By Angie Kell
On the final day of racing in the historical mining town of Cogne, Italy, pre-race speculation for the podium of the men’s individual start 10 km freestyle left little to mystery. Three 3.3-kilometer loops featured two fierce climbs and, reminiscent of yesterday’s sprint race, sweeping downhills with lots of turns.
On paper, it is a course that was comprised of long uphills and requiring continuous work throughout the downhills. It’s a day that favored aerobic capacity and fast skis, a formula for Norway to continue their supreme reign over cross-country skiing. With perhaps a smattering of mentions of Frenchman Hugo Lapalus, Team Norway dominated the headlines as clear favorites to adorn the podium of today’s men’s race.
Before the race, Lapalus confirmed to FIS TV that even amongst the racers themselves, all eyes were on Norway, including his. “I think it will be really hard, it’s a really hard race with a long uphill but I will see, a lot of guys can win as usual, but I think it will be really good battle with the Norwegian team.”
Eyes were specifically focused on last year’s overall World Cup leader, Norway’s Harald Østberg Amundsen, returning after a month-long absence from the World Cup, and his teammate Simen Hegstad Krüger, the current World Cup distance leader.
Amundsen started the race furiously and led the field at the first time check at 1.2km, with Finnish classic skiing expert Iivo Niskanen less than one second behind him, apparently looking to shoot his best shot in freestyle.
By the second split, at 2.1km, Niskanen was a full second ahead of Amundsen; he would extend that lead to almost two seconds by 3.3km. But of course, Amundsen couldn’t let that stand — a Finn, and a classic skier at that, besting him — and nearing the halfway mark, Amundsen pressed the gas pedal down to overtake Niskanen in short measure. By the 4.5km mark, Amundsen was three seconds ahead of the Finn.
At the same point in the race, fellow Norwegian Iver Tildheim Andersen accelerated ahead of Niskanen as well in chase of Amundsen, coming within one second of his counterpart at the 6.6km checkpoint. The aerobic engine belonging to the motorcar that is Krüger could not be discounted, however, and Krüger himself moved ahead of Niskanen at the same checkpoint, seemingly ensuring that the top three times would all fall under the Norwegian flag.
As though Team Norway was not quite finished demonstrating their dominance, Martin Løwstrøm Nyenget ever so slowly advanced through the field from the start, climbing from 47th position at the first time check, to 10th at 4.5km, and 5th at 7.8km, finally overtaking Krüger for third by 8.7km.
The order of Amundsen, Andersen, Nyenget, and Krüger remained intact almost to the finish, ensuring a full Norwegian podium plus one left over. In the final crucial meters of the race, however, Swedish superstar — traditionally more of a sprinter — Edvin Anger bested Krüger for fourth, giving the wooden metal leftover a Swedish flavor.
The Norwegian podium would complete the course at or under 22 minutes, with Amundsen leading the way in 21:45.1, Andersen second in 21:56.8, and Nyenget third in 22:00.8. Anger was fourth in 22:04.5, while Krüger finished fifth in 22:05.4, nine-tenths of a second back following Anger’s strong close. Niskanen placed sixth after an admirable start and completed the course in 22:07.2.
American Gus Schumacher, who demonstrated that he belongs on the list of names in contention for another 10km freestyle podium (Schumacher won this discipline in Minneapolis in 2024), once again appeared in the top ten leaderboards after the first lap at 3.3 km. Every time check thereafter, Schumacher oscillated between 7th and 9th place, and the live feed at the finish showed that a clearly fatigued Schumacher clearly gave his all with the effort. Schumacher finished the day in 10th place overall.
Schumacher told Nordic Insights of his plan, which followed his splits to the letter of the law. “My strategy was to ski as smooth as possible and not burn the first lap that fast, especially the long climb,” Schumacher wrote. “From there I was able to kind of pour on the effort and try not to lose too much time in the end. It went pretty much as planned.”
Seemingly leaving room for improvement at World Championships in a few weeks, Schumacher further explained of his effort, “I think just being still in my first two weeks at altitude, it takes a while for me to really adjust. My final prep will be the next week or so at altitude near Val di Fiemme, then racing Falun, and finishing up the tuning in Sjusjøen.”
Fellow American Ben Ogden, wearing bib number 66, appeared to have a good start, and put himself in contention for a top-20 placing on the day through each time check. Late in the race, either cumulative fatigue or altitude, or both, caused Ogden to slowly fade. He would finish just outside of the top 20, in 24th place, with a time of 22:38.4.
Zak Ketterson, starting in bib no. 12, looked as though his strategy was to get after it from the outset and press; early splits suggested he was taking no prisoners, altitude be damned. As would happen to many athletes today, Ketterson’s splits faltered as the race progressed, and while Ketterson remained in the top 20 through the fourth time split, he finished in 32nd place for the day in 22:50.4.
Ketterson said that he struggled and spoke about the toll of the weekend. He told us after the race, “I honestly felt pretty bad today. My body felt pretty empty after the team sprint and sprint back-to-back, and I was for sure missing a gear today. I don’t think there was a huge issue with the pacing, more just my body not responding when I asked it to on the second half of the race.
He reflected further, “I don’t think I skied the downhills super well, but was able to recover pretty well on some of them which definitely helped for the long working sessions. I’m really looking forward to a weekend off from racing to recharge!”
22-year-old Walker Hall seemingly indicated some deliberate pacing strategies. Hall skis for the University of Utah and is accustomed to racing at elevation; this venue favored him. Relatively consistent positioning through the time checks suggested that Hall had a pacing strategy, which resulted in 48th position for the day in a time of 23:21.6, but after the race, Hall in fact told Nordic Insights something a bit more was amiss, something a bit nefarious.
“Earlier this week a few of us went down with a stomach flu type illness that checked the boxes for norovirus,” Hall disclosed. “Thankfully it was short lived but definitely took a toll on the body! I was optimistic going into today but struggled to get my body back into race mode.”
Walker continued, “I have a lot of experience racing at this altitude so I can usually pace myself well without putting too much thought into it. It seemed like a majority of the field fell apart to some degree throughout the race, so it would’ve been nice to capitalize on that. Unfortunately, I felt flat from the start and was struggling to hang on as much as anyone else out there.”
The remaining two Team USA contenders ensured that all of Americans finished in the top 50 for the day: Zanden McMullen finished in 43rd with a time of 23:08.7, and APU’s Hunter Wonders finished in 46th place in 23:12.9.
The overall World Cup leader remains Johannes Høsflot Klæbo. Anger is in second, and Norway’s Erik Valnes in third.
Today concluded the race weekend in Cogne. Racing continues two weeks from now in Falun, Sweden, the weekend of February 14-16.
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