Oslo: The OK & The Bad

After looking at all the great performances from Holmenkollen yesterday; today we are taking a closer look at those that performed just okay, and even some that bordered on the poor.

THE OK

Petra Majdic – Yes, she earned a bronze in the sprint which was impressive. However, we still have yet to see the dominant Majdic that we became accustomed to in year’s past where she would be a sure lock in a sprint event, and even more so if it was in the classic technique. The only other individual event we saw her in was the 10km classic where she finished a mediocre 13th for her standards. Will she try to regain her form from year’s past or could she be hanging up the skis for good after Falun?

Andy Newell – He gets a lot of media attention for being one of the best qualifiers in the world, but fails to put it together in the heats. Well, Newell did a 180 and actually finished higher than he qualified, something he’s only done twice in the past 19 World Cup/World Championship races dating back to the end of the 2008-2009 season. He made it to the semi-finals and placed 10th, but for him to qualify 24th, as weird as it sounds, might be a tactic he might want to endorse for future races…

Emil Jönsson – It’s becoming more and more clear, that Jönsson has some sort of inability to put it together at the big shows. Sure he can qualify any given day and will usually be in the top 5, but it’s now been three World Championship or Olympics as he’s gone in as the favourite, but has failed to win the race that mattered. In Liberec he failed to make the final and finished 13th, in Vancouver he again missed the finals and finished seventh and this year he actually made the final and came third, only to be beaten by the biggest male rivalry in the sport in Hellner and Northug.

The German Women – They’ve had a rough ride all year with skiers out of form before, during and after the Tour de Ski and unfortunately they didn’t get it together for the World Championships. They did have some bright spots such as Fessel’s 7th in the 30km and 15km pursuit. Sachenbacher-Stehle hasn’t found her foot this year even though she had two 13th places, we all know that she’s capable of much more when she’s on form.

Ville Nousiainen – There’s no real category to put this guy in, perhaps I should’ve made a sympathy category and thrown him in there with Dolidovich and Eliassen and I feel it’d be harsh to put him in the bad section. Basically, Nousiainen is a good top-25 skier and always has been. His 8th in the 15km classic was a great result and tied his best individual result in over three years. But he was the main reason why the Finnish sprint and relay teams finished the positions they did. There’s weak links in every team, but he sticks out like a sore thumb. He ran the first leg in the relay and handed off to Jauhojaervi with a 55 second deficit. It’s a small miracle the team actually made it back into medal contention.  Then the sprint relay Jauhojaervi led out and Nousiainen held the anchor leg. Jauhojaervi did everything humanly possible to tag off to his teammate and give him as big of a lead as possible, but Nousiainen had no legs left and ultimately ended up in fifth.

THE BAD

Dario Cologna – Arguably one of the most talented athletes on the world stage right now. We all know what he’s capable of with two Tour de Ski titles already in his trophy case and an Overall World Cup Crystal Globe, this guy has almost done it all at the age of 24-years old. Before every race, he was one pegged as a favourite, but instead of landing on the podium, he turned into the Swiss miss. He failed to crack the top 20 in any of the individual results with a 20th in the 50km, 25th in the 15km classic and 24th in the 30km pursuit. A shadow of what we saw around Christmas time.

Alexander Legkov – Like Cologna, we’ve seen his ability to take races by the scruff of the neck and destroy competition, the finale to the Kuusamo mini-tour this year springs to mind. His 19th in the 30km pursuit below par for his standards, but it only got worse as the week went on. The next race was the 15km classic where he was 20th and then the relay happened. Oh, how he wished that race never occurred. The first 3km of his leg he managed to real in the leaders, but then Legkov and Russia watched in horror as their medal hopes disappear with every passing second as Legkov lost 1:50 in the last 5km of the leg. Extremely uncharacteristic from the Russian. It’ll be interesting to see if he can rebound before the season is over.

The Swedish Wax Team for the men’s 15km classic – There’s missing the wax and there’s MISSING THE WAX. The Swedish wax techs did the latter for the men’s 15km classic. The Swede’s had the favourite in Rickardsson and with the likes of Hellner fresh of his sprint win and Olsson who prefers the technique, they had the recipe for a great day. You knew it was bad when the only time the TV audience saw Rickardsson was at the first time-check and that was it for the rest of the race. At the end of the day, they didn’t have anyone in the top 15 with Olsson (17th), Södergren (22nd), Hellner (34th) and Rickardsson (42nd). Thankfully, wax techs hit the wax for the rest of the races and the athletes were able to show that it wasn’t their shape that resulted in the poor results, just a bad day in the wax room.

Sprintgutta

Sprintgutta – The Norwegian sprint boys. What other country has a specific sprint team as publicized as these guys? They even have a website dedicated to their on-goings throughout the year. For the record, Northug isn’t part of that team and trains mostly with the distance team. The sprintgutta are led by Hattestad and fair play to him during the championship as he finished fourth in the individual sprint and second in the team sprint, but other than him, the other guys really sucked it up on home snow. I know, it sounds a little harsh, but it’s true. That program probably has more money poured into it than many national teams. They really had one chance and here’s how it turned out. Hattestad (4th), Gløersen (13th), Brandsdal (17th), Pettersen (41st). Pettersen… 41st… really?! But I guess it’s no surprise as he had the same placing three weeks earlier at the FIS race in Beitostølen.

That’s it for me. I’ll be back this weekend for a look at the races from Lahti.

Til Then.

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.

 

Men’s 50km: A Perfect Day for Norway

Like the women’s 30km, it was another beautiful day for the last cross-country ski race of the World Championships. Coming into the race Northug was the favourite and just over two hours after the final race of the World Championships started, Northug came across the finish line to collect his third gold medal in the past 10 days.

THE RACE

Early on we saw a host of leaders from Duvillard, Goering, Hellner and Northug. Pavels Ribakovs from Latvia pulled a Kershaw and his ski flew off into the bushes and a spectator retreived it for him so he could continue.

At eight minutes we saw a half-hearted break from Manificat and #30 Jauhojaervi who were able to gain 30 meters on the leaders around 2.5km into the race. I think they were surprised by the lead as they skied side-by-side looking back and talking amongst each other about the lead they had gained. I’m guessing the conversation was about letting the pack swallow them up or staying out in front with the current pace they were skiing. However, the pack sped on the downhill meant that they were now once again together with the field.

The next few kilometers we saw the bulk to the lead skied by Piller-Cottrer with Sodergren and Hellner making brief appearances at the front. Coming into the stadium and the first opportunity for a ski exchange, the Italian opted to go for a new pair of skis which meant the first to break the clock was Japan’s Naruse. There were a handful of athletes to change skis but with the lead pack still quite large, they were able to link up with the back as soon as they started to ski again.

The next lap saw Johnsrud Sudby take the lead with American Noah Hoffman right behind him. The pace set wasn’t too fast, but it was still stretching the field out at the back and after 3km at the front it was Perl and Duvillard to take the lead coming through the stadium at 13.3km. Perl continued to lead until the feed in the stadium and the end of the second lap.

THis time going through the ski exchange, almost every athlete opted for new skis as the race was a third done. Going out on the second lap, there was still 42 athletes in the lead and the leader board was being dominated by the French and Norwegian team as they had all four of their athletes in the top 10.

At the beginning of the third lap, there were familiar faces at the front as Duvillard was dictating the pace with Piller-Cottrer and Perl just in behind him.

The first real attack of the day came from Roland Clara at 18.8km and within a couple hundred meters open up a nine second lead. Behind him, the main pack of 38 skiers did not react at all and allowed the Italian quickly get out in front. Manificat was the man who led the chase, and it appeared that Clara’s attack was half-hearted as he let his foot of the gas and looked behind him wondering where everyone was at 19.6km even though he still had an 11 second lead on the pack. I guess he was more surprised than anything that not a single athlete went with him. It was good to see him enjoying the race though as he looked at the camera on the snowmobile traveling down the hill beside him and blew a kiss to the audience at home.

On one of the downhills we saw Angerer eat snow, but the damage was minimal as he got up and was able to hang on to the back of the pack. At 21.6km, the pack was now 35 strong and worryingly for the Russians, both Glavatishikn and Shiriaev were now off the back and 20 seconds off the lead.

Just outside the stadium, Clara was caught by the pack, but he still continued to lead as he was joined up from by Sjur Røthe.
At 23.4km, we saw a new athlete at the front as Aivar Rehemaa from Estonia decided it was his time to take the lead, but it was short-lived as Sjur Røthe had great glide and took the lead and was joined by Babikov. Going up the hill behind frognersetern, Babikov was joined up front by Bauer who had been really quiet for the first half of the race. As the athletes came into the stadium, we saw one final exchange of the lead as Hellner led the athletes into the feed zone before the third ski exchange.

Once again, the majority of the athletes took advantage of the ski exchange and went in for a short pit-stop. On the third lap, it was more the same; top athletes all in the lead pack that was still quite large.

At 27.9km, it was Babikov who decided to test the waters and injected a little pace up front. Just like Clara’s breakaway at the same point a lap earlier, there was no urgency from the pack as the Canadian began to ski away because he attacked just before the set of downhills and going back down into the stadium, the pack speed reeled Babikov back in. However, Babikov still continued to lead going back out on course as Manificat was have a hard time to keep contact with the lead pack.

Around 31km, it was the Swede Olsson who was next to lead while Røthe shadowed his every move. Coming into the fourth ski exchange at 33.3km, every athlete in the lead pack opted to change skis.

The start of the fourth lap saw the most decisive breakaway yet as Piller-Cottrer went off the front and he was joined by Gaillard. The other athletes recognized this breakaway as dangerous and quickly closed the gap led by Hellner. In addition to closing the gap, Hellner blew by Gaillard and took the lead from Piller-Cottrer and put in an attack of his own. Piller-Cottrer was able to hang on initially, but dropped back while Røthe came through the pack to ski up to Hellner. The injection of pace was hurting athletes and at 35.5km, there was now 25 athletes stick in contact.

Hellner’s pace had now splintered the field as there was a lead three of Hellner, Northug and Chernousov closely followed by another foursome of Clara, Cologna, Angerer and Vylegzhanin. 25 seconds now separated the top 25 athletes.

Coming down the big hill, a lead group of seven formed consisting of the athletes mentioned above while a big chase group worked hard to close the gap and once again the field was together as they approached the stadium. At 38.3km, Hellner was still leading, but the lead group had ballooned again and was 22 athletes strong.

At 39.2km, the lead group was splitting into two distinctive group with 12 in the lead, followed by a chase pack of 10 led by Babikov who were four seconds off the pace. However, the downhills acted as friends for the chasers as they were able to erase the deficit they faced a kilometer beforehand, but Clara was the one casualty and was unable to regain contact.

Hellner continued to lead in the stadium as the athletes came through for their last opportunity to change their skis. Interestingly, while many of the athletes choose to change skis, both Dolidovich and Bauer opted not to and opened up a 10 second lead on those who changed skis. It was only a short time later that the Czech and the Belarussian were once again a part of the lead pack.

As the pack settle, once again it was Hellner to take over from Rickardsson and increase the speed at the front. The pace increase was minimal and at 43.8km there was still 20 athletes in with a chance, but Cologna was now finding the pace too much. Just as the athletes went through the time check, it was Rickardsson to inject some speed and his attack was breaking the leaders and the lead group was down to eight athletes, before Rickardsson let up and wanted to someone else to take over the pace. This meant that the lead group was now back to 12 athletes as Rickardsson had successfully dropped the likes of Bauer and Hellner from the front.

Coming through the stadium for the last time at 46.6km, it was Sodergren leading the way and there were more athletes joining the fight as the top 17 were only separated by eight seconds now.

With only 3.4km left it was time to wait and see who was going to attack first. The first attack didn’t take long as it was Finland’s relay star Juha Lallukka to attack first and at 47.5km he had managed to drop all but seven athletes. The Finn continued to lead up front, but athletes were recovering from the damage by the initially burst and with only 1.6km left, there were still 11 athletes in the main pack and in for a fight for the podium.

Coming down the hill before frognersetern, it was chaos as Dolidovich ate snow as the tail of his ski caught the tip of Gjerdalen’s in coincidental contact and for his troubles he broke a pole in the fall especially taking him out of contention. Moments later the exact same thing happened to Eliassen as the tail of his ski was knicked by Rickardsson’s tip which had the Norwegian on the snow and visibly frustrated.

Ahead of the chaos, it was Vylegzhanin leading down the hill and attacked while Northug and Gjerdalen hung on coming around frognersetern. Coming into the stadium, it was down to Vylegzhanin and Northug for top spot and just like the pursuit, Northug pulled ahead of Vylegzhanin with a couple of poles right before the last uphill at the far end of the stadium. As Northug skied over the hump into the finishing straight, it was his race to lose and this time the Norwegian star was in a flat-out sprint in an attempt to hold off Vylegzhanin who had not given up on the top spot. As Northug came across the finish line to collect the final gold of the World Championships he collapsed into a heap as did Vylegzhanin. In third, the crowd was thrilled to see Gjerdalen take the final podium spot. In the fight for fourth, it was Harvey, Angerer, Røthe, and Rickardsson in a fight and it was the diminutive Norwegian Røthe who edged out Harvey for the wooden medal.

RESULTS
1. Petter Northug
2. Maxim Vylegzhanin
3. Tord Asle Gjerdalen

It only seemed fitting that Norway would win the finally cross-country ski race of the World Championships. While it wasn’t the most exciting (I’d go as far as saying the least exciting race of the World Champs), it was enough for the tens of thousands of fans as Norway incredibly grabbed three of the top four positions. Had someone told me that Gjerdalen would finish third and Røthe fourth, I wouldn’t confidently told them they should lay off the crack pipe and that they were delusional. Fair play to the Norwegians, a fantastic day for the home of cross-country.

A great race for Vylegzhanin to who collected his second silver medal of the Championships.

As for other very impressive finishes, my hats off the Juha Lallukka, this 31-year old Finn has been around for a long time but amazingly has only 18 World Cup starts to his name. Even more impressive is that he has six World Championship starts on his rap sheet which means, if I do the math correctly, 25% of his starts on the world stage, have been at the biggest ski show on Earth! And it’s not as though as he’s performed poorly at World Champs either. Dating back to 2007 in Sapporo his individual results go as follows; 11th, 15th and 8th. Hopefully, he’ll be able to run the season out on the World Cup circuit with the National Team.

My heart truly pours out to Dolidovich today, the 37-year old Belarussian could possibly had his last World Championships race today of his career and the way it ended was tragic. When he went down with less than a kilometer left, he was in third place skiing on Vylegzhanin’s shoulder. He could very well have improved upon his fourth place he earned in the pursuit. I guess that’s the luck of sport sometimes.

On the North American watch, it was Harvey to lead the way as he was in the fight for fourth, but photo finish gave the spot to Sjur Røthe and Harvey had to settle for fifth place today. Next was Babikov who had a ton of TV face time today, but he ran out of juice in the last 2km and settled for 17th.

The Americans were led by Hoffman who also got some TV time in the first third of the race and finished a respectable 30th. He was followed by Flora (39th), Elliot (40th) and nordic combined athlete Billy Demong (51st).

Well the race are over and next weekend is usual business as the World Cup circuit resumes and the athletes head to Lahti for a pursuit and a classic sprint. I’ll be back tomorrow with a full wrap of everything that went on the past 10 days.

Til Then.