Kuusamo Womens 5km: #50 for Marit

The snow was coming down and the snow conditions were great for this abbreviated individual start race. Today’s race was only 5km instead of the traditional 10km which meant for a frantic pace around the 5km loop.

THE RACE

Stephen (bib 8 ) of USA posted a very good time through 3.1km and had an impressive snappy turnover going through 3.1km. Stephen looked like she had put up a good time until Jacobsen (bib 17) came through and took 15 seconds out of the American which immediately looked to be a very competitive time for the race. At the finish, Jacobsen increased her lead by a further 12 seconds and skied the 5km course in 12:12 which looked to be a top 10 time for the day. In behind, Holly Brooks had a great run as she finished only 14 seconds behind the Norwegian.

As more athletes came through the 3.1km mark, Jacobsen’s race was looking more impressive as Steira, Weng, Roponen, Sarasoja-Lilja and Kristoffersen were all behind Jacobsen’s time. The advantage for those athletes were that their coaches were able to relay to them splits on Jacobsen and at the finish Sarasoj-Lilja did very well to closed the gap to 1.5 seconds, but didn’t topple the Norwegian.

The race began rather redundant for the next few dozen racers as they were close to Jacobsen’s time, but just came up short. It wasn’t until Kowalczyk (bib 78) went through 3.1km that the race really heated up. The Pole was able to oust Jacobsen from the best time as Kowalczyk was 5.5 seconds faster than the Norwegian. But it was Johaug (bib 82) who took a further 1.4 seconds out of Kowalczyk’s time.

At the finish, Kowalczyk got stuck behind Gaiazova and lost a couple seconds, but still did enough to take the lead from Jacobsen. Feeding off the splits, Johaug increased her pace and crossed the line with a lead of 7.6 seconds over Kowalczyk.

Back on course, Kalla was absolutely storming as she was four seconds faster than Johaug at 3.1km, but Bjørgen dropped that fast time by a further 4.3 seconds.

At the finish, Kalla’s lead on Johaug shrunk a bit, but still did enough to overtake the Norwegain and did just enough to hold of Skofterud as Skofterud momentarily sat in second place. Bjørgen came across the line with a 11 second lead ahead of the Swede.

RESULTS

1. Marit Bjørgen
2. Charlotte Kalla
3. Vibeke Skofterud

A great race for Jacobsen today, who started so early and was the leader at the finish line for much of the race and ultimately finished in 6^th place. On the whole, it was another amazing day for Norway who had six of the top nine athletes.

It was another great day for the American women as Randall and Brooks finished 12^th and 17^th respectively.

Tomorrow is set up for a very exciting race in terms of the race for second place. Bjørgen has a 11 second lead on Kalla for tomorrow’s pursuit, but Kalla, Skofterud and Johaug will start only 2.3 seconds. apart. Kowalczyk will start 7.6 seconds behind that group and will be looking to make contact with them as that threesome will probably look to work together to try and keep Kowalczyk off the podium.

Another Day at the Office for Bjørgen

With air temperatures around 2.5°C and the snow temperature at a crisp -1.5°C, it was a great day for the opening of the new World Cup season. There was a lot of artificial snow produced to get this race off and the loop had a 25cm base which was packed on top of the Sjusjøen roller-ski loop. Today also was the first time the FIS was able to run their new starting protocol with high FIS point athletes alternating with low FIS point athletes in the start list so the big athletes will get more TV time.

THE RACE

The first real pace setter on the day was the Norwegian junior Martine Ek Hagen who went through the 2.5km time check at a hair over six minutes.  Hagen was topped by fellow junior Heidi Weng by less than a second before the biathlete Tore Berger took five seconds out of the lead. The Norwegians continued to drop that first intermediate time as Østberg was through 2.5km 0.2 seconds faster than the biathlete. The Norwegian lead was temporarily halted as Randall had a very strong start and was just sliver ahead of Østberg.

After about 50 starters, the track started to become very crowded since the athletes had to do the loop three times with groups of up to five athletes on different laps skiing together. As Steira took the 2.5km intermediate from the lead from Randall, it was Stephens at the finish line to put up the first decent time of 25:52. Just after Steira went by the time check, Skofterud took another four seconds out at 2.5km and dropped the time to 5:47. It took a few more athletes before Kristoffersen took the lead and dropped the time by a second.

Further up the course, the race was beginning to take shape as Tore Berger continued to put the hammer down as athletes were starting to drop off her pace at the intermediate splits. Randall was one of the few athletes doing a good job to stay within a few seconds Berger’s time.

Back at the finish, Weng took 12 seconds out of the lead. However, only three bibs later Berger blazed the final home stretch and took a massive 35 seconds out of Weng for a new lead time of 25:05.

To get an early reading on how Bjørgen was going, she took an amazing 6.7 seconds out of Kristoffersen’s time at 2.5km. Worryingly for Polish ski fans, Kowalczyk was already a big 17 seconds behind her rival at the first time check. To show how impressive the Norwegians were, with all the athletes through the 2.5km, Norway held seven of the top nine spots.

As more and more athletes came across the finish-line, more athletes failed to beat Berger’s time until bib 47 in Skofterud came through and took 14 seconds out of the biathlete and became the first athlete to go under 25 minutes on the day in 24:51.

Back on course, Skofterud’s intermediate times were the real place markers and at 6.9km, the likes of Kalla and Johaug were both slower, but Bjørgen wasn’t as she took a massive 14 seconds out of her teammate. At the same time check, Kowalczyk continued to go backwards and was a horrible 41 seconds behind Bjørgen sitting in ninth place. With all the athletes through, it was eight Norwegians (Bjørgen, Skofterud, Steira, Kristoffersen, Johaug, Jacobsen and Østberg) in the top 11 and only Kalla in third place as the only non-Norwegian in the top seven.

The race between Kalla and Skofterud was heating up and with the information Kalla got from her coaches, she was able to erase the 5.5 second hole she was in at 6.9km to beat Skofterud by 1.9 seconds. Kalla held the lead only for short while as Bjørgen came across the line an amazing 27 seconds ahead of Kalla to earn her first of many victories this season.

RESULTS

1. Marit Bjørgen
2. Charlotte Kalla
3. Vibeke Skofterud

Analysis

Well in one way, today finished a lot like we thought and a lot different at the same time. Bjørgen won the race and almost everybody expected that, but by how much she won today is a little worrying for the rest of the women’s field. 27 seconds ahead of the next athlete is a huge gap and the question if anyone can close it will have to wait until next weekend.

It was truly a great race by Skofterud today to earn third. Looking at her FIS profile, it’s interesting to see all her individual podiums dating back to 2003 have come in the first month of the World Cup season, either in Beitøstolen, Kuusamo, Gallivare or Davos. Hopefully, she’ll be able to continue this good form right into 2012.

The talent of Norway’s women’s team is nothing short of spectacular. Today has got to be one of the most dominating performances by a nation in recent history. If it wasn’t for Kalla and her 2^nd place, Norway would’ve swept the top six positions. They still managed to earn nine of the top 13 spots which is almost unheard of these days in the sport.

The American team have to be really excited about how Randall (8^th) and Stephens (18^th) skied today. I believe those are both career best placings in distance races which is a great way to start the season.

The biggest news for me today though was the Russian women, it’s been well documented that their women’s side is weak, but today has got to sound some alarms and inject some panic in the Russian ski federation. Not a single woman finished inside the top 30 today with Nikolaeva the best at 39^th. Also, Khazova in 44^th is shocking and unacceptable and for a woman who had such a strong season two years ago, being 2:23 behind the lead is very troublesome.

I know I put a lot of light on Kowalczyk or her short comings, but her rivalry IS the rivalry in skiing right now. Kowalczyk has some serious work to do because being 1:12 behind Bjørgen is a huge chunk of time. Some of that lost time can be accounted for the fact that the snow was extremely hard and crusty which made it much harder to balance today and we all know how Kowalczyk deals with balance problems on skis… #bambi.

I’ll be back in a bit with the men’s recap.

Oslo 2010: The Good

Well it’s over. The home nation ran the gauntlet for 12 days as they racked in an impressive eight gold, four silver, four bronze. Next best nation? Their rivals Sweden with a mere two gold, two silver and one bronze. It wasn’t even fair, just like fishing with dynamite. Over the next three days, I’ll be looking at those athletes and teams who over-achieved, under-achieved, and just achieved. This post will focus on those who did good.

THE GOOD

It really goes without saying; Norway, but I said it anyway. Talk about stepping up to the plate when it matters. They had three athletes that won more than two medals each (I’ll get to them later), but a total of six different athletes on hit the podium. The nation won a total of 16 individual and team medals and when you compare that to two-year earlier in Liberec where they collected seven medals (five gold and two silver), which is still a good haul, but what a difference two years makes.

She was crowned the Queen of Callaghan when the Olympics finished and I think it is safe to say that Bjørgen can be crowned as Queen of Holmenkollen too. With four gold and one silver she was so close to tying Valbe’s record of five gold’s in a single Championship. I guess she’ll have to wait another two years for Val di Femme and try all over again.

Northug retained all three titles he won in Liberec (30km pursuit, 50km mass start, and 4x10km relay) and added runner-up medals to his collection. What can I say? He’s good at what he does and what he does is destroy other athletes with his inhuman sprint with 200 meters left in a race.

The most impressive Norwegian is Johaug though. Still very much a youngster in the game at 22-years old, she was able to earn two gold and one bronze being the second best female athlete for her nation. Her performance in the 30km free is one for the ages and she was only 1.3 seconds behind Kowalczyk in the 10km classic. Normally we’d be saying she has a promising future, but for Johaug the future is now.

Over the past couple years, there has been a collective groan from Norwegians and the ski world about the lack of depth and quality of the men’s distance team. Last year, I believe Johnsrud Sundby was the only Norwegian other than Northug to hit the distance podium, and he only did it once. However, this year they turned it all around and delivered when it counted. We knew Rønning and Johnsrud Sundby were in form coming into the Championships, so to see them medal in the 15km classic was a great sight, but not a surprise. To see Gjerdalen come across the line in 3rd in the final 50km and Røthe beat out Harvey, Angerer and Rickardsson left my jaw on the floor. This is Røthe’s first year on the National Team and is still only 22-years old. He only has nine World Cup starts to his name while Gjerdalen has bounced around the top 30 a lot and hasn’t recorded a podium since the 3.3km free in Bormio for the first ever World Cup Finale.

As for other countries, massive props to my home country of Canada; specifically Kershaw and Harvey for winning Canada’s first every World Championship Gold. A pretty special moment, and while it was amazing to see them stand atop the podium in University Square, it wasn’t surprisingly. These guys have been quality and the consistency for top finishes have been there for the past couple years and the world was treated to it first at the Olympics. Then we saw Kershaw take the world by storm at the Tour de Ski and earned his first individual win in the Dobaicco sprint.

For Harvey, we saw his double-poling strength a week earlier in Drammen when he took second place, but to be able to out-pole Ola Vigen Hattestad, the former World Sprint Champion to take the gold, that’s some serious strength we’re talking about. He was also impressive in the 30km pursuit where he broke away and skied at the front by himself for two laps of the race before being caught with less than 3.5km left. In a post-race interview he said that his left-leg was cramping slightly and that could have made the difference. I guess we’ll never know.

Doppelganger

For the Russian’s the one bright spot for me was Maxim Vylegzhanin. Even though he was runner-up to Northug twice (is he becoming the new Axel Teichmann?), it’s still two World Championship silvers. In the 50km, he was the one to lead the charge coming up the final hill, but it was too little too late. On a side note, anyone think Vylegzhanin looks like Fred Armisen (cast member of SNL) going through a bought of chemotherapy when he was younger?

We also have Lallukka who I talked about and had the leg of his lifetime to bring Finland back into the medal contention of the 4x10km relay. Also, his teammate Heikkinen peaked at the right time too as he won the 15km classic an impressive 14 seconds over the Norwegians Rønning and Johnsrud Sundby.

Continuing with the Finns, the women were equally impressive for the most part with Saarinen getting back to her old form with an 8th in the 15km pursuit, bronze in the 10km classic, silver in the team sprint and bronze in the 4x5km relay. We also got to see future star of the sport Lahteenmaki help the sprint and relay team to medal as well as an 11th in the 30km free and a very impressive 5th in the 10km classic. The only race where she missed out on was the pursuit where she finished 31st.

Also, journeyman Dolidovich had the best World Championships of his long career as he came fourth in the pursuit but had his dreams of a World Championship medal dashed as he fell on the final hill in the 50km and had to settle for 10th.

As for the women, other than Bjørgen and Johaug, Kalla’s final leg on the team sprint was something pretty special. I’ve never seen such a rapid change in the fight for top spot in the sprint. Coming into the final leg, there was still a chance for Finland and Norway, then all of a sudden Kalla had a massive lead within a few seconds of the hand-off. It was something quite remarkable to witness.

Well, those are the performances that stand out to me. I’m sure there are other ones that impressed you guys too. Tomorrow I’ll be back with an article on the less than good performances that we witnessed in Oslo.

Til Then.