her 10th place in the 15km pursuit at the Olympics was a great result and I was really happy to see her end on a high note.

The problem with Sara moving on is who will now lead the Canadian women’s team? The lack of depth is apparent and when you looking down the CPL (Canada Points List) or the Nor-Am results only one name comes to me; Daria Gaiazova. She made big strides this year in her sprinting and showed that she can qualify in the top 30 on any given day which is very positive, but she still has a bit of work to do to be able to step on a World Cup podium. Her distance skiing is pretty decent, and has done very well on the Nor-Am circuit this year, but has a long way to come yet for World Cup racing.

The next in line is Brittany Webster. Undoubtably, the most talented lady on the women’s team who only started skiing late in high-school as cross training for cross-country running. Her performance in the 10km classic at U23′s was mighty impressive with her fifth place considering she sat out all of last season due to a broken leg. She has the potential to be the next face of women’s cross-country and a World Cup medalist as many in Canada would agree with me, but I believe she’s still a couple of years away from reaching those heights.

Aside from the retirees, Vincent Vittoz, who was rumoured to be stepping away from the scene has decided he will be skiing next year. The 34-year old Frenchman had a great finish to the season and definitely looks like he has more gas in the tank for at least one more year. With the late season improvements of Manificat, this team will be really exciting to watch in the relay at Holmenkollen in March.

Other small news bits since the end of the season see the Russian’s do what they do best, the tragic comedy surrounding the Russian team and doping has taken another turn – for the worse – as two-time National Champion Lilija Stepanov had been found guilty of attempting to manipulate doping tests. Basically, she used another athletes urine to avoid testing positive, but untimately failed. A couple of days later, it was found she was abusing both EPO and nandrolone.

In Norway, the Skiforbunet is doing its yearly review of how the season turned out. Mark April 16th on your calendar because that’s when the Norwegian national team will be announced. There have been changes already as junior coach Roar Hjelmeset has taken an even bigger role as his position now encompasses the U23 program too. In this article,  Hjelmeset talks about the U23 athletes such as Hans Krister Holund and  Timo Andre Bakken not being able to make the jump to the big show like their U23 counter parts Panzhinskiy and Tscharnke. Personally, I think it’s a great idea to have a more concrete program that will help the athletes bridge the gap from the junior ranks to the World Cup. We’ve all talked about the lack of depth in the men’s distance team and hopefully this will be that final piece of the puzzle to see Norwegian rise again to their former glory, but it will obviously take a couple of years for these athletes make the transition.

Until next time, enjoy that glorious extra sunlight, spring is a great time of the year isn’t it?