By Angie Kell
Here is what was surprising about today’s team skate sprint relay in Davos, Switzerland, the final weekend of Period 1: the nighttime pyrotechnics. They were really, really good and added to a party atmosphere in Central Europe along the final precarious, high-speed right-hand turn to the finish.
The least surprising aspect: the women’s field was severely truncated with many fan favorites opting to sit the night and/or weekend out. A close-second, easy prediction from today’s event was that Team Sweden would take the top podium spot in the women’s race, particularly a Team Sweden featuring Jonna Sundling.
With names such as Team USA’s Jessie Diggins, Norway’s Therese Johaug and Heidi Weng, and Sweden’s Frida Karlsson, Ebba Andersson, and Linn Svahn missing from the start list, the race was truthfully one of podium spots for second and third positions, and likely contested by teams vying for podiums for the Nation’s Cup prize. (That is, while tonight’s race did not award individual points for either the World Cup overall or the Sprint Cup standings, country results did count toward the Nation’s Cup standings.) While the Diggins Collapse Index is rapidly gaining traction, it appears that The Index is not yet sufficient to compel race starts absent World Cup points.
In a short and punchy racecourse following the valley floor with one lung-burning climb and otherwise little opportunity for separation, the Swedish team comprised of best friends Sundling and Emma Ribom easily took the top spot in the initial qualification round, in which skiers raced separately and times were summed to see which countries would move on to the final.
Sweden was followed here by USA I, featuring Julia Kern plus Rosie Brennan looking like her old self, 2.72 seconds back. USA II, Lauren Jortberg of Centre National d’Entraînement Pierre Harvey and Erin Bianco of Bridger Ski Foundation, missed out on qualifying for the finals but gained more experience. Norway’s May–December team of Astrid Øyre Slind, 36, and Kristin Austgulen Fosnæs, 24, finished 12th in the qualification round, 7.81 seconds back, but as fans know, one can never count Norway out.
In a harbinger of what was to come, Switzerland’s Nadine Fähndrich told the live stream pre-race, in response to a question about home course advantage, “I’m always more nervous than normal but I also think this helps me.”
Even though the team sprint has “sprint” in its name it is largely a race of endurance, and, tellingly, team sprints are seeded off of athletes’ distance points. Each team member had to race three legs total, calling for endurance as well as sprinting.
In the final, positioning was crucial with 15 teams on the course, and the exchange area was often bottlenecked.
Julia Kern spoke to the challenges of today’s course, telling Nordic Insights, “The night scene was really cool — a lot going on. It made it hard to see in the tag zone, so the tag zone was a bit chaotic as usual.”
Kern added, “And since the course was constantly turning so much and pretty tight except for the flat section lapping through, it made it really hard to gain positions and it felt a little more chaotic or just harder to pick off people because you had to take the wide line to do that. So I think it made a challenging and tactical and non-tactical race at the same time; the tag is really important.”
Brennan, on her first leg, briefly looked like the Brennan of yore and smartly kept her positioning at the front of the pack, along with Sweden’s Ribom.
At the first exchange, primed for chaos, the hand-body tags looked clean. Fähndrich led the pack early in this leg with a very controlled pace, followed by Sundling and Kern. Canada’s duo comprised of Liliane Gagnon and Sonjaa Schmidt advanced their positioning through each lap as well.
Amidst the second exchange, Sweden had trouble navigating the crowd, and Ribom moved to the middle of the field. Norway’s Slind took advantage of Sweden’s poor exchange and then the climb by quickening her tempo. But it was not enough to break up the field, as the top five teams, which included Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, and the U.S., completed their third exchange within six seconds of the leader Norway.
At Brennan’s last leg, she kept her positioning and was able to match the quick tempo and hop skate up the final hill set by the leaders. But Brennan lost ground to Germany’s Laura Gimmler, who cut the final, high-speed turn just ahead of Brennan, and approached the final exchange slightly behind Gimmler.
After the final exchange, it was Sundling who moved to the front, with Finland’s Jasmin Kahara and Norway’s Fosnæs close behind. At the last climb, Sundling demonstrated her supreme skiing prowess and opened a large gap in the field which remained to the finish, completing the relay in a time of 15:54.31.
Despite Fosnæs’s stumble on the final turn, Norway was able to capture second place, 3.77 seconds behind Sweden. The Swiss team captured the final podium spot with a 15:58.85 finishing time, delighting the home crowd.
Germany finished fourth, Canada fifth, Finland sixth, and the U.S. faded in the last leg to a seventh-place finish. The top seven teams were all separated by less than ten seconds at the finish.
In comments shared with multiple media outlets, Brennan said, “It’s just one of these races where truly anything can happen.”
She continued, “It’s just really great to have the team vibes and feel like you’re out there for more than yourself. And getting yourself in — or putting yourself in a good position is for your teammate, not just for you. And I really needed that. And I’m really thankful that Julie was willing to team up with me and that we put our foot out there and made the best of a night.”
Kern echoed the collegial sentiments telling Nordic Insights, “Today was really fun. I was stoked to team up with Rosie; we both love the team sprint event and it’s always just a really fun format that’s really exciting and you never know what’s going to happen. We were really excited going into it; had great energy.”
Nighttime racing, hopefully once again equipped with mad pyrotechnical effects, continues tomorrow in Davos with another skate sprint. The women’s start list is slated to include Team USA’s Rosie Brennan, Haley Brewster, Jessie Diggins, Julia Kern, Renae Anderson, Erin Bianco, Lauren Jortberg, 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 aprofit 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.
