By Maximo Steverlynck
The Tour de Ski continued earlier Wednesday with stage four, arriving in Davos to everyone’s favorite urban sprint course and perhaps everyone’s least favorite 180-degree corner.
Jessie Diggins’s season is in full force, as she placed third to score her seventh podium of the season (and third in four days) and further extend her overall lead in the Tour de Ski.
In post-race comments, Diggins said, “Today was a big surprise. I was really tired yesterday so I’m glad it was a night race, and this was so cool! There were chainsaws and flares and fire; it was awesome. We had some great skis, and that makes a big difference, so hats off to our tech team, they’ve been working so hard. It’s tough during the Tour, they never get a break, so I’m really grateful for them.”
Linn Svahn (SWE) and Kristine Stavås Skistad (NOR) finished first and second in today’s race.
In the overall Tour de Ski standings, Victoria Carl fell down to fifth after failing to move past the quarterfinals. Svahn moves into second position in the overall standings, while strengthening her grasp on the silver bib given to the points leader.
Other top finishes from the U.S. women today included Julia Kern racing superbly to 11th place, Rosie Brennan coming in hot in 14th, and Sammy Smith making the heats and placing 22nd overall, at just 18 years of age.
Speaking on the season and what she’s excited for, Smith said, “The season has been off to a good start, I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to be racing the Tour de Ski, it has always been a dream of mine! Looking forward, I will be racing at World Juniors in early February. I’m super excited and am eager to race against the top U20s!”
On the men’s side, Lucas Chavanat continued his winning ways (in sprints), landing a second win in as many sprint days this Tour. (In between, he finished 78th and 89th in a pair of distance races.) He also inherits the points jersey from Ben Ogden, who unfortunately was forced to withdraw with sickness, days after his roomate JC Schoonmaker did the same. Rounding out the podium today was Edvin Anger, scoring his first career podium with second place, and longtime skate sprint star Federico Pellegrino in third.
But the story of the day for American ski fans could be found just off the podium in fourth, a position occupied by one Gus Schumacher. Coming into today Schumacher had made the World Cup sprint heats on three occasions, against 13 times not making the cut. He had never made the semifinals, let alone the final. All that changed over the course of three heats, before frenzied crowds on a hopping night in Davos.
When the dust settled, Schumacher had placed fourth on the day, racing beautifully throughout the heats and asserting himself in the final. It was his best career World Cup finish yet, and the best lettuce shown on a FIS broadcast in recent memory.*
Schumacher has skied strong this year after some frustrations over the past few seasons. When asked about any reasons for this change, Schumacher told Nordic Insights, “I’ve just generally felt more energetic this year, and I think it’s made it so I bounce back from races well and can have them build on each other. It’s been nice to be in these races feeling like I’d expect my body to feel. Today definitely had some luck too, but in general it feels really good to ski well… like technically and energy wise.”
Other top performances from the U.S. men included Kevin Bolger in 17th, continuing a string of consistently qualifying for sprint heats, and Zanden McMullen in 25th, the first career sprint heats for the 22-year-old.
In post-race comments to Nordic Insights regarding his training and recent success, Bolger wrote, “It’s been a fun tour! I think a few things have helped contribute to some more consistent and competitive results — in the past I’ve bopped around a bit in training locations — and this year I was much more focused on being in the same place training all year — with some small changes of course. But mostly in Sweden for the summer and the U.S. in the fall.
“I think this has been really big for me with good consistent training and has allowed my training periods to really be good. I decided to work with a new coach this last year out of Norway, Einar Moxnes, and that has been going really well. The new program and focus has been really good for me!”
McMullen had a lot to celebrate today, between the breakthrough to the heats and the inspiring fourth of his longtime teammate. “I’m very excited for Gus,” McMullen wrote to Nordic Insights. “He has been skiing so well! Watching him, Ben, and JC do SO well this season is really inspiring. It gets me so pumped for the future of men’s skiing in the U.S.”
But McMullen was also — quite deservedly — psyched about his race today, too. “This whole day has been awesome,” he wrote. “It’s been so pretty and the atmosphere is so fun that results didn’t matter to me today. HOWEVER, I’m obviously on cloud 9 after making my first sprint heats and in my opinion skiing very well and competitively in it! It was so high paced and such a short sprint that it was honestly hard to think. It was just go go go. I’m sure with a lot more experience that will go away and I’ll be able to ski more efficiently and make it through to semis!”
Finally, no discussion of the men’s race would be complete without reveling in Schumacher’s start-gate letty check, viz., a physical and visual demonstration of the extent of one’s flowing locks, aka lettuce. Roll tape:
* * *
More athletes fell victim today to the infamous Davos corner, a sharp 180-degree turn at the northeast corner of the course. Notably, Harald Østberg Amundsen fell in the quarterfinals, opening the door to Erik Valnes taking some bonus seconds over him, and Emma Ribom also took a fall in the semifinals after winning her quarterfinal, knocking her out of contention for the win.
Speaking in comments to Nordic Insights, Julia Kern said that “It was honestly less sketchy than I remembered it being, but I was still skiing it timidly. It’s not worth crashing and there are always crashes on that corner. I think they did a really good job with raking it out and setting up the course. The atmosphere was really cool, with flames going around the corner to give you a little bit more heat and boost, and all around a really good day.”
Overall Tour standings after today have Jessie Diggins (USA) continuing to lead in yellow, but ceding some time to Linn Svahn (SWE) after the Swede’s victory. Svahn is now 38 seconds back of Diggins after four days of racing. Jonna Sundling (SWE) rounds out the virtual podium in third, at 1:22 behind Diggins. Victoria Carl (GER) falls from 2nd to 5th overall after failing to move beyond the quarterfinals today; she is now 1:31 back.
On the men’s podium, Harald Østberg Amundsen (NOR) retains his yellow jersey but bleeds time to his countryman Erik Valnes (NOR), who now sits just 11 seconds behind him in 2nd going into tomorrow’s 20km classic pursuit. In third sits Federico Pellegrino (ITA), 25 seconds behind the pace, moving up from 9th after a great sprint day. Gus Schumacher (USA) moves into 4th overall, up from 10th, following a great ski from him today.
Racing continues in Davos tomorrow with a 20km classic pursuit. Friday is then a day off, before the Tour continues with a 15km mass start classic race on Saturday and the final climb on Sunday. Both weekend races will be back across the border in Val di Fiemme, Italy.
* For the benefit of readers over a certain age: Lettuce is a hairstyle that’s very popular for male hockey players. It’s a hairstyle that involves growing hair down to the neck and tucking it behind your ears.
Results: men’s race | women’s race | men’s TdS standings | women’s TdS standings
— Gavin Kentch contributed reporting
