By Gavin Kentch
It’s been a while. The first viewing guide of the season contained a sick reference to “Houdini,” a then–au courant song by Eminem. I haven’t heard that on the radio for ages now.
Time passed. Jessie Diggins was healthy. Jessie Diggins had plantar fasciitis. Jessie Diggins would be out for months. Jessie Diggins ended up missing something like a single classic race.
Therese Johaug was going to come back. Therese Johaug came back. Therese Johaug was going to win everything in sight. Therese Johaug won… a whole lot of World Cup races, but not quite everything. Therese Johaug was at least going to win the inaugural women’s world championship 50km. Therese Johaug was “only” third in this race. Therese Johaug left Trondheim a combined 4.906 seconds out of four gold medals. Sport, man.
The Americans were going to do well at world championships. The Americans were going to win multiple medals at world championships. The Americans were going to have multiple days when their skis were in the mix. The Americans were going to have at least three race days when their skis were in the mix. Okay, two days. There may have been some shifting goalposts here.
Anyway, it’s been a while. Think about what you were doing over Thanksgiving. Some of this team hasn’t been back to the U.S. since then. This is a tough sport for everyone, but especially for the non-Europeans on the circuit.
For the last time until next November, here is when the races will be this week. This is a two-part, two-country viewing guide; there is one city sprint in Tallinn, Estonia, on Wednesday night, a travel day on Thursday, then a Friday–Sunday three-race weekend in Lahti to close things out.
Three of these four races are scored for World Cup points. I feel like Saturday’s team sprint, the odd one out, could either see a super lackluster turnout, because it’s sort of meaningless and everyone is tired, or maybe it will be lit, because only a few athletes have anything left to race for and that 50km classic on Sunday will be rough no matter what you do on Saturday. Here’s hoping for the latter, for the sake of good television if not the athletes’ legs.
Race schedule:
World Cup in Tallinn (local time at venue: GMT +2. This is 6 hours ahead of the East Coast and 10 hours ahead of Alaska. This is also one hour further east than Norway, for those of you who have been living on Trondheim/Oslo time for the past few weeks.)
| date | race | time (AK) | time (EST) | results |
| Weds., March 19 | skate sprint qual | 6:30 a.m. | 10:30 a.m. | here |
| skate sprint heats | 9 a.m. | 1 p.m. | here |
World Cup in Lahti (same time zone as Estonia).
| date | race | time (AK) | time (EST) | results |
| Friday, March 21 | skate sprint qual | 6 a.m. | 10 a.m. | here |
| skate sprint heats | 8:30 a.m. | 12:30 p.m. | here | |
| Saturday, March 22 | team sprint qual | 1:40 a.m. | 5:40 a.m. | here |
| team sprint heats | 3:40 a.m. | 7:40 a.m. | here | |
| Sunday, March 23 | W 50km mass start classic | 11:30 p.m. Sat. | 3:30 a.m. | here |
| M 50km mass start classic | 3:45 a.m. | 7:45 a.m. | here |
Who will be racing for the U.S.?
In the Tallinn sprint: Gus Schumacher, JC Schoonmaker, Jack Young, Ben Ogden, and Kevin Bolger, for the men. Julia Kern, Alayna Sonnesyn, Kate Oldham, Lauren Jortberg, and Sammy Smith, for the women.
No, Diggins is not starting here. I assume she is ensconced in Lahti already, training a little and resting a lot. It’s been a long season for everyone, no less so for the athlete who has worn the yellow bib since early December, for 24 races and counting. (Spoiler alert: Diggins already wrapped up the overall title. She will have been in the yellow bib for the final 27 races of the 2024/2025 World Cup season. That is a lot!)
In the Lahti sprint: Potentially a few more names from this list, but in practice I really think it’s just going to be the folks listed above. Maybe Zanden McMullen or Rosie Brennan if they are still over there and feeling healthy.
In the Lahti 50km: A whole lot of names, in theory (see link above). In practice, again, don’t expect too many names on that starting line, is my prediction. It’s been a long season, and a lot of the American crew has looked pretty draggy, to my lay expert eyes, for the last several weeks. A 50km classic in warm snow is not something that a lot of folks are going to drop plane ticket money on.
Who’s going to win the globes?
Jessie Diggins has wrapped up the third overall crystal globe of her career, and second in a row, as noted above. You can find some context in the middle of this article on the names this places her alongside. It is a short list of very good skiers.
Diggins will presumptively also win the distance globe, also her third, assuming that she starts the 50km on Sunday and does not die. Jasmi Joensuu will almost certainly win the sprint globe, for the first time. Helen Hoffmann will almost certainly win the U23 crown.
On the men’s side, Klæbo does not quite have the overall crystal globe wrapped up, but he will imminently; it will be his fifth (!) overall title. Not bad for age 28. His lead in the sprint standings is quite a bit less, but, really, would you bet on Erik Valnes over Johannes Høsflot Klæbo at this point (no offense to Valnes), so pencil in the man’s seventh (!!) sprint globe as well.
Distance globe likely goes to Simen Hegstad Krüger, for a well-earned first time. U23 title to Edvin Anger, for the second year in a row. Dude is also going to finish second in the overall, btw. What were you doing at 22.
How can I watch the races?
I never actually wrote this one up as a standalone article this year, sorry, and this is the last week of the season so I guess that ship has sailed. Oops. TLDR, here are your viewing options if you are tuning in from the U.S.:
- This worked last year but there’s a catch this year: Last season you could download a VPN (Windscribe should give you enough free bandwidth each month to stream all races), set your location to Canada, and stream races for free on the FIS cross-country page (link). This does work again this year, but only live; replays are not available. If you share my time zone and sleeping habits, this may not be a great option for you.
- Paid and reliable: Pay Ski & Snowboard Live (link) $12 per month throughout the season if you would like to be assured of being able to watch the races, with good quality, and English audio commentary, and so on. Who will be commenting there? Ryan Sederquist has broken this down for you on his increasingly invaluable site, SederSkier (disclosure: Sederquist will sometimes be the commenter, which means that he is well qualified to speak to these logistics).
- New quantity: FIS TV, which you can find here. Again, the SederSkier article linked above has more thoughts on this.
- Free but take your chances: See what gets uploaded to YouTube after the fact. If you search for the race name and date, you can sometimes find a full broadcast online for a day or two after the race. Try also transliterating the venue name into the Cyrillic alphabet to loop in Russian users. Best to watch this with alacrity if you do find it; they tend to get taken down pretty quickly, because lawyers.
Enjoy the races, everyone. And, on behalf of the whole team, thanks for following along with us this season.
You’re reading this on Nordic Insights, one man’s labor of love dedicated to publicizing American skiing. We started with nothing and now we’re going to the Olympics. You can read more about our first three years here, and donate to the Olympics fund here. Thank you for consideration, and, especially, for reading.
