Panic in Norway

Yesterday saw Olympic history and I’m not talking about Cologna and Kalla winning gold medals in their first ever Olympic races. I’m talking about the Norwegian’s men’s team. It was the worst collective cross-country ski race for Norwegian men in their illustrious Olympic history with their top skier Tord-Asle Gjerdalen finished a mediocre 28th. The fall-out can be described as disappointing, shocking, surprising and even failure. Already six separate articles on Dagbladet (one of Norway’s two big newspapers while VG is the other) and five articles on VG. There are probably be many more in smaller papers across the Scandinavian country. Thankfully, Bjørgen and Størmer-Steira performed up to standards or else there would be a national crisis in Norway today.

While some articles blamed the wax techs and some wax techs blame themselves – Northug’s head waxer Perry Olsson admitted they made a mistake – which was the cause Norwegian’s abissmal results. Others say that Norway is not as strong in freetsyle races as they are in classic. Of course there is some truth in that as Norway always does much better in the classic races.

There was some interesting words from Inge Bråten (Canada’s head coach) who thought it was a paradox that Norway’s skiers were about on par with Canada’s in the men’s 15km. He notes that money in cross-country skiing isn’t synonymous with success in the sport, which was apparent today.

It should not happen. Norge should dominate cross-country skiing with the recruiting and economy we [Norway] has, while some other countries struggle with the economy. This is a pure catastrophe. I cannot believe what I see.”

In the same breath, Bråten still believes Northug will take a gold at the Olympics and I believe if not all, many cross-country ski fans will agree with Bråten.

Many said it’s a wake up call to Norway who has learned to rely on Northug as their medal hope for every race he enters. In fairness to Norwegians, if you had an athlete from your country that was rolling over the competition like Northug was before Christmas and the first part of the Tour, you would expect the same.

More eyebrows were raised when Sundby said that he was not really looking forward to the race and was perfectly satisfied with his 33rd place. He said to dagbladet.no:

Had Lars Berger been in this distance, it would have been interesting, I would have gladly stepped aside. 15km freestyle is not my distance, but Lars would not and I got the chance to race so I can get in proper shape.

Sundby thought that Northug and Hafsås would have “cruised” to a podium place citing that the team was very well prepared. So was it just a case of bad waxing? Hafsås had a different story and blamed his body for not responding the way he wanted it too. He also said that his skis were very good on the day.

This raises the question of team selection. We all know that Norway didn’t fill their quota and only brought 19 of the possible 20 athletes to Canada. Perhaps, they could have brought another distance skier that could have taken Sundby’s place? Or perhaps bring another athlete that could have been a medal hopeful… *cough* Dahl *cough*. But I won’t open the Dahl can of beans in this post. That deserves its own attention.

Norway said that they were only interested in bringing skiers who could compete for medals, and that’s a fair statement to come from a country with such a history in the sport. But at the same time, why put athletes into a race that they know they will not challenge for a medal? We know that Sundby is one of the best in the world when he’s on top of his game, but when a skier from Norway is satisfied with a 33rd, that should give the team selectors a little headache.

I believe this was Hafsås’ only race in Callaghan Valley and it was not the most flattering Olympic debut. Some have said that this “wake up call” should be remedied with changes within the coaching and waxing departments, but I think that is hitting the panic button a little too soon. Let’s see how the rest of the races turn out before making rash decisions such as this.

Åge Skinstad told VG that Northug has gone through this before, in Liberec where Northug placed 22nd in the opening race before going onto becoming a triple gold medallist and that Northug will do much better the next race. Let’s hope Skinstad is right for the sake of the well-being on millions of Norwegians. If they underperform in the sprints tomorrow (basically failing to make the podium), it will be nothing short of a national tragedy for the Scandinavian country.

Til Tomorrow.