Thirtysomething Ski Tech

It's been a few months since the Nordic Commentary Project moved ahead, but with both winter and the World Cup just a few weeks away (though not necessarily in the same places), it's time to start posting again. I have a long piece in the works, but I thought I'd start off slow by linking to a fantastic collection of 1970s nordic-skiing ads like these. I love the color schemes!

Breaking the Melted Ice

It's been a while since a new post disturbed the serenity of this very seasonal blog, but I can't help sharing this cool video of Bjørgen and Johaug watching a replay of the World Champs 30k. Even if you can't understand what they're saying, their emotions come through.

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.

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.

Ski Service

The life of a service(wo)man at a Marathon Cup race - January's Marcialonga in this case, but next week's Vasaloppet just the same:

Oslo Worlds Medal Table

The only medals table I can find is the Worlds organizers', which includes all the sports being contested at Oslo - cross-country, jumping, and nordic combined. Here's a table of just the cross-country skiing medals. Scroll right to see a details the medalists and events.

North American Skiing's Best-Ever Day

Today's freestyle sprints at Drammen have to rank up as the best-ever day for North American cross-country skiing: Canadian Alex Harvey took second behind only Emil Jönsson and ahead of Petter Northug in the men's race, and American Kikkan Randall won the women's race, which included an out-of-the-running Marit Bjørgen. And both results sheets had plenty of other good results. On the men's side, Len Valjas (CAN) finished ninth and Andy Newell (USA) finished eighteenth; on the women's side, Chandra Crawford (CAN) finished fourteenth and Dasha Gaiazova finished twentieth. (Minnsotan Jessie Diggins finished 46th, failing to make the heats but winding up ahead of some serious skiers, like Norwegian Marthe Kristoffersen.)

The only way Sunday's results will be eclipsed if Harvey, Randall, or others take medals on Thursday in the freestyle sprints at Worlds.

Oddly enough, the top four women all had double-L names: Randall, Falla, Kalla, Follis - what do you make of that, Statistical Skier?

(Photo courtesy of Swix Nordic.)

Holmen Cow!

The Oslo Worlds organizers just put up a fascinating page about the 30 and 50km tracks at Holmenkolllen - "the world's hardest ski course." The women's course - can we call it Marit's Regret?- is actually 31.6km in length and includes 1,193 of climbing - 61m more than the previous record, at Torino. (The Vancouver 30 included a mere 1,056 meters of climbing.)

Even more impressively, the "50km" race is actually 2,860 meters (five percent!) longer than that, and contains more climbing than any other racecourse in the world - 1,998 meters worth. The course profile is almost as awesome as the races - freestyle mass starts (Saturday, March 5 for the women, Sunday, March 6 for the men) - should be.

Johan Olsson, Derider of Golf

Quoth Johan after today's 2x10 pursuit at the Tour de Ski, in which he finished 18th, "Det är en parodi att åka omkring på en golfbana när det finns så mycket fina berg att köra i.

According to Google Translate, this means, "It is a travesty to go around on a golf course when there are so very nice mountain running in."

According to the human who is behind World of XC and who knows English and Swedish, Olsson said,"It is a parody to race on a golf course when there are great mountains all around!"

I might more liberally translate Olsson as saying "Pursuits are easier when I have Marcus and Anders running interference behind me," and/or "In Sweden we play golf on terrain that's much rougher than this."

Man-Crush on Kersh

The first three stages of the 2011 Tour de Ski have forced me to finally admit, to myself and to the Nordic Commentary Project's vast global readership, that I have a giant man-crush on Devon Kershaw. Lest you judge me, I offer a defense of my stance on the man who is now solidly established as North America's best male cross-country ski racer.

First and foremost, he's fast as hell. His results at the Vancouver Olympics didn't quite garner a medal, but c'mon: fourth in the team sprint and that heartbreaking fifth in the 50? Awesome. Kershaw has been consistently improving his World Cup results for a couple years now, with nine top-10 finishes between 2006 and 2009, but has this season made a big jump up. So far,, he's taken four top 10s: 10th overall in the Kuusamo mini-tour, 9th in the Davos 15k classic, and now the amazing back-to-back second places at the Tour de Ski, behind only Dario Cologna in the 15km classic pursuit and Emil Jönsson in the classic sprint. Great, great stuff that bodes well for the short term (a good TdS result), the middle term (the Oslo World Championships), and the long term (the 2014 Olympic Games).

Second, "Kersh" seems like a pretty cool guy. On his entertaining Twitter stream, his (oh-so-infrequently-updated) blog, and elsewhere, he talks frankly about the ups and downs of racing (his account of that Olympic 50 was moving), about his own development as a racer (including the almost-indescribable tragedy that he faced as a junior), and about life as a top-level athlete. He's got a great, loose writing style that's very natural and appealing - and which makes his racing all the more notable. It shouldn't be a surprise to me that there's a brain under that Cross Country Canada headband, but it's nice to see it frequently confirmed.

Third and, yeah, last, he's a handsome devil, and his girlfriend is neither hard on the eyes nor a slouch - she's an accomplished social entrepreneur and an Olympic gold medalist, among other attributes.

In short: Go Kershaw, go! I can't wait to see how the rest of the Tour and the rest of the season go.

Bibs and Boards: La Clusaz

I've got lots to say about the last races and the upcoming ones, but no time to say it. Until I do, here's a cheap post - a bad screen-cap of the terrible bibs worn at the La Clusaz race, here mercifully covering some of the hideous suits worn this year by France. Awful, awful, awful - so bad that Eldar Rønning seems to prefer looking closely at Maurice Manificat's ass than the bib.

For what it's worth, these bibs advertised the Rhone Alpes region of France and the city of Annecy's bid for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games. Annecy is in a part of the world that is neither ugly nor flat, so it seems like a good spot for the WOGs - though I'd hope that another site would host the cross-country skiing events, since the round-and-round format of the La Clusaz races leaves something to be desired.

Therese and Pølsa

I'm not sure why the Swix website is letting Therese "Energizer Bunny" Johaug show us why she ditched her last boyfriend, but there you go.

What's that, Pølsa? Really?

Picture of the Weekend

Bjørgen, having closed her 30 second gap to Kowalczyk, sits in on the descent to the finish line at Davos. "Hey, Justyna. I'm glad I caught up to you. Have you seen my inhaler? I thought I had it, but maybe you have it. Pass it back, wouldja?"

I almost wished that Marit had come around Justyna on the straightaway, just as a "fuck you." She didn't, but then again she didn't need to. The yellow bib speaks for itself.

Hard Man

From a short interview with Lukas Bauer translated and published by the FIS:

Q: How did you survive summer with your health?

LB: I stayed healthy the whole summer. Only during the last week on our camp in Obertiliach I pulled my thigh muscle. I ran forty-five 100 m sprints and still feel uncomfortable. I will have it checked by a physiotherapist

4.5 kilometers, 100 meters at a time. Nice.

On related note, only 5 months and 10 days until the 2011 World Ski Championships at the Holmenkollen!

Some Thoughts on Kershaw

Posted on my personal blog, since they're analysis-free.