By Gavin Kentch
CANMORE NORDIC CENTRE, Canmore, Alberta — The pace accelerated into the closing kilometre of a mass start classic race, following an otherwise relatively pedestrian first 80 to 90 percent of the contest. Johannes Høsflot Klæbo moved to the front at just the right time, as he seemingly always does, and prepared to lead out the sprint with apparently the fastest skis in the field, as he seemingly always does. He came into the finish lanes in the lead and began doublepoling with controlled ferocity, the ground beneath his feet disappearing with terrifying speed.
And then… Pål Golberg came round on Klæbo’s right, both men gave the courtesy of a gentleman’s boot throw, and Klæbo didn’t win? It was Golberg first, Klæbo second, and Mattis Stenshagen third. Golberg’s winning time was 52:10.7. The margin back to second was two-tenths of a second, and a half-second back to third.
Stenshagen is also from Norway, as were the top four men in this race, and six of the top eight. Plus Andrew Musgrave was seventh, which, well, it’s complicated.
Taking the win in today’s 20-kilometre mass start classic race was a big deal to Golberg, who skidded to a stop at the far end of the noticeably compact finish zone with just centimetres to spare, perilously close to checking himself into the boards [hockey reference because Canada].
“He has amazing stats in cross-country skiing,” said Golberg, accurately, of his countryman who currently boasts a round 75 individual wins in 141 World Cup starts. “So just being able to beat him in this type of race is amazing. I think I was the first to beat him in mass start when he’s been in the finish in Planica, and now I’m still the first. So now I’ve done it twice. It’s fun to have taken him on this kind of race.”
(All quotes in this article are from in-person interviews in the mixed zone.)
“In classic for me this is probably a really good finish,” Golberg said of his race. “I knew I was strong in those kind of doublepoling finishes. … The last downhill is not that optimal maybe, but I knew that I was so strong that maybe only Johannes can take me down. He was on my side, but I managed to take him out in the end.”
“It was a great day for sure,” said the gummy candy aficionado of his win.
Klæbo was more than gracious in “defeat” (i.e., second place by approximately one-half ski length), maneuvering around the finish-line carnage to heartily congratulate Golberg.
“It was okay,” said Klæbo of his race. “I didn’t have my best sprint at the end there; Pål is really strong when it comes to this kind of finishes. And like I said yesterday, I felt like these tracks are — the last part here is really difficult because no one wants to be first down. … I think the [classic sprint] race on Tuesday is going to be even worse, kind of, when it comes to tactics.”
Speaking of tactics, the lead pack was not skiing especially hard today for much of the race, as is characteristic of the average World Cup men’s mass start distance race these days.
“I didn’t feel like the pace was that high,” Klæbo confirmed. “I think we went pretty slow for almost 20 kilometres. Kind of the last part was a little bit more of a speed, but in general I think it was a pretty slow race.”
What zone or training level were you in for the first five laps, asked this reporter, who never met an athlete he didn’t want to dork out about training with.
“Probably the heart rate is probably higher than it feels like,” reasoned Klæbo. “I think the feeling is pretty decent, but the heart rate is, if I would have guessed, a little bit higher, but it felt pretty good. And I would say I was really in control the first half of the race, and then we tried to speed it up a little bit, even though I didn’t feel like it was that high of a speed.”
Finally, Klæbo spoke to the ups and downs of his season overall, in the first year in a long time in which he has seemed somewhat human:
“It’s not really fun to get sick all the time,” he said, “but I haven’t been sick like this for probably seven years and I feel like at some point you will in your career, you will probably have some of these years, and this year was my turn.
“I am pretty glad that it happened this year, not next year when it’s a World Champs, and I’m just gonna deal with it.
“I still have managed to — last year I think it was like 20 World Cup wins, this year we are still seven now. So I mean, it is not that bad.”
“And still we have a little bit left of the season. So at the end I don’t think it’s gonna be that bad, but I guess people around and people watching kind of expect more, but that’s just part of the game. And I’ll just do my very best every single time I’m out there racing, and then we’ll just see how it goes.”
Stenshagen, who is 27, took his first career World Cup podium today with the third-place finish.
“It was fantastic,” said Stenshagen of his race today. “I was so strong the whole day, so I was just hoping someone was pushing harder. But it was many guys in the final, so it was a little bit tactical play on the last uphill before the donut [feature on the course]. So, yeah, I’m satisfied.”
“My plan was not to push before the last donut,” was Stenshagen’s précis of his tactics today. “I will not go first.”
“So I was waiting on the top and try to be in the third or fourth position. I was that, but Pål was so strong and I was borrowing skis from Johannes; I could not beat him in the last metre.”
We also caught up today with Simen Hegstad Krüger, who was eighth overall but also only the sixth-best finisher on his own team. #toughcrowd
“It was an okay day,” said Krüger of his race. “Not as good as Friday, but it was difficult with these fast conditions today.”
“I think it was okay,” he continued. “I tried there on the last loop, but today I don’t have the power that I need to destroy the field today. I tried but I didn’t have the power and then it turns out to be a little chaotic. And not my favorite kind of ending but that’s okay.”
“It’s not really a place where you want to be competing at the final kilometer,” expounded Krüger. “I know that when I have Golberg and Klæbo and so on it completely stops in the [final] corner; no one wants to ski down first. That’s why I tried the best I could to go ahead in the uphill there, but I just didn’t have enough power to do much damage. But I think it was an okay race for me in classic.”
And finally, on the theory that you should never pass up the chance to interview Mika Vermeulen, here are some thoughts from the tenth-place Austrian:
“It’s quite tough,” he said, but the 3.3-kilometre course used for today’s race “is a lot easier than the 3.75, so it’s just like a big group. Boys being boys is good fun.” (I.e., skiing tactically.)
“I’m super happy about today as well,” Vermeulen continued. “That’s my best classic race yet, so I’m pumped. I’m super happy with how Canada was to me.”
So will he round out his Canmore tour with the classic sprint on Tuesday?
“No, sprinting isn’t for me. I just showed that on the finish line.”
[American thoughts are coming in a follow-up article.]
— Gerry Furseth contributed reporting (like, most of the interviews that made up this article)
There are more reporters at these races than in Soldier Hollow for U.S. Nationals, but not that many, and I am probably the only one reliant on a GoFundMe to get here. Travel for in-person reporting is not cheap, and travel to anywhere from Alaska is particularly not cheap.
Last season’s GoFundMe is literally the only reason why I turned a profit in year one of Nordic Insights, and in turn the only reason why there is a year two of Nordic Insights for you to be reading now: I was okay with working for very little money to get this love letter to American cross-country skiing off the ground, but I didn’t want to lose money for the privilege of doing so. If you would like to support what remains a brutally shoestring operation, this season’s GoFundMe may be found here. Thank you for your consideration, and, especially, for reading.
