By Máximo Steverlynck
Saturday brought skate sprint action to Goms, Switzerland, with exciting heats all the way through and good results for U.S. athletes. Ben Ogden unfortunately fell in the semifinals on a day marked by tight pack racing and lots of contact, but still placed 11th overall. The star of the U.S. show was JC Schoonmaker, who placed 7th overall as the highest-ranked American skier on the day, attaining a career-best skate sprint result in the process.
Other top results included Jessie Diggins placing 11th; Rosie Brennan in 17th; Samantha Smith, who placed 21st after suffering a fall in the finishing chute; Gus Schumacher placing 24th; and Zak Ketterson, who missed heats by just four-tenths of a second for the sprint wooden medal that is 31st place overall, but was able to reflect on his historical progress at this venue over the first several years of his career.
JC Schoonmaker had some comments about the effort management and his race on the Goms course, saying in written comments, “It was a really tough first hill so I tried to save my legs there so I could ski the downhills and corners with some energy. Today’s result feels solid. I’m happy with it but am always going to want more. To be close to the final is bittersweet but I also think it’s cool to realize that I’m at a point where getting knocked out in the semis comes with a little disappointment. Overall I’m just happy to feel like I’m skiing well again after a challenging last few weeks.”
(All quotes in this article were shared from USSS to multiple media outlets.)
The Swedish women continued their sprint dominance, placing five athletes in the top six and not placing a single woman outside of the top seven, with only Nadine Fähndrich of Switzerland breaking up the Swedish line in sixth. Maja Dahlqvist, of Sweden, took her first podium of the season, placing second behind this season’s undisputed sprint leader, Linn Svahn of Sweden. Svahn, for her part, has won the last four sprint competitions in a row, and done so in commanding fashion, establishing a two-second margin of victory into the finish today.
Rounding out the podium for the women was Jonna Sundling, of Sweden. Frida Karlsson, of Sweden, was fourth, and Emma Ribom, also of Sweden, was fifth. If this had been an XC running race, Sweden’s score today would have been a perfect 15.
Johanna Hagström, also of Sweden, had to settle for seventh overall, leaving her as both the seventh-best athlete in the world today and the worst Swedish starter in the race. Tough crowd.
Through 7 of 13 sprint races this season, Svahn leads the Sprint Cup by nearly 100 points over Ribom. Kristine Stavås Skistad of Norway, who sat out today’s race to train, is tied for third with Jessie Diggins, 169 points back of Svahn.
On the men’s side, Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (NOR) appears to be back on form following his sickness and his worst sprint result since 2018 last weekend, winning today’s sprint 0.08 ahead of Lucas Chavanat (FRA), and 0.73 seconds ahead of his countryman Håvard Solås Taugbøl.
Klæbo has claimed a stunning 73 individual victories in 137 career starts, leading to an all-time wining percentage of slightly over 53 percent. (If you count podium finishes he’s at 96 out of 137, or a staggering 70 percent.) He is light years ahead of second place on the men’s all-time wins list, one Bjørn Dæhlie, who has 46. He would currently slot in at third on the overall wins list, behind Therese Johaug (82) and Marit Bjørgen (114). Klæbo is still just 27 years old.
Reflecting about his day in written comments, Ben Ogden said, “Today was a good day. On the whole, I was psyched with how I qualified. I used a different strategy because it was a hilly hard course — I skied a lot more conservative than I normally do and that really made my splits and trajectory through the qualifier a lot more like (Johannes) Klæbo and (Lucas) Chanavat do. I was happy with that. I am also happy with how the heats played out. I mean I crashed, and that sucked, but that happens. I mean people step on you, I step on people, but I am still stoked with the day in general!”
“Definitely a hard course!” wrote Gus Schumacher. “Lots of work in the first half, then it really feels like a sprint. Cool to have fun downhills and lots of fans out there. The noise on the main climb in my heat was crazy, it actually kinda hurt my ears. Makes me think I should bring some earplugs to race in in Minneapolis!”
Schumacher added, “Stoked to be in heats again, and it was fun to be close that whole time. Little bummed to not carry more speed around the final corner into the finish but I was glad to have another good look at it.”
Rosie Brennan spoke about her condition in audio comments, mentioning that she had fallen yesterday on the same course: “Yesterday, I took a pretty big digger in race prep on that downhill corner,” Brennan said. “So I was definitely stressed and intimidated about that part today. And so I’m really happy that I used what I had and skied the way I wanted to. It didn’t work as well as I had hoped, but I skied the way I wanted, and so I’m very happy with that.”
“This course is is definitely challenging,” Brennan continued. “I don’t know if it’s on a FIS limit or not. But it’s a big long climb and then very fast and kind of sketchy downhill, and then another climb and then another sketchy downhill. And it’s a little bit of altitude. So it’s definitely challenging. Generally, I like big climbing and altitude is my kind of jam, so I wasn’t necessarily opposed to it. I struggle a little more with the fast downhill, so that was kind of where my weakness was today. But it was also very fast conditions and just enough turns that there was quite a bit of jostling and broken poles and all that kind of contact. It was full contact out there today.”
[Refer to “rubbing is racing” video embedded in first paragraph above for perspective on today’s sprint heats.]
Jessie Diggins spoke regarding her decision to sit out each of the last two relays, and how she’s doing this weekend.
“I feel like I am really pleased with how my overall fitness and energy has bounced back,” Diggins said. “I was definitely tired and still hurting in the ribs last weekend, so we just made the difficult but smart decision to rest a little bit more coming into this weekend. So I’m really happy with how that’s going.”
Turning to today’s race, Diggins noted, “I definitely was struggling with the super quick start and the tactical nature of how the course was curving. I definitely got stuck and boxed in in the semi and wasn’t able to push the pace the way I needed to because my very top-end speed was not there today. And then getting tripped and falling was sort of just the icing on the cake of it. But that happens in sprinting, and that’s okay. I know that my overall fitness is in a good place. So I’m really pleased with that.”
Diggins added, “I was proud of myself for getting up right away and continuing to fight for it and just not giving up, so I’m proud of how I skied. I would definitely change things up tactically, if I could go back and do it again. So I’ve made some notes and learned from it. And now we’re focused on a really quick turnaround for an early race tomorrow morning.”
Samantha Smith, who is both still in high school and now possessed of a half-season’s worth of World Cup experience, had a great day despite her fall in the finishing chute.
“I was really happy with how the qualifier went,” said Smith in written comments. “I missed a pole plant and stumbled on the first climb, so I was surprised that I still ended up where I did. In the past every quarterfinal I have been in I haven’t had great starts, and I don’t think a lot of the courses have played to my strengths. Definitely a lot more things I need to learn and improve on before I can do that consistently!”
Smith is currently ranked third in the U23 standings, seven points behind teammate Novie McCabe. If there were separate U20 standings for the World Cup, Smith would be running away with this like Klæbo is in the men’s all-time wins standings.
Racing continues Sunday morning with a 20k mass start freestyle, with the women off to an early start at 9:30 CET and the Men starting at 13:30 CET. Find local start times and viewing links in our viewing guide.
