By Angie Kell
As the second weekend of the Cross-Country World Cup kicked off in Lillehammer, Norway, on Friday, the women’s 10-kilometer interval-start skate race found soft, challenging snow conditions, overcast skies, a few flurries, and a temperature hovering around a moderate 25° F. The race distance and conditions certainly favored the best endurance athletes in the 69-person field, whose style utilized a high cadence on the relentless hills.
Pre-race, American Sophia Laukli recognized the conditions as ones potentially benefiting her, and hoped for a top-ten finish. Laukli excitedly commented on FIS TV that the 10km distance was her favorite distance, and with the hills in challenging conditions, this day suited her style of racing.
But at the end of the race it was a complete Norwegian sweep of the podium, with the “Snow Queen,” 36-year-old Therese Johaug, taking the winner’s crown in her legendary dominating fashion. Johaug set a furious tempo from the start gate, and never relented. On the final uphill towards the finish, Johaug could be seen jump skating up the choppy climb, mouth agape, in what seemed to be redemption from a lackluster performance last weekend in the 20km skate mass start race in Ruka.
Afterwards, Johaug told on-site media, “The loser has become a winner,” in a pointed clapback to her ongoing contretemps with Expressen ski columnist Tomas Pettersson.
Longtime teammate 33-year-old Heidi Weng came in second, her form clearly strong to start this season after a few down years for the veteran Norwegian. Former marathon skier Astrid Øyre Slind, 36, rounded out the podium in third.
Johaug’s winning time was 25:16.4. Weng was 11.4 seconds back in second, and Slind a healthy 43.2 seconds back in third. This is not a small amount in an interval-start 10km.
Side note: For those keeping track, the average age of the women’s podium today in Lillehammer was an advanced age of 35 years old, a secondary, astounding feat that undoubtedly deserves mentioning. While endurance, skill, and wax preparation certainly played a role in conquering today’s racecourse, vast racing experience, and years upon years of developing aerobic capacity, likely played a role as well.
Coming off a fearless win in Ruka last weekend, American veteran Jessie Diggins, who was all smiles at the start line, kept herself in contention for the podium the entire race. Each climb revealed Diggins to be working hard, but losing ground at each time check to the top four finishers.
Footage of the race focused on the tough climbs where the time splits were taken, but failed to show the fast, precarious descents characteristic of Lillehammer. One could not fully assess the how ski preparation might have affected the teams and individual results. (For what it is worth — maybe not much, because it was a different race — Zanden McMullen suggested that the Americans had just “average” skis today in the men’s race, while Norway had very good skis.)
Regardless, Diggins finished a respectable fifth at the race she won just two years ago, coming in over a full second behind Sweden’s Frida Karlsson, who was fourth. Karlsson was 46.4 seconds back of Johaug today, and Diggins 48.7 seconds back. Karlsson and Diggins were 3.2 and 5.5 seconds off the podium, respectively.
We asked Diggins if she felt pressure to perform today because she is the reigning world champion in this race format.
Diggins told Nordic Insights, “It would be silly for me to pretend there’s no pressure in a distance skate race. I know people are looking at me more. There are more cameras following me around, and trying to pretend it’s not happening isn’t productive. Instead, I focus my attention on, Hey, I think this course is super fun.”
Diggins continued: “The downhills are like a rollercoaster. When it’s fast there’s this wild compression as you hit the bridge on the long downhill — it’s exciting.”
“I focused on the things about the course that are fun and joyful. And then I also focused on how I want to ski this course. So what technical things am I going to think about? How do I want to pace it? How do I want to break up the course? Maybe on the long downhill I use that as a reframing point and then I attack the next section. That [mindset] helps me stay very in the moment, and that helped me deal with the pressure.”
Diggins’s American teammates appeared to suffer through a tough day, with Laukli finishing 15th, 12.9 seconds outside her goal of the top ten.
“I would say there is a bit more pressure for sure” now that she has more consistent distance results, Laukli wrote in comments shared with multiple media outlets.
“But I’d say this is a good ‘problem.’ It just means I’m closer to being top in the field and that’s always what I’m working towards. But it can definitely make racing a bit more stressful both with more expectation from myself and from others. But again, it’s a sign I’m moving in the right direction so I take it as positive pressure.”
Laukli, who is into her second year of living in Oslo and training with Team Aker Dæhlie (she has American–Norwegian dual citizenship and speaks the language well), said that by this point “racing in Norway gets to feel like racing at ‘home.’”
She added, “I think especially when we’re racing so rarely in the U.S. I get to take advantage of racing on these courses. Since I’m training here and living here most of the year it’s cool to look forward to these races and feel like I have that familiar ‘home course’ advantage.”
Behind Laukli, Rosie Brennan, adorning her signature LillSport Celsius Race snow leopard mittens, was 31st. Julia Kern was 34th, Alayna Sonnesyn 35th, Sydney Palmer-Leger 47th, Haley Brewster 55th, and Renae Anderson 68th.
Racing continues tomorrow with a skate sprint. Kern, Brennan, Diggins, Sonnesyn, Anderson, Brewster, Erin Bianco, and Lauren Jortberg are on the start list for the American women.
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.
