I love the classic-race weekends in Estonia. As Nat Herz described so well in Fasterskier last year and Kieran Jones summarized early this season, the place is nuts for skiing, and "diagonal stride" seems particularly, aptly old school. With the Estonian war horses Mae and Veerpalu retired, the racing should be even more interesting than usual - though I think Saturday's sprints are going to turn out pretty much the way of the classic sprints at Oberstdorf in December and Kuusamo in November.
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:
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.
Today's Toblach sprints were the last short-distance race in this year's Tour de Ski. The next four days include one rest day and three long races: Thursday's 15k/30k skate pursuit, Saturday's 10k/20k classic mass start, and Sunday's 9k skate Final Climb.
The Nordic Commentary Project brain trust long ago criticized the format of Thursday's stage, which has the towering problem of having the women race a ridiculous 50% of the men's distance on what - this year - will be a completely different course. (In previous years, they just raced the second, downhill half of the course.)
Beyond that critique, I won't make any other comments - just recommend Jan's excellent preview at World of XC and post my picks. If Kikkan were a little bit closer to Johaug, I'd pick her for a podium. Top five will have to do!
I agree with Jan at XC Predictions that "the Toblach sprint stage can become a very decisive stage in this year's Tour de Ski in the men's race." Legkov won't earn any points in the sprint, and neither will many of the other top-ten racers except perhaps Kershaw (5). The sprint will be less important for the women, since Bjørgen and Kowalczyk have already pulled away from the rest of the field and now should be able to just manage their lead until Sunday. Unless one or both implodes, which would be very interesting...
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.
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:
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| Oberhof classic technique prologue (2.5k women, 3.75k men) |
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| Tour de Ski overall |
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.
I'm not that big a fan of the city sprints, but I do like the annual shenanigans in Düsseldorf, which is especially tight and crashy. This year's slightly less interesting because of some big names (Bjørgen, Northug, Jönsson) are sitting out, but on the other hand, Kikkan Randall is the odds-on favorite for the win. So says Nordic Xplained and me, via Jan's Who Wins game.
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.
I considered Thursday's freestyle sprints to be hors d'œuvres for the rest of the World Championships, so I was happy the semis and the finals were all excellent competitions - even if the North Americans did not quite ski up to expectations. Marit Bjørgen and Marcus Hellner both skied tough, clean races that they won on strength and speed - not luck or even guile.
While Bjørgen's gold was more or less expected, especially after Kikkan Randall crashed out, Hellner's was surprising. He fearlessly went off the front early in the final and then, marvelously, stayed away right up to the line, where he had a chance to kick up one ski à la Thomas Alsgaard in the '03 Worlds relay. Hellner's gold proves that Northug can be beaten in a sprint - you just have to go off the front before he expects it and then not let up. (Axel Teichmann, please note this.)
Saturday's women's pursuit is the first distance race of the Worlds, and the first chance for Bjørgen to add to her collection of major-event gold medals, now standing at eight (including team events: five at Worlds and three at the Olympics; individually: three at Worlds and two at the Olympics).
In fact, I'd have to say - based on both her form this year and my inveterate Norge-philia - that there's an outside chance Bjørgen could win every race at Worlds. She's clearly the favorite in any distance event, she's got to be half of Norway's team sprint, and of course she's the logical anchor for the relay.
Can she win six golds in Oslo? Sure she can. Will she? I don't think so. Even top-notch racers can choose to sit out a race (Petra Majdic is skipping the women's pursuit and Bauer is not racing the men's pursuit, and of course Bjørgen could get hurt or sick. Barring any of those circumstances, though, I wouldn't expect her to win fewer than four golds (sprint, team sprint, relay, and one of the individual distance races) - and to medal in the other two events. For whatever it's worth, I join the rest of the ski world in picking her to win Saturday's pursuit.
With or without Andrus Veerpalu, the Oslo World Ski Championships are underway. A New Zealander and a Dane won today's qualifying races, but I think the freestyle sprint podiums will include the usual suspects:
I can't wait...
The freestyle sprints at Konnerud are already under way, but I'll post the predictions I made yesterday anyhow. With the best Russian men missing, we're not getting a true picture of that field, but the women's field is as full of fast racers as it will be next Thursday, when the freestyle sprints will happen at Holmenkollen.
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.
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.
Tomorrow the World Cup visits Otepää, Estonia, one of the traditional stops on the circuit. The Otepää races are almost always classic individual-start events - as old school as it gets - and this year is no different. The Otepää races are also the venue at which Estonian racers tend to do well, for whatever reason. Last year, Jaak Mae took third and Andrus Veerpalu took second behind Lukas Bauer. (The rest of the top ten was completely Russian and Norwegian.) Neither Mae or Veerpalu had made a top-level podium for a while before that race (Veerpalu: first in the 15km classic at the Liberec Worlds; Mae: second at Otepää in 2008), and neither has done it since. Just as I had my doubts about the origins of their surprise placings last year, I have my doubts that either will finish in the money tomorrow. I suppose one should never doubt the magical water at the Tehvandi Sports Complex!
This weekend's World Cup races - the last events before the Tour de Ski starts on New Year's Eve - take place at high altitude in La Clusaz, France. La Clusaz is Vincent Vittoz's home, but he won't be racing this weekend as he continues to recover from the injury that knocked him out of the Gällivare relay.
My picks for the distance races didn't suck: I wound up finishing second among "Who Wins" 106 predictors of the Davos distance races. If I hadn't been such a homer, picking Freeman in fifth, I'd have done even better. I hope my picks for Sunday's freestyle sprints are as good:
