#10: Czech Republic – All About Lukas

Nations Cup Position: 10^th

Men: 1695 (7^th)

Women: 187 (15^th)

For yet another season, old man Bauer (he is 34-years old after all) will lead his Czech teammates into battle. The supporting cast will look about the same as it did last year – not so bad on the men’s side, pretty weak on the women’s side – and the men will pull out one miraculous relay effort and win a medal in a team event… if history has told us anything.

MEN’S SPRINT

Dusan Kozisek (26^th sprint ranking) will be the man leading the men’s sprint team. He broke through last year will a thrilling third place in front of his home crowd in Liberec to claim his first ever sprint podium. Kozisek’s sprint partner will be either Martin Jaks (55^th) or Martin Koukal (66^th). Koukal will forever be known for winning the World Championship 50km free in Val di Femme and a 2^nd place in Düsseldorf in the same year. Unfortunately, that was the last time he stepped on a sprint podium; 8 years ago. Jaks on the other hand had a great 7^th place finish in Toblach, the second sprint of the Tour de Ski, but other than that he finished top 30 only once, 28^th in Oberhof.

WOMEN’S SPRINT

The women’s sprint team is the same as last year. They have Eva Nyvltova (37^th ranked) who is the only athlete to make an impression in the top 30. Her best finish last year was an 8^th in Toblach.

MEN’S DISTANCE

Bauer isn’t getting any younger, but that doesn’t mean he’s slowing down at all. The 34-year old finished 3^rd in the distance points ranking behind Cologna and Rickardsson last year and should be expected to do the same this year. With no major championships and a smooth fall thus far, expect Bauer to challenge for the Tour de Ski title once again.

Jaks (14^th in distance ranking) is finally finding consistency and scored seven top 16 placings last year including an amazing run in the Tour de Ski that saw him go 3^rd, 4^th,4^th in three consecutive distance races. He’s finally starting to ski to the potential many saw when he came 2^nd and 3^rd at the World Junior Championships in 2006 and should be finishing regularly in the top 15 this year.

Jiri Magal and Martin Koukal round-out the relay team that tends to surprise the world every so often. They are getting older (34 and 33 respectively)  and Koukal has reverted mainly to a sprinter as he failed to finish in the top 30 in any distance race last year while Magal managed to do so only twice.

UPDATE: Thanks to @klisterhead for the heads up. Apparently Koukal announced in May that he will be focusing on loppets this year and won’t be skiing the World Cup. Should be interesting to will be the #4 on the relay team now.

WOMEN’S DISTANCE

Once again, Eva Nyvltova (39^th in distance ranking) will carry the load, but will struggle to earn points on a regular basis. Ivana Janeckova will be the other Czech woman to score points this season, but I would only expect to crack the top 30 a couple times.

THE FUTURE

There is really nothing to report right now. The Czech talent pool looks rather lackluster for the next few years and something will have to change before they can start having youngster come through the ranks and successfully make an impact on the World Cup.

THE VERDICT

The men’s distance is where all the success will come from. Bauer will be borderline unstoppable in the individual start format and Jaks will continue to grow as a skier and will expect to earn many top 15’s this year. After that though, the talent dissipates fast on both the men’s and women’s side. The Czech’s are still looking for the replacement to the great Neumannova, but still have yet to find her.

Cologna Reigns Supreme and Wins Second Tour de Ski

The final day of this edition of the Tour de Ski was blistering in every account. The performance from Bauer to move from 10th to 3rd and the +5 degree weather made for some great racing as Cologna won his second Tour de Ski with a strong performance from Northug to earn second place.

THE RACE

With Cologna and Northug setting out early on. It was Northug who closed the gap by six seconds in the first four minutes. Behind the who it was Jaks ho was being closed down by a chase group of six including Rickardsson, Gaillard, Perl, Kershaw, Harvey and Clara.

Behind the chase pack it was Bauer who was gaining steadily and was setting himself up nicely for the climb.

Coming to 3.5km Northug was still flying and took out another 19 seconds out of Cologna to bring the gap down to 54 seconds. It was a suicide tactic from Northug as he was setting a blistering pace on the flats in an attempt to catch Cologna.

The virtual GPS timing had Northug’s gap down to 40 then 36 then 35 seconds with only 3km left. The real test of attrition started at 5.6km which was the time check at the  base of the hill and Northug’s progress started to stagnate and was 38 seconds down.

Further behind the lead two, the main chase pack of six had caught Jaks and the group forged on and tried to hold off Bauer who was only a few meters behind them at 5.6km.

It was becoming evident that Northug’s fast start was not a maintainable pace as he lost nine seconds in the first 900 meters of the Alpe Cermis to widen the gap between first and second to 47 seconds.

The battle for 11th-14th was a four man race as the pack of Vittoz, Reichelt, and di Centa dropped Filbrich and managed to catch Hellner.

At 7.4km, Northug had slightly recovered and didn’t lose anytime as he opted to not switch into the diagonal skate like Cologna did and grunted up the hill in the off-set.

The chase group started to splinter as Bauer moved from the back to the front and only Gaillard and to a lesser degree Perl were able to keep pace. Jaks, Clara and Kershaw created another group of three as Harvey and Rickardsson began to fall off the back of the group.

The next time check was at 8.1km and as Cologna went through, he looked very fluid and comfortable as he was only 900 meters from the finish. Just as at the last time check, Northug was no longer losing time, but not gaining either as the gap was 48 seconds.

Further back, Bauer’s pace was almost non-human as he was all alone in the chase for second as he was only 1:20 behind Northug. His gap between those behind him had been increased by

With 400 meters, Cologna finally took a peak behind him and realized he was safe and was able to relax as he turned off the jets and came across the finish line to win his second Tour de Ski.

It was only 27 seconds later that Northug came across the finish to earn second and 1:44 after Cologna came across; Bauer who was the fastest man of the day came to earn the final podium spot.

Curdin Perl was the next man across to put two Swiss athletes in the top four and Roland Clara came across the line with gusto as he rounded out the top five.

RESULTS
1. Dario Cologna
2. Petter Northug
3. Lukas Bauer

FASTEST TIME OF THE DAY
1. Lukas Bauer
2. Roland Clara
3. Curdin Perl

Another Tour in the bag and it was won by a very deserving athlete. On Eurosport, David Goldstrom finally admitted his massive man crush of the Swiss athlete as he gave a brief bio wrap on Cologna citing how he spoke Romanish to his father, German to his mother, French and English to the media and Italian to his wax technicians. After this, I immediately thought maybe there’s something to this ultra-talented in all areas of life that makes a champion. Kowalczyk has a similar wrap sheet where she fluent in five languages and has a university degree while being of the best female skiers in the world.

It really good to see Northug in second too. It’s safe to say he’s back to his powers after the horrible start to the season which will thrill Norwegian ski fans. Throughout the race, it was repeated the “what if” question for his poor showing in the second stage where he was denied by Harvey in the quarter-finals to advance. Had he got the same amount of bonus seconds as Cologna that day, they would have been in a dead heat at 7.1km today and would have made for the most exciting finish in Tour de Ski history.

My biggest “what if” question from the Tour is, “what if Lukas Bauer could actually sprint”. Unlike Cologna and Northug who picked up 238 and 178 respectively, Bauer had a mere 25 seconds. Bauer’s skiing today was unreal and he was an amazing 32 seconds faster than anyone else today.

Throughout the Tour, the biggest surprise for me was Clara who had a week to remember. He’s always been in the shadows of the likes of Piller-Cottrer and di Centa but he was the man for the Italians in the Tour. His second fastest time today only goes to show how well he is skiing this year. His fifth place overall in the Tour is remarkable considering he collected a whopping six bonus seconds over the eight races.

Of course how can we not talk about the Canadians. A truly historical week for not only Kershaw, but also Harvey. Kershaw’s four podiums including his first ever World Cup victory will have Canadian and North American ski fans alike talking for a long time to come. Both were in contention for the podium but ultimately ended seventh and tenth overall. When you have someone like Bauer chasing you down, it’s going to be extremely hard to earn that final podium spot. I just hope both of them can keep the form right through to the World Champs.

As for Babikov, I believe we still have yet to see the best of him this year. Today’s final stage is his bread and butter, and he was sixth fastest on the day which is a definite step in the right direction. He’s had a slow start to the season thus far and hopefully today’s result will instill some confidence that will see him take his skiing to the next level.

There’s a lot of other performances I want to touch on but I think I’ll leave that for a blog later this week. All in all, a very exciting and memorable Tour de Ski, and for my money, the most exciting one yet.

Til then.

Surprise Victory From Heikkinen

Bus schedules, they’re the funniest things eh? Yesterday I mentioned I was going to be on a bus, well it turns out I have trouble reading bus schedules because I got my .am’s and .pm’s mixed up which meant that I was able to watch another great day of racing.

The fourth day featured an abbreviated pursuit for the men. Instead of going the traditional 15km for each leg, it was only four loops of 2.5km bringing the grand total to 10km per leg. With the inclusion of a maximum of 120 seconds of possible bonus’ to be obtained; today’s stage had the possibility to blow the whole Tour wide of and make gaps in the leader board. Here’s how it played out…

THE RACE

Early on, it was apparent there would be two key points in the race; the 500 meters leading up to the intermediate sprint and the stadium. Funnily enough, that’s where 98% of all of the day’s action took place.

The first couple of minutes, the race was dictated by Hellner and Østensen as the pace was fairly pedestrian while the athletes settled into a comfortable groove.

Martin Jaks moved to the front just after the first 2.5km lap to increase the speed coming up to the first intermediate sprint. The first intermediate sprint featured Hellner, Jaks, and Rickardsson half heartedly went for the sprint with Jaks getting the 15 seconds. It wasn’t so much of a sprint as it an acceleration as the pack realized that there were three athletes going for it, there was no real competition.

At the start of the second lap, the pack became one again and the race started to take familiar form as Bauer and Legkov moved to the front and started. The slightly increase of pace came as the pack neared the bonus seconds again and Olsson took the lead, but with 20 meters left it was Bauer and Manificat to battle for the 15 seconds while Kershaw cheekily came from behind and nabbed 5 seconds from Olsson at the very last second.

Coming down the hill and into the final classic lap, the field was strung out from the intermediate sprint with Manificat leading from Kershaw and Bauer. The athletes were recoverying though which meant that the pack slowly recoiled and the pack was 25 strong after the first hill out of the stadium.

Manificat appeared to fall on his own and took out Filbrich, Hellner and Jaks with him just before the hill going up to the intermediate sprint. With the crash, an immediate injection of pace from Bauer saw Cologna and Harvey go with him. Cologna grabbed the 15 seconds with 10 seconds going to Bauer and five to Harvey.

Coming into the transition it was Cologna leading from the Canadian and the Bauer; however, it was Harvey leading out of the transition, but at a very leisurely pace. This allowed the pack bunch up again and the slow pace wasn’t sufficient for the Italian Frasnelli, so he took the lead followed by Bauer and Legkov. A massive injection of pace came from Södergren as he put the hammer down coming to the 12km time check. He kept the 30 meter lead for a couple of minutes, but realized he was making no more progress and let the foot of the gas and was swallowed up by the group again.

The lead was then taken over by a different Swede in the form of Hellner. Once again, Bauer, Legkov and Cologna were keeping a very keen eye on the leader and never were outside the top 10.

Coming up to the first skate sprint, we saw Northug feature for the first time. Unlike the classic sprint, there was some intense competition and as Northug took the lead he pulled out some Koalczyk-esque tactics and basically drifted to the left and right to block the path of Cologna and Hellner from over taking him in a matter of 50 meters.

Once again, the pace slowed as the sprinters recovered and the rest of the pack caught up to them. Bauer was leading the pack before Hellner took over at the base of the intermediate sprint hill. Northug once again put in an acceleration but couldn’t get by Hellner. While Hellner stayed in front and gained the final 15 bonus seconds, Northug was able to hold off Bauer for the 10 bonus seconds.

Starting the final 2.5km loop, Bauer was once again leading but it was the Italians Frasnelli and Clara who had extremely good skis and glided up to and past Bauer to take the lead. Coming up the final hill, it was Finn Heikkinen who came out of nowhere to put the hammer down and put in a vicious sprint, the only athlete to match him was Cologna, but even the Swiss man was stretched to the max.

Coming to the finish line, the Finn had it in the bag as did Cologna for silver as they had a massive 30 meter lead on the other athletes. The sprint for third was between Jaks and Gaillard and the Czech man was able to out sprint the Frenchman.

RESULTS
1. Matti Heikkinen
2. Dario Cologna
3. Martin Jaks

Overall Classification
1. Dario Cologna    1:37:51.0
2. Devon Kershaw    1:38:36.9
3. Marcus Hellner    1:38:57.1

What a surprise victory from Heikkinen, he came out of nowhere with 1.5km left to burn off everyone. Even though Cologna made a valiant attempt to stay with him, he had nothing left when it came to the final sprint and the Finn was able to let off the gas with 20 meters left.

I’m beginning to become quite the fan of these intermediate bonuses. It’s given a new exciting aspect to mass start races and takes out a lot of the predictability of the Northug final sprint or Bauer running away from the field. Seriously, who though Heikkinen would’ve won today. His tactics of laying back paid off, though he did loose more time on the man he beat today because of the bonus seconds. Even though he was two seconds faster than Cologna, the Swiss man gained 45 bonus seconds which means he now has an impressive 36 second lead on second place Devon Kershaw.

Speaking of the Canadian, he had another solid race in seventh. He also managed to grab 5 bonus seconds (same with Harvey), but with the amount Cologna earned, it meant that Kershaw now sits 45.9 seconds behind the lead and still in second. It was another good race for Harvey and sits in fifth in the overall classification while Freeman also had a good race on the day finishing in 11th which put him 22nd overall; 2:36.6 behind Cologna.

Anyone notice how heated Heikkinen was in the finishing pen? It appeared he was have a few choice words with Moriggl as they were in each others face. I’m not sure what it was about, but if anyone knows, post in the comments below please.

I must tip my hat to the Italian wax team today too. It was very noticeable how good the Italian skis were today, especially their skaters. At one point in the race, both Clara and Frasnelli were in the tuck down a hill and pulled up beside Bauer who was two skating and were able to remain in the tuck for a couple more seconds, before continuing to work.

As for the Czech’s, great race from Jaks who grabbed only his second career podium. Even after suffering a crash in the race he was able to land on the podium. As for Bauer, he’ll be disappointed to not beat Cologna, as the gap grew between him and the leader. He is now 1:36 behind, but knowing Bauer, this is not an insurmountable time.

Finally, what is going on with th German’s? They’re literally self-destructing. Today, they had four more athletes drop out including Boegl, Eisenlauer, Goering and Tscharnke. It appears Goering has an infection of sorts, but the others I’m unsure. Hopefully they can get it together in time for Olso.
Talk to you in a bit.