By Noah Eckstein
As the last traces of sunset over Ruka, Finland, faded into an early-afternoon dusk, Johanna Hagström added another brick to the wall of Swedish dominance in World Cup women’s sprinting.
Long a world-class sprinter who nevertheless played second fiddle to other dominant members of her own team, in Saturday’s Ruka World Cup classic sprint, Hagström accelerated away to finally take a win for herself. Norway’s Julie Myhre took second, her first ever individual podium, and Swedish compatriot Maja Dahlqvist completed the podium in third.
Filling out the final were Jonna Sundling of Sweden; crowd favorite Jasmi Joensuu, who led a veritable flock of seven Finns into the heats and five into the semifinals; and Coletta Rydzek of Germany. In a less-than-satisfying day for the Americans, Rosie Brennan finished 16th and Jessie Diggins caboosed the 29-woman heats in 29th.
After qualifying fifth, Hagström won both her quarterfinal and semifinal. In each case, she hopped out of the tracks on the final ascent and found a run/striding gear her opponents couldn’t match. She used the same strategy, to the same great effect, in the final.
In her podium interview, Hagström told FIS, “I love the last hill! I was like, it’s all or nothing…I was so surprised I was first up [the hill] I was like, ‘OK Johanna, don’t screw it up!’ I’m in shock.”
Yesterday’s fresh snow and near-freezing temperatures were replaced by the hallmark conditions of early-season Ruka: squeaky transformed snow and fast, firm tracks. The boilerplate condition of the descents — described by Kikkan Randall on the live broadcast as “like ball bearings” — ended the day of one major favorite and opened the door for Brennan to advance despite qualifying only 28th.
In the second quarterfinal heat, Ane Appelkvist Stenseth slid out on the initial descent, taking her Norwegian teammate Hedda Østberg Amundsen down with her and forcing Swede Linn Svahn onto a skicross-worthy joyride over a snowbank and up a side trail at speed. With just three skiers remaining in contention and Svahn, the third overall qualifier on the day, out of the picture, Rosie Brennan had to beat only one of either Germany’s Victoria Carl or hometown favorite Anne Kyllönen to move into the semifinals. Up the final climb into the stadium, though, Brennan faded, and her time across the line was well outside of the lucky loser spots.
In an audio message to Nordic Insights, Brennan reflected on the challenges of finding form in early-season racing: “I felt okay out there today. I was happy with my skiing but I’m definitely feeling like I’m lacking the speed, especially in such a fast sprint like this. But the more times I try hopefully the better it will get. In the qualifier we definitely struggled with skis a bit but got it turned around for the quarterfinals and it was much better. At any race you need a body, a mind, and a pair of skis, and that doesn’t always come right away.”
Truer words have rarely been spoken.
Brennan felt that this year’s early-season skiing conditions in Anchorage, where PistenBully-groomed skiing commenced in late October, prepared her well for the weather whiplash this weekend.
“If there’s one thing Ruka’s known for, it’s crazy conditions,” Brennan mused. “While these are maybe not the typical ones, you can always count on it being a little chaotic here. In Anchorage before coming over here we had quite variable conditions as well, and I’ve been okay adapting to that.”
Diggins, similarly sluggish in the qualifier in 27th, skied near the back of the pack throughout her quarterfinal but was well-positioned on the approach to the final climb. As the grade steepened and her heat-mates transitioned into sprint-striding, Diggins, visibly tiring, struggled to make her skis kick and reverted to the sort of desperate shuffle that resonates deeply with my soul. While her classic technique has come a long, long way in recent years, there is clearly still work to be done.
Diggins knows this as well as anybody, of course, saying in her pre-season press conference that many of her remaining career goals include classic skiing. She similarly noted in comments to the press after yesterday’s seventh-place finish that classic technique remains a key focus in summer training, with the “hard work in New Zealand with Julia [Kern] and [Jason] Cork … slowly sinking in over the years.”
Making new neuromuscular pathways is hard work; some days the muscle memory sticks, other days it doesn’t. Progress is rarely linear, of course, and Diggins is known for easing her way into the season — her results in the Ruka sprint since the 2019/2020 season have been 17th, 24th, 16th, 23rd, 7th, and today’s 29th. In short, fear not.
Diggins, in an audio message to Nordic Insights, said as much. “I always like to work into the season,” she noted. “I’m right where I need to be. I’m happy with my base fitness and I know that that sharpest race gear is still not yet unlocked for me.”
Her skiing in the quarterfinal, though, was hampered by that lack of sharpness in the qualifier. “If you don’t qualify super well,” she said, “and you don’t get a first lane choice, you end up on one of the ends and the lane actually disappears into a V-board, so you either need to have an incredible start or you know you’ll end up slotting in behind people. That’s sort of what I did, rather than risk trying to fight for the lane and potentially have a collision. But it meant I was in the back and I sort of didn’t quite nail my positioning today.”
But just like these early races are a chance to find that elusive race gear, they are also an opportunity to hone tactical skills that might have gotten rusty during the offseason. “If I could do that over I would make some different decisions for sure,” said Diggins, “and it’s a good learning process. It’s also good, at the start of the season, to remember how [race tactics] work, and how important all of that positioning is.”
Outside of the heats, the remainder of the American starters finished the qualifier clustered in the 40s. Julia Kern finished 41st, Renae Anderson (APU) 42nd, Erin Bianco (BSF) 43rd, Alayna Sonnesyn (Team Birkie) 44th, and Lauren Jortberg (Centre National d’Entraînement Pierre Harvey) 48th.
Those who did not race yesterday were forced to dive straight into the deep end on a very fast, high-effort course. Anderson (a friend and former college teammate at Bowdoin, I should note), wrote to Nordic Insights that it is “definitely a little hard to jump into a WC sprint qual for the first race, just because they’re so short and there’s no room for error — any minor mistake is a lot of [lost] places so that can be freaky! But on the other hand it’s fun to have full mental energy and relatively low pressure with it being the first race of the season.”
Erin Bianco of Bridger Ski Foundation, another non–U.S. Ski Team athlete looking to capitalize on Period 1 starts earned late last season, concurred in comments to Nordic Insights: “It’s definitely a wake up call having my first race of the season be a sprint qualifier in Ruka but I thought that there were some improvements in my skiing compared to last year like my doublepole finishing speed. It was over faster than I could really think about what I was doing out there which was a blessing and a curse.”
Looking ahead, the strength of the women’s sprint field is set to increase in the coming weeks. Svahn will surely return with a fire in her belly after her off-piste pursuits today, and fellow Swede and podium contender Emma Ribom opted out of the heats today with back pain, as reported by Expressen, but should return soon.
The real question mark, though, comes in the form of Kristine Stavås Skistad, the only obstacle between the Swedish women and complete sprint dominance last year. Skistad’s very long shadow (she’s really tall — get it?) was notably missing from the results this weekend as the Norwegian is still recovering from a recent abdominal surgery. Her coach only officially ruled out Ruka from her calendar, so we may or may not see a resumption of the closest thing to a real rivalry in cross-country skiing right now next weekend in the skate sprint in Lillehammer.
Before then, though, the Ruka race weekend concludes tomorrow with a 20km mass start skate. American women scheduled to start include Jessie Diggins, Rosie Brennan, Sophia Laukli, Sydney Palmer-Leger, Julia Kern, Haley Brewster, and Alayna Sonnesyn.
You’re reading this on Nordic Insights, one man’s labor of love dedicated to publicizing American nordic skiing. Last season’s GoFundMe is literally the only reason why I turned a profit in years one and two of Nordic Insights, and in turn the only reason why there is a year three 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, last season’s GoFundMe may be found here. Thank you for your consideration, and, especially, for reading.
