Let me get the what-didn’t-happen headline out of the way first here: Johannes Høsflot Klæbo did not win a classic sprint when the 2023/2024 World Cup season kicked off in Ruka, in far northern Finland, earlier Friday. He instead finished third, which is, staggeringly, his lowest finish in a World Cup classic sprint since he was also third in this race in Ruka in 2016.
Put another way, there are two times in Klæbo’s entire career when he has failed to make the podium in a classic sprint. Take out two races from 2016 (for perspective: at this time Obama was president and “TiK ToK” was a song by Kesha), the first and third World Cup sprint starts of his career, and the man has literally never finished off the podium in a World Cup classic sprint. So I feel sheepish not leading with Erik Valnes of Norway, the man who took a much-deserved victory, but Klæbo not taking that victory is probably the biggest results story here.
… all that said, Klæbo is only recently returned from a bout with Covid, so perhaps save the career eulogies for a later date. But also watch his results throughout this season to see how well he is returning from this, and whether Ruka was an aberration or rather the start of something more significant. On the one hand, Klæbo has more than earned the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise; on the other hand, few athletes win virtually every sprint they enter for the majority of their career. Stay tuned.
As for the man who did win on Friday: There are only so many ways for me to write that the final hill on the Ruka sprint course is significant, but, well, the race today once again came down to the final hill on the Ruka sprint course.
Erik Valnes, one of four Norwegian men in the final, led the field into the final hill, getting the best track for the climb following some adroit skiing earlier to reach that position ahead of Klæbo. Richard Jouve of France was second, with Klæbo lurking just behind in third, Federico Pellegrino of Italy by his side in fourth.
Then the pack charged up the hill, and Klæbo… didn’t have an answer? Valnes skied away for the win, with Jouve solidly in second. Klæbo was, shockingly, in fourth approaching the top of the hill, potentially out of podium position in a classic sprint for the first time in seven years. But he moved up just enough to make it around the final curve ahead of his longtime friend from Italy, kept that advantage to the line, and that was that: Valnes first, Jouve second, and Klæbo third.
Pellegrino took fourth, 0.70 seconds back of Klæbo. But he was also a full six seconds ahead of Ansgar Evensen of Norway in fifth, who was in turn three-plus more seconds ahead of Matz William Jenssen, also of Norway, in sixth.
Pellegrino has 234 individual World Cup starts in his career; Klæbo 127 (including a shocking 90 podiums, i.e., over 70 percent of his starts); and Valnes 60. Friday was Evensen’s eighth career World Cup start, and Jenssen’s fourth. Neither Evensen nor Jenssen is on the Norwegian national team. I didn’t immediately find quotes from them after the race, but I would suspect that the two youngsters (Evensen is 23 and Jenssen 22) may have been the happiest men in the final.
Behind them, Ben Ogden skied strong throughout the day to lead the Americans in 11th overall. He won his quarterfinal with ease to advance to the first semifinal, where he was matched up against Valnes, Klæbo, Lauri Vuorinen of Finland, Even Northug of Norway, and Harald Østberg Amundsen of Norway.
Ogden was never far off the back in his heat, but he appeared to lack the skis or the energy or the… whatever combination of a thousand different things have to go right in high-level sport to be at your best to truly contend, either. He was in fifth or sixth position through much of the heat, and was in sixth from the course’s intermediate hill through to the finish. That probably sounds harsh, and I don’t mean like “way off the back” in sixth, more rather “solidly in sixth, but not able to move up past that.”
Ogden hit the final climb in sixth. He was in contact with fourth and fifth coming over the top, as Valnes and Klæbo skied away ahead of them. Ogden ultimately came through in sixth in the heat, 3.20 seconds back of Valnes in first. Yes we have reached the point where I am almost apologizing for 11th overall in a World Cup sprint, so that is telling. Ben Ogden is a good skier, it seems.
[Read/listen more: Ben Ogden on everything from making skiing fun again to how he mentally recalibrated when moving from NCAA racing to the World Cup: podcast episode here]
“I like this course because it starts and finishes at the high point,” Ogden mused in post-race audio comments. “That’s good for me. But I’ve always had a somewhat hard time, because I think you need to manage energy quite a bit.”
Ogden was pleased with his approach to his quarterfinal heat, saying that he was able to save his energy and then “being able to really kick over the top of the hill.” In his semi, by contrast, “I wish I had been a little more assertive in my position, and had a better plan going into the semifinal,” he said.
Ogden also spoke to his overall season goals: “Definitely a huge goal of mine is to get into a final sprint,” he said. “I’ve been close a bunch of times, and I really want to do that. I also really want to … keep feeling like a competitor in every single race. Towards the end of last year I started to have that feeling where, like, no matter the race, I just felt like I was part of it, which wasn’t always the case for me before. So I want to keep that going.”
He added, “I also want to … make the World Cup and this life feel like it’s a life I can live long term,” and make it something sustainable. “So that’s a goal of mine as well.”
JC Schoonmaker was the other American man to make the heats today. Schoonmaker crushed the qualifier, ranking ninth there (Ogden was eighth, 0.14 seconds faster). He ran out of steam a little in the heats, finishing fifth in what was the day’s fastest quarterfinal by far. Schoonmaker was 22nd overall on the day.
“I think it’s a sweet course and that final hill is a freaking beast,” the Californian wrote to Nordic Insights about his day. “It’s a tough one but also I think pretty simple because what it comes down to is who can get up that climb the fastest. I liked today that I put myself in a position to move through in the quarters but what I need to improve is just finding that next gear to get it done.”
There were five other Americans in the field today. Gus Schumacher was 37th in qualifying, Luke Jager 47th, Kevin Bolger 48th, Zak Ketterson 49th, and Zanden McMullen 56th. Bolger skis for Team Birkie; everyone else listed here is on the U.S. Ski Team.
It’s easy to write feel-good stories about athletes who make the heats, but one of the founding tenets of this website is not to make assumptions based on the results alone, and another is to not interview only the winners. And so I asked McMullen how he felt about today’s result, if he was focusing on 56th being “bad” and feeling disappointed, or if he was focusing on that three-second margin from qualifying and feeling pretty pleased.
Here’s McMullen. I’ll stop proselytizing after this, but everyone, especially aspiring juniors, read this in full, because life isn’t always rainbows and unicorns, and you don’t always win every race, and here’s what you do when you don’t “even” qualify but are actually really pleased with how you skied out there:
“I’m actually really happy about today’s result,” McMullen wrote to Nordic Insights. “I don’t consider myself to be a sprinter and I have especially struggled in qualifications in the past. As far as time back from the whole field and the other Americans, I felt as if I was kind of (in my own way) ‘in it.’ Gus pointed out to me after the race that I was only 6 seconds behind Johannes Klæbo, if you had told me that before going into the race I would have figured I was going to qualify in the top 25!
“Regardless of results however, I think I raced the best race I could have for the day. That in itself was the victory I was looking for, and I’m feeling excited for the rest of the races this weekend :)!”
McMullen added, “I also think it’s important to note I was 11 seconds back in last year’s SuperTour opener in the qualifier and was 8.5 seconds back today in my first World Cup sprint.”
Racing continues tomorrow with a 10km classic interval start. There are seven athletes entered for the men: In bib order, Luke Jager, Zanden McMullen, Zak Ketterson, John Steel Hagenbuch, Gus Schumacher, Ben Ogden, and Scott Patterson. The race starts in the middle of the night for the western half of this country. Find a schedule and viewing guide here.
— Gavin Kentch
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