By Merridy Littell
Today’s classic sprint in Ruka, Finland, was a very interesting race, notably because of the uniqueness of its course and the resulting falls that ensued. The course begins with a flat start chute, banks slightly right, and then immediately transitions into a sharp downhill with a left-hand curve at the bottom. Not your typical sprint start, to say the least.
Kikkan Randall, who announces for Ski and Snowboard Live (and is also an Olympic gold medalist, just to put that out there), said this about the course when prompted by her co-commentator Chad Salmela: “Well looking at this course, Chad, it still gives me the butterflies because this is one of the most challenging classic sprint courses on the World Cup tour. It’s not often that you start high and descend onto the course.”
Indeed, in the very first men’s heat a skier crashed on the left-hand curve, a trend that would continue throughout the day.
The course finishes in a manner opposite to the start with a sharp uphill into a flat finish chute, leading to the typical doublepole sprint finish. Not that today’s winner needed to do so.
Johannes Høsflot Klæbo accelerated over the final climb in his signature eponymous technique and doublepoled into the finishing stretch. He finished two seconds ahead of his competitors — after standing up on his skis and taking a bow through the close of the finishing straight. Behind Klæbo were Erik Valnes of Norway in second and Lauri Vuorinen of Finland in third.
Ben Ogden led the American men today in 32nd with a time of 2:29.60, 0.18 seconds out of the heats, with Zak Ketterson and Zanden McMullen not far behind in 35th (2:30.29) and 37th (2:30.34), respectively. (It took a 2:29.42 to make the heats today.) The rest of the American men finished as follows: JC Schoonmaker (50th, 2:32.81), Michael Earnhart (53rd, 2:33.25), and Kevin Bolger (62nd, 2:34.48).
U.S. Ski Team Head Coach Matt Whitcomb had an insightful response when asked by Nordic Insights about today’s results, and the skis involved in them, so I’ll let him do the talking here:
“Hello from Ruka, and the first World Cup sprint of the season,” said Whitcomb in comments shared with multiple outlets. “Needless to say, this was a disappointing day for the team. We were excited, and [the] athletes are feeling good. We wanted more. Our staff had a long debrief after the races were [completed] where we took a hard look at our ski preparation process, and some potential areas where ski speed may have been compromised. While it’s difficult to gauge ski speed in a qualifier, a team-wide shift toward the bottom of the page makes it clear that something was off. While this wasn’t the case for every athlete, it’s likely that our skis didn’t have the best glide, and we’ve zeroed in on some solutions for tomorrow.”
Zak Ketterson also chimed in, saying via his Strava, “Close but no cigar … happy with the execution and still trusting the process.” This is a mindset that many skiers — and coaches — have chosen to take surrounding their first races.
Whitcomb also told media, “It’s early in the season, and our team is still adjusting to the pace of being on the World Cup where the margins are very small. If three of our guys could’ve shaved a second from their time, we would’ve had five qualifiers, instead of two.”
There seems to be a collective agreement that the first few races of the season are for blowing out the carbon, revving the engine, [insert any other phrase for getting adjusted to racing here]. The transition from training on rollerskis all summer and fall to racing on snow is a stark one and so process goals are often the focus of the first few races for all skiers, from the best racers on the World Cup to the youngest juniors starting in local community races.
The first few World Cup races are also an opportunity for athletes from a variety of nations to see each other after a months-long hiatus. As Ben Ogden (via a Friday race report from the U.S. Ski Team) put it, “It’s so fun being back with everyone [on] team USA and beyond. I really missed chumming with the whole World Cup squad. Cross country skiing is a small community and sometimes I don’t appreciate how awesome everyone from all the nations are until I have to leave them for awhile. Congratulating everyone after the races and getting fired up is just so fun.”
Athletes from a variety of nations can be seen socializing in between heats; viewers can see the customary handshakes and hugs between athletes after the final heat of the day, and Klæbo can be seen chatting with Vuorinen before the obligatory post-race podium shot. As an aside: the sportsmanship of nordic skiing is one thing I love about the sport. I have always felt right at home in any field I’ve participated in due to the culture that has been cultivated in this department.
Tomorrow is another day. As Whitcomb said, “We operated seamlessly as a team, and still, we had an off day. It’s a hard game. We’ll bounce back tomorrow. We’ve already bounced back.”
Gus Schumacher, Zanden McMullen, John Steel Hagenbuch, Ben Ogden, Hunter Wonders, Zak Ketterson, and Michael Earnhart are all on the start list for the U.S. for tomorrow’s 20-kilometer mass start freestyle, starting at 9:30 am CET, though Steel Hagenbuch did not start in Friday’s classic race so stay tuned.
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.
