The Tour Is Won on the Alpe

Oh, man. The Final Climb on the Alpe Cermis tomorrow is going to be pretty exciting - just the sort of stage that should conclude the Tour de Ski.

On the men's side, I can't see Cologna doing anything but finishing first (becoming the first triple champion of the Tour de Ski), but I'm very eager to see the fight behind him for third - or maybe second, if Northug fades. He's only 40-some seconds up on Hellner and Kershaw, who demonstrated their Northug-hunting skills in Thursday's point-to-point race. I'm picking that pair to finish 1-2 on the stage, ahead of Bauer.

The women's race will be quite a bit more interesting. Bjørgen and Kowalczyk are going to have a heavyweight bout for first. With any luck, it'll continue right up to the finish line, but I think Kowalcyzk's going to open it up low on the slopes and take a decent lead to the summit. Behind, Johaug has more than a minute on Kalla in fourth, but I will be interested to see if the Norwegian can shake off her recent bad form and win the stage again.

Here are my picks for the stage podium:

And by the way, here's how I predicted the final standings for the whole Tour:

Val di Fiemme: The Race before the Climb

The mass-start classic races in Val di Fiemme see a lot of action every year as racers jockey for the bonus seconds that could advantage themselves and disadvantage their rivals in the last race of the Tour de Ski, the Final Climb. Remember how Lukas Bauer took over this stage a few years ago and established the gap he needed to outpace Northug on the Alpe Cemis? I do; it was one of the best races I've ever seen the Tour de Ski, on the World Cup, or in any endurance sport. My picks for tomorrow's races, which are run over 10k for women and 20k for me.

Yes, I'm a hopeless homer for North America.

To Italy!

In ginning up this post for the Tour de Ski rest day, I discovered why the next venue, the first in Italy, is always listed with two names: Toblach is the German name for the town while Dobbacio is the Italian name. Thanks, Wikipedia! (But no thanks for not telling us the Ladin name for the place.)

The first race in Toblach/Dobbacio is an unusual one: a 3k/5k classical technique run in interval start. The funny distances put this race somewhere between a prologue and very short distance event. The pacing is going to be a critical issue, especially since the courses are Davosian: up a huge climb, then down a giant descent to the finish. If the race were longer, I'd tab Johaug for the women's win, but I don't think she and her ponytail can outdescend the bigger racers like Bjørgen and Kowalczyk, who is so much better on the downs that I suspect she did some alpine skiing in the offseason.

Beyond those predictions, I wanted to look briefly at the general classifications as the race shifts to Italy. I had the impression that both the men's and women's GC were pretty tight, but they're actually not, at least relative to recent history. On the men's side, Northug and Cologna are separated by just 1.1 seconds, but Legkov is at +52.3, Vylegzhanin is at +59.8, and Kershaw is at +1:03.3. On the women's side, Kowalczyk has a small but respectable gap back to Bjørgen at +26.6s, a bigger gap of +1:06.6 to Johaug, and very solid gaps of just over three minutes to Randall and Saarinen.

Looking back to comparable moments in previous Tours de Ski, we find two different stories. The men's GC is currently tighter at the top but about the same for the rest of the top five. Only in the 2007-2008 race, when Bauer led but just seven seconds covered the top five places, was the men's GC more closely packed. (Arguably, the 2008-2009 resembles this year's, since the top five were within 48s. However, Bauer, the eventual winner, was way back in 18th place, two minutes out. What a comeback he made!)

Compared to last year's race, when Kowalcyzk was in control by the halfway point of the Tour, the current women's GC has a smaller gap between 1 and 2, but bigger intervals after that. In this sense, both last year and this year differ from every other running of the TdS, during which the top five women were all within about thirty seconds of the frontrunner. If nothing else, these comparisons speak to the fact that two pairs of skiers - Northug and Cologna, Kowalczyk and Bjørgen - are easily the best skiers in each race right now. Whether that means they win the Tour, we'll start to see on Wednesday morning.

Here's the historical record (asterisks make the eventual winners)...
2010-2011 - after fourth event (5+5k pursuit at Oberstdorf)
* Kowalczyk 1:01:52.3
Kalla +1:19.8
Longa +1.22.1
Majdic +1:35.1
Lahteenmaki +1:46.8

2010-2011 - after fourth event (10k+10k pursuit at Oberstdorf)
* Cologna 1:37:51
Kershaw +45.9
Hellner +1.06.1
Legkov +1.06.7
Harvey +1:23.8

2009-2010 - after fourth event (1.2k C sprint in Prague)
Saarinen 40:16.3
* Kowalczyk +24.9
Majdic +29.7
Follis +31.7
Korosteleva +45.2

2009-2010 - after fourth event (1.6k C sprint in Prague)
Jönsson 51:50
Hellner +43.8
Oestensen +44.3
Vylegzhanin +46.5
Northug +47.3
( * 18. Bauer +1:59.5)

2008-2009 - after fourth event (9k C in Nove Mesto)
* Kuitunen 57:49.3
Saarinen +5.6
Bjørgen +23.0
Kowalczyk +47.3
Majdic +54.0

2008-2009 - after fourth event (15k C in Nove Mesto)
* Cologna 1:24:36.9
Rotchev +16.3
Teichmann +16.5
Roenning +20.9
Johnsrud Sundby +47.9

2007-2008 - after fourth event (10k F pursuit in Nove Mesto)
http://www.fis-ski.com/pdf/2008/CC/2438/2008CC2438TDS.pdf* Kalla 1:03:25.5
Follis +8.5
Kowalczyk +10.1
Kuitunen +17.6
Nystad +30.8

2007-2008 - after fourth event (15k F pursuit in Nove Mesto)
* Bauer 1:24:02.1
Koukal +3.2
Piller Cottrer +3.4
Checchi +4.6
Gjerdalen +6.9

2006-2007 - after third event (10k C in Oberstdorf)
Steira 1:00:05.9
Majdic +20.4
Saarinen +23.2
*Kuitunen +26.4
Shevchenko +27.9

2006-2007 - after third event (15k C in Oberstdorf)
* Angerer 1:32:30.3
Oestensen +17.0
Goering +30.7
Dementiev +35.4
Northug +42.8

Teichmannia

How unexpected was Teichmann's win in the Oberhof classic pursuit? Unexpected enough that none of the 187 guesses on XC Predictions included ol' Axel for any of the three podium spots. The wisdom of crowds?

Of course, who'd have thought Teichmann had anything left? His last top-ten finish was last February. His last podium finish was the 2009 Tour de Ski, when he was famously blown away by Northug on the Final Climb. The guy hasn't been fast in a while, and yet: there he was at the front of the race and perfectly positioned to exploit the crash to take a surprisingly easy win - and the top spot in the general classification.

The women's race played out more conventionally, though surprisingly Bjørgen was not there to vie for the win at the end. I really through Johaug would be able to take Kowalczyk in the finishing straight, but the taller, bigger Pole had a little too much today.

These results - the one crazy, the one normal - have whetted my appetite for the rest of the Tour. Can the Germans - both men (three in the top dozen today and overall) and women (two in the top ten today and overall) - stay strong? What about the Russian men, who were massed at the front of the race today?

My picks for the classic sprint in Oberstdorf:

Tour de Whee!

I love the Tour de Ski - always have (even when it was just a twinkle in Vegard Ulvang's eye), always will (even after Northug reels off five straight wins starting this year). I'm especially jazzed for the 2011-2012 edition, since it's the only major event of the season and is thus getting all the focus of the big-name racers. Before getting to my picks for the prologue in Oberhof and for the overall TdS standings, I want to hit on a few themes that have emerged so far this year and that will matter to the Tour:

1. The lack of snow. With one exception - ironically, the city sprints in Dusseldorf - every World Cup venue has had to deal with a lack of snow. At least a few of the Tour sites are facing similar problems, though apparently the crucial last few stages in Italy have good snow already. Day-to-day worries about low snow are one thing, best left to the FIS and the event organizers (and to me, suffering through a no-snow winter in southern Minnesota), but skiers and ski fans should worry about the long-term outlook for our favorite season, as pointed out in Audrey Mangan's excellent interview with Bill McKibben on Fasterskier.com.
2. Norwegian dominance. This isn't so much a new trend as the exaggeration of a fact of life. Bjørgen and Northug are of course far and away the best skiers on the circuit right now; each is leading both the overall and the distance standings - Marit over Skofterud by 103 and 2 points respectively, Petter by 52 points to Cologna and 138 points to Manificat, respectively.  Amazingly, no other Norwegian men are in the top ten of either the overall or distance standings; four (but not Northug) are in the sprint top 10. On the other hand, Norwegian women are dominating all three categories: five in both the overall and the distance standings and three in the sprint standings. Guess who's winning the Nation's Cup?
3. Kikkan Randall. We at NCP have already waxed rhapsodic over Kikkanimal's racing this winter, which we would call a "breakout season" if she hadn't already broken out last year. This year, Kikkan is in the top ten of every ranking: 10th in distance, 4th in overall, and - wonderfully - 1st in sprint. I think that she's going to have a fantastic Tour de Ski. She is exactly the right kind of athlete to capitalize on the Tour's mix of sprint and distance races - especially the relatively short distance races  such as the 2.5k freestyle prologue in Oberhof, the 5k+5k pursuit in Oberstdorf, and the 3k classic in Toblach. With her skating prowess, Randall is also poised to do well in the 15k point-to-point race to Toblach and of course the 9k Final Climb. In short: go, Kikkan, go!

Beyond all that, this year is going to be interesting because both Bjørgen and Northug are in good shape and are gunning to win the Tour. It's astounding that neither of the two racers, certainly the best skiers in the world right now and probably the best racers of the last decade, have won the Tour, but those are the facts. Northug comes into this season's edition with three straight second-places (behind Cologna in 2009 and 2011 and Bauer in 2010 - plus a third-place finish in 2008), while Bjørgen has managed to finish the Tour only once, taking second behind Kuitunen in the inaugural Tour in 2007. I see them performing well in every stage, and winning the overalls:

Oberhof classic technique prologue (2.5k women, 3.75k men)

Tour de Ski overall

Round and Round Rogla Goes

Rogla, Slovenia, has only hosted the World Cup once, back in 2009, when the venue ran classic mass-start races over 15k for the women (Kowalczyk, Bjørgen, Haag) and 30k for the men (Northug, Legkov, Vylegzhanin). Those races were interesting for at least three reasons: the new site, heavy attrition in the men's race (19 DNFs!), and some nasty racing among the women, with Saarinen getting DSQ'd for bumping hometown girl Majdic.

This year the races are interesting because the organizers only have one flat, 2,000 meter loop to use. This would be a complete disaster if they were trying to run the 15k/30k races from two years ago, but - luckily? - they've only trying to run 10k/15k events. How exactly that's gonna work is anyone's guess, but even given the medium-sized fields, I've gotta think that they'll need to pull skiers as they get lapped - mostly the SLO skiers. (Get it?)

The short loops might also mess with the usual suspects in both the men's and women's races. Without any serious climbs, I can't see people like Johaug putting the hurt on anyone. On the other hand, I've learned that it's foolish to bet against Northug ever. I'll be interested to see how this craziness shakes out.

Note: I won't be surprised if Randall finishes in the top 10, or even better. Seems like the tight quarters could be made for her, and she does have a good spot in the start grid - tenth.

Davos Oddness

After some off-again on-again decisionmaking due to a lack and then a surfeit of snow in Davos, we're going to see some unusual events this weekend: long(ish) individual-start skate races. A 15k for women and 30k for men are being run over a big 7.5k loop that, as usual at Davos, is basically a long uphill to the halfway point and then a long downhill back to the line. It's not the mythical 30k/50k individual races at Holmenkollen, but it's close!

As pointed out in Fasterskier's excellent preview of the race weekend, the altitude - and the early point in the season - has historically made for some oddball podiums in shorter skate races (10k for women, 15k for men), such as Heikkinen and Khazova in 2009 and Poltarinin in 2010.

This year, I think the distance is going to matter even more, with proven long-distance skiers atop the results sheets. Cologna has won skate marathons, and on home snow, he'll be charging hard. (I'd peg Northug for the win, but I don't think he can concentrate for 30,000 meters of individual-start racing!) Johaug won the 30k skate at Worlds last year, and is going to get another World Cup win.

Season of the Kikkan

I know the World Cup season is only two individual races old, but I'm jazzed about Kikkan Randall's chances this year. Her one "weakness" - relative to the most elite racers - has been her classic skiing, in both distance events and, more importantly, sprints, but so far this season she's showing some real chops along both axes.

In the 10k skate at Sjusjøen last Saturday, she turned in a distance PR result of eighth, boding well for her distance racing. In Sunday's relay, she skied the American team's second classic leg, and logged the second-fastest time, slower only than Kowalcyzk and moving the team up from 16th to 12th place at the halfway point.

Today, over at Kuusamo, Kikkan matched last Saturday's distance PR with a PR in the classic sprint that opened the "Ruka Triple" event: fourth, a hair behind Vibeke Skofterud (who's not known for her sprinting). Fasterskier points out that Randall had not even qualified for the Kuusamo heats the past three years. This year she qualified comfortably in 15th and then skied almost up to the podium in the heats.

Randall's next tests come right away - a 5k freestyle race on Saturday and a 10k classic pursuit on Sunday over Kuusamo's brutally jagged course. If she does well, I think we can assume that Kikkan is going to fare very well all season long, no matter the distance or the technique. I can't wait to find out.

The Marathon Cup (part I)

The upcoming World Cup season is going to be unusual in that it will feature neither a World Championships nor an Olympic Games. Already, commentators and athletes alike are looking to the Tour de Ski as the high point of the season. The TdS will likely be exciting, but it comes too early to serve as the true peak of the winter's racing. Likewise, the season Finale - as usual, four races in in Stockholm and Falun - is too short and too late to be much more than a last hurrah for the racers.

Happily, though, this season is apparently going to see an uptick in the intensity of racing on the FIS Marathon Cup circuit, a series of races run all across Europe from December to March and ranging from 42km to 90km in length.

I love following the Marathon Cup, which overlaps both with the citizen-race Worldloppet series and the more-elite "Ski Classics" series (all of which are classic-technique events). One reason for this is that regular old citizen racers can participate in all of the races, unlike any of the World Cups, which are of course events for the elites only. It's cool to do the "same" Vasaloppet as the winner of that esteemed race - even if he would finish three hours ahead of me.

Another reason I enjoy following the Marathon Cup is that the races demand a different set of skills from athletes than the regular World Cup races. All of the races are mass starts, for one thing, which contributes to the formation of lead packs that are, early in the events, bigger than the entire fields of WC races. Not everyone is good at or comfortable in 100-person lead groups, which are more like cycling pelotons than the relatively small clusters of skiers in WC pursuits or marathons The lead women, in contrast, usually have to ski, mostly on their own, through heavy (male) traffic and worn-out tracks for 40 or 50 or 90 kilometers - again, markedly different from WC races.

And then there's the most notable characteristic of the MC races: the distances. All told, the eleven Marathon Cups comprises 647km of racing this winter - quite a bit longer than the entire World Cup. The shortest Marathon Cup events this season are two freestyle 42km races, the season-opening La Sgambeda in Italy in December and the Engadin in Switzerland in March. The other nine Marathon Cup races range from 50km to 90km, and average 63km in length. With regards to distance, prestige, and, probably, effort, the grandaddy of all the marathons is the Vasaloppet, which covers 90km of flat, flowing trails between Moran and Salen, Sweden, and requires something like four hours of effort for the male winner.

A third reason I like following the Marathon Cup races is that they increasingly attract world-class skiers, often now embedded in formal teams. This winter's races seem to be bringing this trend to new heights - which will be the subject of a follow-up post in a couple days.

Questions about Veerpalu

Given the predictable and widespread eagerness to defend Andrus Veerpalu against the doping charges he's now facing, I have a few questions. I'm trying here not to pose loaded questions, since I'd love to see Veerpalu be clean. But at the same time, I have to wonder...

1. Why, if the positive test for HGH was (and thus still is) erroneous, did Veerpalu retire in February rather than own up to the fact (if not the correctness) of the positive test of the "A" sample and start to fight then and there? Why wait for the "B" sample test? Even if an athlete has to sit out the next races when a positive result comes back (and I don't know about this: do they?), why make up the story about the knee injury and abruptly retire?

2. How widespread is doping in Estonia? Though Veerpalu's case is only in its early stages, Kristina Šmigun-Vähi provides a precedent that might be good or bad, depending on your perspective. After a World Cup race in late 2001, she returned a positive "A" sample for an anabolic steroid. Her "B" sample came back negative, and she was allowed to race in the Salt Lake City Olympic Games. By that time, she'd already won two World Championship medals at Ramsau in 1999 as well as five World Cup races; she went on to win four more WSC medals at Val di Fiemme in 2003, three Olympic medals (two at Torino, one at Vancouver), and eleven more World Cups. Either she was a doper who got away with her offense, or a "false positive" who was correctly allowed to race.

3. Was the 2002 class of Olympic medalists the worst ever? Without impugning Beckie Scott or Frode Estil and Thomas Alsgaard (among others), and forgetting about the convicted dopers Muhlegg, Lazutina, and Danilova, check out these other medalists:

• Yuliya Tchepalova (bronze in 15k freestyle mass start, silver in the 10k classic, and gold in sprint
• Christian Hoffmann (gold in 30k freestyle mass start), and
• Veerpalu (gold in 15k classic and silver in 50k classic).

Beyond that funny bunch, we also find Estonian Jaak Mae (bronze in 15k classic) and Russo-Austrian Mikhail Botvinov (silver in 30k freestyle mass start), whose big-race performances are suspiciously like those of Veerpalu and Hoffmann. And then there's Russian Mikhail Ivanov, who is surely one of the greatest few-hit wonders ever: the inherited gold in the 50k classic (after Muhlegg's DSQ), a bronze in the 30k at the 2001 Lahti Worlds (cough cough), and four podiums on the World Cup, all in 2000 or 2001.

Veerpalu's Shame

From xc-ski.de (via the World of XC news aggregator and a Google translation):

It's official: Andrus Veerpalu was in A and B samples test positive for growth hormone. Yet he still denies having doped. As at a press conference of the Estonian Ski Association, was attended by among others Veerpalu itself, Mati Alaves coach and doctor Jüri Laasik was posted on Thursday, both A-and B-sample in the case Andrus Veerpalu are positive. The positive sample came from 14 February - not, as was leaked in advance, of 29 January. In both samples, the growth hormone HGH has been found - but it is not about doping, as Veerpalu said. "On 15 February I received the shocking news that my A-sample is positive," said Veerpalu, the eight days later ended his career with 40 years of age. "I want to tell everyone that I have never taken banned substances to me. All victories and good results were the result of hard work." Still, he apologized in lump sums to all that he had disappointed. Veerpalu and Dr. Jüri Laasik declared that they had under the existing WADA rules are not used to be able to say the truth about the positive test. Alaves coach Mati turned even further behind today's athletes.

Veerpalu's peer and competitor in classic races, Odd-Bjørn Hjelmeset, minces no words (even through a Google Translate filter):

I am simply annoyed. Andrus Veerpalu is a scammer and old-fashioned cheater... He has won so many ski [races] and had certainly going to do well in this World Cup too. It is clear that he has held for so long. You doper you not the first time that 40-year-old.

I Was Almost Positive about Veerpalu

I've commented on this blog several times on Andrus Veerpalu, who is on the one hand an elegant, gutsy skier whom I always enjoyed watching but who on the other hand always seemed suspiciously able to pull off big races. Well, comes this story from an Estonian newspaper (and reported on Langrenn.com - translation by Google):

The Estonian newspaper Postimees writes on his website that the cross-country skier Andrus Veerpalu gave positive doping test at the end of January. (02.04.2011 - NTB)
40-year-old retired in February, just before the World Cup in Holmenkollen.

According to Postimees' sources, there is a doping sample taken during training camp in Otepää, Estonia has been shown to be positive. Neither the FIS or the Estonian Ski Federation has confirmed that it is passed positive doping test. Veerpalu even deny it. Estonian has won both Olympic and World Championship gold. Veerpalu said he retired because of knee problems.

Retiring Skiers

The last races at Falun were something, pretty much laying waste to the fields. Here's the finish area as the also-rans come in from the women's 10k:

The race was the end of the great Petra Majdic's career, which led to some silliness, like Kowalcyzk's headband:

Madjic's suit:

and the donation of some home-making supplies to the Slovene:

I can't quantify this, but the XC skiing news streams seem to suggest that a greater-than-usual number of racers are retiring this spring. Below, a list of WC skiers who are retiring now or have already retired this season.

Men

Jens Filbrich (Germany)

George Grey (Canada)

Tor Ruud Hofstad (Norway)

Jaak Mae (Estonia)

Börre Naess (Norway)

Jens Arne Svartedal (Norway)

Andrus Veerpalu (Estonia)

Vincent Vittoz (France)

Women

Arianna Follis (Italy)

Petra Majdic (Slovenia)

Pirjo Muranen (Finland)

Kristin Størmer-Steira (Norway)

The retiring men are an accomplished group, but clearly beyond their best days. Some of the women, though, are going out on top. Ms. Fourth Place, Steira, has been a front-pack racer for years (though she earned more wooden medals than metal ones). Follis took the silver in the WC sprint and finished third in the overall WC, with six podiums this season, including a win in the freestyle sprint in Dusseldorf. Majdic won the bronze in the freestyle sprint at the World Championships and took the sprint WC this year, finishing on the podium seven times, including wins at Obersdorf and Toblach in the Tour de Ski and Otepaa and Stockholm in regular WC races.

Figuring that Follis and Majdic accounted for more than a dozen podium finishes this year, the racing - especially in the sprints - should be quite a bit more wide open next year. Right, Kikkan?

Northug's Next Challenges: Marcialonga and Vasaloppet

The skier everybody loves (to hate) says that he might race the 70km Marcialonga and 90km Vasaloppet in 2012. Without a major championships, these classic-technique long distance races seem like a good challenge - especially since both can be won with double-poling.

If he does show up, it'll be fascinating to see what happens. It'd be even better if other World Cup racers - men and women - came over to these two events, the premiere races in the FIS "Marathon Cup." Despite the ultra-long distances of the Marcialonga and Vasaloppet, the races are often decided in sprints within the last 500m - pretty much perfect for someone like the 'Thug. In fact, the former World Cup racer Jörgen Brink has won the last two editions of the Vasaloppet - both times in sprints.

(For the record, both races have been run as part of the World Cup. In 2004, Anders Aukland - then a top-level member of the Norwegian team, beat Giorgio di Centa at the Marcialonga. In 2006, a weak group of World Cup racers could not hang with the marathon specialists at the Vasaloppet, which was won by Daniel Tynell, a three-time Vasaloppet champion. In those years, Gabrielle Paruzzi won the women's Marcialonga and Marit Bjørgen won a shortened 45-km version of the Vasaloppet ahead of Hilde G. Pedersen, who went on to win the Marcialonga in 2007.)

Who the Hell Is Finn Hågen Krogh?

1. A twenty-year-old junior ski racer from Norway.
2. The second-place finisher in the general classification of the 2011 season finale at Falun.(Great Nordic Xplained race recap here.)
3. The guy who, in moving up from eighth to second in the finale GC, posted the fastest time in the 15k skate pursuit, nearly a half-minute up on Maurice Manificat, one of the top few skaters in the world.
4. The skier who closed a 5s gap to Dario Cologna and Giorgio diCenta with about 1000m remaining in that pursuit, then outsprinted Cologna to the line.
5. A skier who has had only six World Cup starts, all in early 2011 - and the best of which, before Sunday, was a 21st in the Lahti 10+10 pursuit the previous weekend.
6. A three-time World Junior medalist: a gold in the relay and a bronze in the 20km pursuit at the 2010 WJC in Hinterzarten plus a bronze in the relay at the 2009 WJC in Praz de Lys Sommand.
7. A racer with five podium finishes in Scandinavian Cup races during the 2010-2011 season - including sprints and distance races and in both techniques (plus two other top-10s).
8. Someone who seems like a good bet for the Norwegian national team in the 2011-2012 season.
9. A racer who could well be the next Therese Johaug - or at least the next Kristin Størmer Steira.
10. Or who could well be the next Ronny Hafsås.

World Champs Hits and Misses

The 2011 World Ski Championships have been over for more than a week now, so I figure I'd better write a leetle recap before the campfires in Holmenkollen are totally cold. (I'm sure you recall our recap of the 2009 Liberec Worlds, right?) I'm too blog-jaded to do a full, formal recap, so I'll just provide a few hits and misses.

HIT

The Kollen-brølet - 'Kollen roar - thanks to the half-million spectators who showed up. That's a lot of herring munchers! (Photo from Oskar Karlin's excellent World Champs photostream.)

MISS

The 'Kollen-tåte - 'Kollen fog. Look! The slightly faster gray blob is passing the slightly slower gray blob!

HIT

Apparently no dopers were caught at Oslo, even though at least one competed. (Two, if you're a Bjørgen-hater.)

MISS
Apparently no dopers were caught at Oslo.

HIT

Bjørgen's dominance of the women's events - four golds and a silver. Not bad, unlike this inexplicable banner along the track. With fans like these, who needs grumpy Polish rivals?

(Also from Oskar's photostream.)

MISS

Alexander Legkov. How do you say "choke" in Russian? I'm no longer thinking of him as the Russian #1: clearly Vylegzhanin is the superior skier, especially in big races. And Chernousov isn't far behind. Though Legkov has finished on a World Cup podium eleven times (including stage races), he hasn't yet won an individual medal at Worlds or the Olympics, while Vylegzhanin has four World Cup medals and three Worlds silvers, and even the relatively unknown Chernousov has three individual World Cup podiums and a Worlds bronze.

HIT

Marcus Hellner winning the hell(ner) out of the freestyle sprint. Amazing.

MISS

No American medals at all. Last year, Newell crashed out of the classic sprint; this year, Kikkan crashed out of the freestyle sprint. It's hard to keep the black side down in the big races. *sighs*

HIT

Yes Canadian gold. Alex Harvey's surge on the home stretch of the men's team sprint to pass Ola Vigen Hattestad and take Canada's first-ever World Championships gold was freaking awesome. Not only was it a superb finish to an excellent race, but it meant that Devon Kershaw - one of the best guys on the World Cup (fast skier, cool dude, and Packer fan!) - finally got to hang a gold medal around his neck. I love his superstitiousness:

Kershaw said he and Harvey also had a morning discussion about the race. “We woke up at 9:45 this morning and Alex said to me ‘So how will it feel to be the world champion tonight?’ I said, ‘don’t, don’t say that. I don’t want to jinx us. I knew we could be world champions, but I didn’t think we were going to be.”

And Harvey's win really made the Norwegians feel real real bad - or was it the shhh?

(Photo from the Star (Toronto).)

MISS

I know that there was some furor about Harvey's "shhh" gesture, but it paled in comparison to the bratty 'Thuggish grandstanding at the end of the relay. I hope I'm not just been North-Americocentric here, but - as I argued on March 4 - there's a huge difference between a few seconds of shhhing after crossing the line and Northug's extended mockery of his competition. Like I said, "Shameful."

HIT

Therese Johaug's amazing win in the 30km mass start. When she first climbed away from Bjørgen and Kowalcyzk, I figured that it wouldn't last, that they'd sweep her up well before the finish line. That didn't happen. The race was probably the best since the Olympic 50 last March. Nice win.

HIT

Last, I am honor bound to report that I won the very satisfying contest among the nordic-skiing bloggers who participated in the wonderful "XC Predictions" game for the Oslo Worlds. Of the 120 participants (of whom 41 made all of the possible predictions, rather than just one or two), I finished fourth, four spots ahead of Nordic Xplained and 55 spots ahead of Statistical Skier. The prediction contest continues through the end of the year!

Go-Haug

Last Saturday, I was amazed by Therese Johaug's breakaway in the 30km at Holmenkollen. I just could not believe that her audacious move would stick, but of course it did, and paid off in her first-ever elite win - a World Championships, to boot.

Yesterday, watching the 5k+5k pursuit at Lahti, I was almost equally amazed to see Johaug pull away from the pack, dragging Justyna Kowalczyk with her. Even with 2k left, the eventual sprint seemed like a foregone conclusion: JK by a ski length. After all, the Pole is the defending sprint World Cup champion, while the Norwegian never even tries the sprints, and the Pole is a full five inches taller than the Norwegian. All that seemed to mean that Kowalczyk would have a decided advantage if the sprint came down to a ski throw at the line (a topic which NCP covered in depth two and a half years ago).

But I forgot about the wild card - the way Kowalczyk has still failed to master relatively elementary techniques like conserving speed through a downhill corner or throwing her ski at the right time. Check this hot mess out: JK started her throw 10 or 15 meters from the line, just far enough away to squander her height advantage:

Here was the result. JK had to actually start to pull her thrown leg back under her to avoid falling before the line, allowing the much shorter Johaug to stick her left foot out and take the win.

Men's Relay

Today's women's relay was probably the least interesting race of the World Championships. I didn't even bother to make a prediction, since the result was as much a foregone conclusion as any result could be. So long as Bjørgen raced, Norway would win - and they did. From the results of previous races at Worlds - and, really, from the results of the World Cup races since Christmas - it was obvious that Finland and Sweden were the next strongest teams, with Italy comparable on a good day. Italy didn't figure today, being two fast skiers short of a relay team and leaving the silver and bronze medals to Sweden and Finland.

Friday's men's relay should be much more interesting. Clearly, Norway (Johnsrud Sundby, Roenning, Gjerdalen, Northug) and Sweden (Rickardsson, Olsson, Soedergren, Hellner) will - at least on paper - vie for the win. Russia (Vylegzhanin, Volzhentsev, Legkov, Chernousov), Switzerland (Livers, Cologna, Fischer, and Perl), and possibly Finland (Nousiainen, Jauhojaervi, Lallukka, Heikkinen) might get into the medals fight as well. Just as Germany and Italy have underperformed over the whole season to date, we've seen nothing from either country's racers to suggest that either of those teams will finish anywhere near the medals. The French are having a mediocre Worlds, and the Czechs seem to be off their Tour de Ski peak. Thus, my picks:

1. Norway

2. Sweden

3. Russia

Drammatic

The Oslo Worlds are less than a week away, just the other side of the last tune-up races at Drammen, Norway. Not the familiar (and, frankly, awesome) city-center sprints of the last few years, this year's events are being held at the Konnerud winter-sports park just outside Drammen.

The stakes are high, of course. The Czech head coach Miroslav Petrasek - who has some decent skiers on his squad - said, "You don’t have to win but if you are not in top ten, you can forget a medal from the Worlds. Top shape won’t come in a week." On the other hand, a commentator for Norwegian TV finds that doing too well just before Worlds means you probably won't be in the right form to win there:

In front of the last eight championships (Olympics and World Championships) has the winner of the general test of distance has never been an individual gold medalist. The last one was able feat in the men's side was Mika Myllylä. He won both the final race before the World Championships in Ramsau in 1999, and became king of the tournament with three gold and a silver individually.

So let me curse some skiers with my predictions over at XC Predictions for the Drammen distance events - 10/15km interval-start classic races:

In addition to these ten racers, I'd add the following athletes to the pool of skiers whom Petrasek would see as possible distance-event winners in Oslo:

men

Petter Northug

Devon Kershaw

Alexander Legkov

Maxim Vylegzhanin

Tobias Angerer

women

Arianna Follis

Marianna Longa

Charlotte Kalla

Krista Lahteenmaki

Astrid U. Jacobsen

It'll be interesting to see if Petrasek and/or the NRK blogger is right - that the top 10 at Drammen will supply the medalists at Oslo, but the the Drammen winners won't be on the podiums at Oslo.

Otepääst Script: Bibs, Boards, and Bandanas

The racing in Otepää was pretty damn good, as usual. No Estonians reached the podium, so they'd better start tweaking their "training." Worlds is just a few weeks away!

The bibs were matter of fact. The female sprinters and male distance racers wore the logo of Swedbank, which is, unsurprisingly, a Swedish bank - "the leading bank in Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania." If the bibs inspired any Americans, you could go open an account at Swedbank New York.

snores

Judging by her demeanor on the start line, Marit really liked the bib's fit and finish. Alas, she couldn't quite dominate the sprint the way she had pwned the distance race, which she won by a lot.

On the other hand, Kowalczyk either didn't like the flat, easy sprint course or didn't like the bib - she does shill for Polbank, a (you guessed it) Polish bank, so maybe it's a sponsor thing. Regardless, you could kinda see from her demeanor that she wasn't gunning for the win, and wound up finishing fourth - six spots ahead of Grinnin' Marit.

The male sprinters and female distance racers wore bibs adorned with the most philosophical logo of the World Cup, that of Ergo, the "the leading company in the area of private health and legal costs insurance in Europe." If I'd known that before the races, I'd have klistered my eyeballs. As it is, my ignorance was only exceeded by the hilarity of seeing Russian journeyman sprinter Michail Devjatiarov do this on the start line.

Dude, sit down. Sure, you won a race once, almost four years ago now, but since then you've only made one final. Worry less about your bandanas and more about your double poling.