Yay Yay Yay for Gällivare

Finally, the World Cup is back. No more (okay, much less) reading about training plans and coaching changes and all that frippery. Now we can focus on the racing - and of course, talking at some length about the racing, as Colin and I do on our podcast over at Fasterskier.

I aim to get back to blogging here as frequently as I can bear, but I'll kick things off for the season with predictions for the season's inaugural races at Gällivare - from which a certain Norwegian superstar is abstaining:

women's 10k skate

1. Charlotte Kalla

2. Justyna Kowalczyk (if she bothers to do the entire race*)

3. Marit Bjørgen

Kikkan Randall: top 30

men's 15k skate

1. Marcus Hellner

2. Maurice Manificat

3. Alexander Legkov

I see good things for the North Americans: at least three of the Big Four - Freeman, Kershaw, Harvey, Babikov will wind up in the top 30. You read it here first!

* The Overtrained One protested the extension of a planned 5k to 10k last weekend at Muonio by simply dropping out at the halfway point. Awesome.