By Lukas S. Pigott
GRANÅSEN ARENA, Trondheim — With the entire ski-viewing public taking for granted that the Norwegian men would do as they have for every one of the last thirteen World Championships and take home the relay gold medal, the pressure on the four athletes representing the home nation was immense.
Third-leg skier and two-time bronze medal winner so far in this championships Harald Østberg Amudsen told Norwegian media after the race, “I was so nervous, I didn’t recognize my body,” while also revealing that nervousness led to him throwing up before the race.
Trondheim weather saga continues
Also nervous were the event organizers as hurricane-force winds meant that the cross-country arena was closed off for the morning, continuing the Trondheim weather saga. U.S. first-leg skier JC Schoonmaker put to words what everyone staying in Trondheim thought when they woke up this morning, saying, “The trees blowing around were insane this morning.”
When the winds failed to subside and the treetops continued their reach for the ground, in many cases succeeding, entrance time to the stadium was postponed leading to thousands and thousands of people being stuck outside the arena, waiting to go in.
This led to the race being postponed for another half hour in a relatively last-minute decision. This had consequences for the athletes, with Schoonmaker telling Nordic Insights after the race that he was just finishing his warmup when he was waved down and told that the race was postponed.
“I just went and sat inside for a little bit because I didn’t want to keep skiing and just be out for like two hours” he continued, highlighting the uncertainty of the situation.
Schoonmaker also revealed that the wind played a part in the waxing for today, saying, “It was super dirty in the tracks, especially up at the very top. It was like a bunch of leaves, branches. Nothing big, but stuff was getting in the klister.”
According to Schoonmaker, a big part of the wax techs’ job today was “trying to find something that wasn’t picking up so much dirt and stuff like that.”
The race
Three athletes on the Norwegian team would be competing in their first championship relay, as Erik Valnes and Martin Løwstrøm Nyenget joined Amundsen in this club across the first three legs. Klæbo, now a veteran anchor-leg skier — this was his fourth consecutive championships anchoring the relay — got the honors of bringing the team into the finish in his own backyard.
One of the only things that could possibly upset the expected Norwegian dominance was an accident of some sort. While the home crowd never had to look away in disbelief, that’s exactly what both the Finnish and Swedish teammates of Niko Anttola and Truls Gisselman, respectively, had to do on the first leg of the relay.
Anttola, 22, who was called up this morning to race due to a sick teammate, was the first to go down, crashing on the downhill back into the stadium after the first half of his leg. With no Niskanen to save the day with a massive second leg, this effectively put Finland out of the competition.
Canada’s Xavier McKeever, who was skiing behind Anttola when he crashed, said after the race, “It sucks to see that happen to a competitor, but it’s part of the game too.”
The in-form Swedish men looked to be the biggest challengers to the Norwegians, with Edvin Anger on the last lap hoping to get a chance to sprint against Klæbo for the win.
With Calle Halfvarsson leaving Trondheim due to sickness, Gisselman would get a spot on the relay team skiing the first leg. He had one job: To not let Valnes, the Norwegian “Freight train from the North,” get any time on him.
Things were going better than many expected well into the leg. Gisselman was just five seconds behind Valnes with only a downhill remaining to the exchange where he would send William Poromaa off to challenge Nyenget on leg two. But Gisselman would crash with a few hundred meters to go in the opening leg.
This meant that Nyenget could ski his own race. Behind him, while they hadn’t totally given up on Norway, the fight for silver had begun.
Both USA and Canada were in the group of six along with Italy, France, Switzerland ,and Sweden, until Zak Ketterson, skiing the second leg for Team USA, had to see the rest of the group ski away.
Talking to the American media in Trondheim after the race, Ketterson said, “It was good. I definitely lost a lot of time in the last k of my leg.”
He added, “I really thought I was gonna be able to hang in there, but they just turned the screws a little too tight right at the end. It’s a bummer to hand off not in the group. But yeah, I gave it everything I had.”
Norwegian men deliver
On his final lap, Klæbo could soak up the atmosphere, saying after the race that he would have liked to keep skiing because it was so much fun. He even had time for a little show, going easy before sprinting up the final hill and carrying a very large Norwegian flag for almost half a kilometer (above photo: Noah Eckstein).
With this championships being the first to have equal distances for men and women, today’s men’s relay would for the first time ever be 7.5 km over each leg instead of the traditional 10km.
This played a significant role in the race, meaning that it would be a little easier, and therefore likely more prone to closer finishes. While that didn’t affect Norway, which won by 20+ seconds even after Klæbo walked it in, it was certainly noticeable in the race for silver and bronze.
Going into the final hill there were still five men fighting for the two remaining medals behind Norway. Swiss sprinter Valerio Grond and Swedish all-rounder Anger set a pace that neither Mathis Desloges from France, Olivier Léveillé from Canada, or Simone Dapra from Italy could match.
With Grond carrying more speed into the final straight he could celebrate, if a little early, for an important silver medal for the Swiss men, who have struggled with results since the retirement of Dario Colognia. Anger brought Sweden into a deserved bronze medal while France, Canada, and Italy followed, with Germany and USA coming in shortly after.
Swiss euphoria
What do you think about some of the Swedish experts saying that Anger should have beat Valerio Grond?
“Then they don’t know Valerio” was the response from the rest of the Swiss team, overjoyed at what they accomplished today. “We had perfect skis and everyone had their best day,” they explained.
For the Swiss team it has been a “lifetime goal to win one team relay medal,” they said in their post-race press conference. “Finally, we achieved it.”
“The last relay medal in a World Champs or Olympic games was in 1972, so it was finally time to get a medal again,” happy team members said.
Even though the Scandinavians have brought home all the gold medals at these championships, the Swiss team has brought home an impressive three medals so far from Trondheim. The medal winners today hope that they are inspiring young children, saying, “We are showing that it is possible to be on the podium as athletes from Switzerland.”
Swedish men on the up
After the race Gisselman told the media that today was “The most up and down day in my life,” as well as being relieved that he had “such good teammates” who secured a bronze medal despite the shaky start that he provided for the team.
The Swedish men have been on the receiving end of criticism for poor results in the past years, but have managed to come into this championships with good form. They will leave with at least two medals, one from each team event.
When asked how they are going to beat the Norwegians at the World Championships at home in Falun in two years, the answer was that “Hard work and dedication” is going to be the recipe.
Seventh place for the Americans
Finishing in seventh place, the American men seemed content with their result.
Schoonmaker told reporters that his leg was “solid. I mean, I felt pretty good and happy with it. The middle section of the last lap, I kind of lost a little bit of time, and then I had a little bit of a second wind to get up with the Canadians. So that was pretty sweet. I just wish I could have been a little further up, but I’m happy with it.”
Regarding his third leg, Bolger told the media after the race that, “Now that Ben’s going out last, you want to do as much as you can for him to get as close as he can to a medal, and you know, the best result we can get. So it’s trying to maximize that performance without totally just blowing up and giving him just shit to work with.”
Ogden, who started roughly 30 seconds behind the group that would be fighting for silver and bronze, told reporters that after trying to catch the main group on the second lap and realizing that was not going to happen he prepared for a sprint against Germany, which he managed to secure seventh place.
When Ogden was asked about his decision to not race the team sprint yesterday he explained, “During that 10km classic my body was screaming at me that there was still some fatigue and stuff deep down. … So when I got back, I just was like, We got one team in this team sprint, and JC sat out the 10km to be primed up, and Gus beat me by two minutes, and I was going as hard as I possibly could. So I knew that the best chance for Team USA to have the best possible day was not going to be with me on the team.”
Hear more: The four men on the U.S. team speak, in relay order, about their race today:
‘The real battle’
After their team sprint event yesterday, the Canadian team consisting of Xavier Mceever and Antoine Cyr agreed that “The real battle” was against the Americans in the relay.
In their attempt to win “the real race” they were joined by Max Hollman and Olivier Léveillé, who would be racing against Kevin Bolger and Ben Ogden on their respective legs.
“Team captain” Cyr, who raced the second leg, described the race as being “really fast from the gun, and then never stopped.” He said of the team’s effort, “The whole team today did amazing, and I’m super proud of the boys.”
When congratulated on winning “The real battle” Cyr revealed that it is a friendly rivalry saying, “We know those guys, we’ve been racing with them so long and we’re so happy when they perform well. I like the little rivalry, but it’s not much of a rivalry because then we’re in the box chatting with them, and I’m sure that Xav [Xavier McKeever] will be playing cod mobile with them tonight.”
(“Cod mobile” is an audio version of “CoD: Mobile,” which in turn stands for “Call of Duty: Mobile,” a first-person shooter game.)
When asked how he compared this rivalry to the Norway–Sweden rivalry Cyr said, “It’s a lot less personal and a lot more fun.”
What does it mean to beat them?
“It just means we’re the best on the other side of the ocean,” Cyr answered, who thinks that Canada is going to do even better in the future. Watch out America.
Talking about his third leg, Max Hollman told reporters, “Every time a little gap opened up and someone tried to push the pace a bit, I was like, Nope. I’m holding on. I’m here, boys.”
In the background, the other Canadians exclaimed, “Let’s go, let’s go” as he talked about his effort.
Léveillé said that he was comfortable with his last leg, stating, “They guys are nice to me — they never say that I did a bad job. It brings my A game and I feel I perform well in that pressure.”
‘Every day that you don’t take a medal, you leave a medal on the table’
U.S. team coach Matt Whitcomb told reporters after the race, “There’s a lot of pride in how the guys skied today, and there’s a lot of hunger for the day that we can get on that podium in this relay.” He continued by saying, “We’re not at the level yet where we really differentiate between gold, silver and bronze. They’re kind of all the same color. It’s just metal and we want one.”
“We were underperforming” was Whitcomb’s analysis of the start of these championships before continuing his analysis by saying, “It started to turn around. We started to see signs of life in the 10km, and people looked outstanding in the team sprint.”
Whitcomb continued his as always reflective analysis by saying, “In order to turn things around, you have to keep looking for the things that are going your way. And was it hard for us to wake up when we feel that we are underperforming? It actually is. But we did it, and that’s the thing that I’m most proud of this championship so far.”
What have you learnt from this championships in terms of skis?
“I think just in general, and I think probably many nations would agree with this, our practice with transformed snow conditions is inadequate. We probably need to spend more time on glaciers in spring testing camps. That is something we’re prepared to do with our service staff and with our athletes and with the ski industry, to make sure that not only do we know how to wax for it, but we also need to know how to ski in it, and we need to have the skis for it.”
(Somewhat relevant to this, the training facilities on Eagle Glacier, APU’s summer stomping grounds above Girdwood, Alaska, have been off-line since summer 2020, following first an earthquake that led to the former structure being condemned, and then pandemic-induced delays in building a new one. The replacement building is anticipated to be useable within summer 2025.)
If you go home with one medal will you be satisfied?
“No.”
What are you doing for the 50km on Saturday?
“Were gonna gun it.”
Gold, silver, or bronze?
“Yes.”
Hear more: Matt Whitcomb, in both clips, talks about the Americans’ day today and the championships so far:
Battle for the ages
Gus Schumacher, who skipped the relay today, is among the favorites to take home a medal on Saturday, but first is the women’s relay tomorrow.
The race is gearing up to be a Norway–Sweden battle for the ages. Norway has yet to claim a gold medal on the women’s side, and can’t bear to see Sweden take yet another win on their own turf.
The two teams’ lineup is:
leg one: Heidi Weng – Emma Ribom
leg two: Astrid Øyre Slind – Frida Karlsson
leg three: Therese Johaug – Ebba Andersson
leg four: Kristin Fosnæs – Jonna Sundling
The Norwegian media has thoughts on the choice of the relatively unproven Fosnæs as the anchor for the home team.
The Americans will be fighting for a medal as only they can, with a team consisting of, in order, Rosie Brennan, Julia Kern, Sophia Laukli and Jessie Diggins. It will be the fifth career world championships relay start for Brennan, and the eighth (!) for Diggins. Diggins, and the American women, have finished either fourth or fifth in the last six championships relays, and will be looking to upgrade to something beyond a wooden medal. The race has been rescheduled once already from its original slot, and is currently set to start at 13:15 local time.
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 toAmerican 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.
