4x10km Relay: Gold for Norway

Once again it was a foggy day at Holmenkollen for the biggest relay race in Norway since the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer. A total of 17 different nations had entered the race, but only a handful had a realistic chance at standing on the podium at the end of today’s proceedings. The course that the men used was the same as the women except they were doing two laps of the figure eight loop instead of one. At the end of the day, it was another reason to party for the home nation as Norway collected yet another gold medal in the men’s relay.

THE RACE

Early on it was a similar sight as the pursuit as Rickardsson was the man to take up the job of pacing and didn’t give up top spot for the first 2km. Even before they had entered their first minute of racing, three teams (Denmark, Australia and Great Britain) were already detached and in their own race. Going out on the second loop of the first 5km, the gap started to open up on the main pack and by 3.5km, Rickardsson had broken all but six teams as Russia in Vylegzhanin and Norway in Johnsrud Sundby where shadowing his every move while France, Kazakhstan, Germany and Finland were in a foursome about 15 meters behind the lead. Italy had done some good work going up the sprint hill before the stadium to regain contact with the chasing foursome.

Coming into the half-way point of the first leg, the leading three had a seven second lead over the chasing five. While the lead continue to extend its lead on the rest of the field, the chase pack continue to grow as Estonia and Japan showed some good skiing and were able to ski back into contention as the chasers were now seven teams strong.

At 7.0km, the leaders had increased their lead by another 10 seconds over the last 2km and Vlyegzhanin and Johnsrud Sundby were happy to let Rickardsson do the grunt work up front. The first attack came a couple hundred meters outside the stadium as Vyleghzhanin pulled out from behind Rickardsson and injected some pace. Rickardsson did well to react, but Johnsrud Sundby was already on his limit and was left behind. Within 300 meters, Johnsrud Sudby lost eight seconds on the lead.

With 1.5km left in the leg, it was Vylegzhanin and Rickarsson out in front while Johnsrud Subdy was now 12 seconds behind and the chase pack of now five  (Finland and France were dropped) was 32 seconds behind the lead.

Coming into the stadium, the lead two were now in a full on sprint until the tag off while Johnsrud Sundby was trying to minimize the bleeding of time as at the hand off Norway was 22 seconds down. Some impressive skiing from the chasers of Estonia, Kazakhstan and Germany had actually gone two seconds faster than the leaders in the final 1.5km and they now sat only eight seconds behind third place.

The second leg saw Rickardsson tag off to Olsson and Vylegzhanin change on to Volzhentsev, but Norway had in form Rønning to ski their second leg. Just like the first leg, Sweden were more than happy to lead while Volzhentsev sat in behind. The danger though was that the pace at the front had slowed and Rønning had closed the gap by eight seconds in the first 2km and was now only 14 seconds down while the pack of Kazakhstan, Estonia and Germany were 27 seconds behind.

At the top of the course at 2.8km, Rønning had taken another two seconds out, but the threesome behind him were now starting to lose time and were now 33 seconds behind the lead.

Coming into the stadium for the start of the second lap, Olsson finally relinquished Sweden’s lead on the race for the first time of the day and let Volzhentsev ahead. However, Rønning had finally reeled them in and was now only two seconds back at 5km. Further back, Estonia was now off the back of Germany and Kazakhstan who had decreased the deficit back down to 27 seconds. Jauhojaervi had also done some good work for Finland as they had regained contact with Japan and Italy and that group were only 38 seconds down.

As soon as Rønning caught Olsson and Volzhentsev, he took the front and dictated the pace and the three were able to stick together. Behind the lead, Teichmann had found another gear and broke away from Poltoranin and only sat 18 seconds behind the lead and now had visual contact with the leaders. At the top of the hill at 7.8km Teichmann’s progress had stagnated and a foursome behind him led by Jauhojaervi was meters away from catching him.

Coming down to the sprint hill, Volzhentsev was dropped by Rønning and Olsson as they forged up the hill to the stadium. In the stadium, the gap between the lead two and Russia was substantial at about 70 meters. Another 70 meters behind Russia was the chase pack of Germany, Finland, Italy, and Japan. At the exchange, the damage had been done as Russia now sat 20 seconds behind, with Finland, Italy, Germany and Japan only four seconds behind the bronze medal position.

The start of the skate portion of the race was rather mundane, Sodergren led out for Sweden with Gjerdalen just behind him for Norway. Legkov was doing the donkey work for the chasers, but they were making progress as they took out eight seconds of the leaders in the first 2km and the gap now sat at 50 meters coming out of the stadium. Japan was the first to feel the pace and at the top of the hill at 2.8km, was now detached by 40 meters from the chasers.

At exactly an hour after the race started, the race began again as the chasers, in part thanks to Legkov and Italy’s Clara hard work had the lead group back to six strong. Even though Sweden and Norway were caught, Sodergren insisted on continuing to lead the group. Coming into the stadium, it was apparent that the pace had slowed considerably as Japan was allowed to ski right back into the pack. Coming around for the lap, Clara took the lead as Sodergren make the right decision and went to sit in the middle of the pack.

As soon as the athletes left the stadium, Clara increased the pace and it left Japan’s Kimura standing still. Coming into the stadium for the last 3km, we were able to see how good Goering’s skis were as he was able to glide past everyone in the tuck from fourth to first and take the lead. Somewhere along the way, Legkov became detached and coming out of the stadium, the Russian was 20 meters off the back.

In the same place that Vylegzhanin attacked on the first leg, Clara attack at the same point and caught everyone out. The only man who could go with him was Lalluka, but he was at the back of the train and had to go around everyone. Quickly, the Italian and Finn opened up a 25 meter gap on Sodergren, Gjerdalen and Goering. However, Sodergren was pulling away from the Norwegian and Germany in an attempt to minimize the damage up front.

Coming up the sprint hill, Lalluka increased the pace again and was hop-skating up the hill like he had a fresh pair of legs. Coming into the exchange, Lalluka had earned the anchor Heikkinen a 25 meter lead on Italy. The gap to Sweden, Norway and Germany was 10 seconds. On of the big stories was in behind the lead as Legkov’s early hard work to bridge the gap had come back to hurt him dearly. In the final 5km of the third leg, he self-destructed and lost a massive 1:49 on the lead and was passed by Japan.

With the names of Heikkinen, Piller-Cottrer, Hellner, Northug and Angerer skiing the anchor legs for their respective nations, you knew it was going to be an explosive finish. It was only appropriate that the fog had lifted and visibility was back to normal too. It didn’t take long before Hellner, Northug and Angerer caught the leaders and the race was once again between five nations.

The five athletes continued to ski together and occasionally changing the lead until the sprint hill. Everyone was winding up for the final sprint and it was Angerer to attack first. Italy had lost contact up the sprint hill and Heikkinen was falling off the back. Angerer’s attack was short-lived as Northug raised the bet and began his sprint in the same place he started it for the 30km pursuit. Immediately, Hellner wilted and coming over the hump before the home straight Northug started with his tactics. First he looked around to see where Hellner was then gave a little “shhhh” to the crowd, then continued his sprint. Then with 20 meters left turned to Hellner and gave a little “is that all you got” shrug before stopping inches before the finish line and arrogantly hoping over it for another win for Norway.

RESULTS
1. Norway
2. Sweden
3. Germany

It was a great race for Norway, but I’m sure all the talk will be about Northug in the final 200 meters. Alex Harvey was public enemy number one when he won the team sprint and put his index finger to his mouth to signal Canada finally earned their first World Championships gold, but the Norwegian (and me admittedly) thought it was a “shhh” signal to the crowd before Alex told NRK that was not the reason. Today, Northug does the same thing with 150 meters left in the race, will NRK make a big stink out of it? Not really, they have a couple of stories debating the situation. Hellner was apathetic towards Northug actions citing “It’s Petter style and that’s how he acts, but I wouldn’t have done it.” Angerer was a little more critical saying “I respect Petter as a skier, but sometime he shows little respect, like today.”

However, Sweden’s media is a little more hot-headed about the antics and SVT (Sweden’s CBC or NRK) commentator Jonas Karlsson used the metaphor for Northug “He is a wolf on the trail, but a pig at the finish.”

What do I think? I agree with Hellner in a sense that we’ve come to expect this type of behaviour that shows little respect for his competitors. But I guess if you come from THE ski nation, it’s ok to act like a dick-head if you are the best finisher in the world. If you aren’t from Norway and pull that stunt (ie. Harvey) you’re “idiotic” (read comment by Gard R.) and disrespectful, even though Alex didn’t mean it. Gotta love double-standards. Fingers crossed that for Alex on the 50km. Hopefully he can show Northug to be a humble champion instead of an opportunistic jerk.

As for other parts of the race, it was a great ski on the first leg from Estonia’s Mae how had the fourth fastest leg time. I gotta feel bad for Finland’s Nousiainen who was the team’s lead out man and once again let the team down as they were 55 seconds behind after the first leg. Also after the 15km debacle, it was good to see Sweden’s wax techs got the wax right today and we were treated to see Rickardsson and his awesome classic powers.

For the second leg the stand out for me was Jauhojaervi who was able to erase the deficit left to him by Nousiainen and bring Finland back into potential.

Lallukka and Clara on the third leg were simply sensational. I actually mistook Lallukka for Heikkinen when Clara broke away. I thought no one other than Heikkinen could deal with something like that. Lallukka had the ski of his lifetime and rightly had the fastest third leg. Clara was also instrumental that leg and was the reason the pack was splintered coming into the final leg of the race.

In the final lap, I was really surprised when no one attacked with 2-3km to go. They all knew of Northug’s sprint and when you have the new sprint champion in Hellner, one of the best climbers in the world in Piller-Cottrer, the 15km champion in Heikkinen, and Angerer who traditionally has had one of the best final kilometers in the game; to see them just be content to ski with Northug until the stadium was quite odd.

It was really a unique race in the sense that when I team went off the back, they weren’t necessarily out of the race. Just look at Germany, Finland, Italy and Japan who were more than 30 seconds off the lead at one point but were able to recover and return to the lead pack in the second half of the race.

For me, the team of the day was Japan who finished a very impressive sixth and were in the race for the majority of it. Yoshida had the fourth fastest second leg time which is impressive as

The disappointing team for me today was Switzerland. They were never at the races. Coming into today I thought for sure they’d be contending for a top five position, but to finish in ninth with the talent they have will seem like a big let down.

For Canada, with Harvey not participating and Kershaw late omittance, the chance of a good result today were flushed down the toilet, but in the same breath, a 12th place with Kuhn, Valjas, Babikov and Grey is not a bad result considering Kuhn and Valjas are primarily sprinters. For the USA, 14th is something to build on as they compiled their best four distance athletes and were still almost seven minutes behind.

Anyway, we’re onto the last set of races tomorrow as Bjørgen attempts to collect her fifth gold medal and become perfect at Holmenkollen. Will she do it? I think so.

Til Tomorrow.