By Devin L. Ward
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We began this season’s shortened, all-Italian Tour de Ski (a piccolo Sci-ro d’Italia, if you will) with a skate sprint in Toblach earlier Sunday. Eager to put Davos behind him and remind us all that he’s the fastest thing on skis — December 13 in Switzerland was the first time in nearly a decade that the man had failed to reach the semis in a sprint — Johannes Høsflot Klæbo led all of his qual, quarter, semi, and final from start to finish.
In case that weren’t enough, Klæbo also won the “reaction time graphic,” a new innovation from FIS that measures athletes’ response to what has historically been called the starter’s pistol. How are you meant to beat him if he’s moving before you even realize the race has started? Perhaps by hoping that he eases up too much into the finish — Lars Heggen nearly closed the comical gap that Klaebo opened over the final hill, finishing second in a near +0.13 as Klæbo worked on his finish-line-mugging reaction time. Correlation fans will enjoy that Heggen had the second-fastest reaction time to start the final.
Despite fast racing from familiar French athletes including Lucas Chanavat and Jules Chappaz, as well as Swiss athletes Janik Riebli and Valerio Grond, the final podium today was fully Norwegian, with Oskar Opstad Vike in third. Heggen is just 20 years old; Vike is 21. Fortunately Klæbo was pretty easy to pick out of the bunch, wearing the gold overall Tour de Ski leader bib that carried over from the most recent Tour. He is also, at a wizened 29, the only man in today’s top four born in the twentieth century.
While Klæbo was reserved crossing the line, Heggen most definitely was not and was clearly thrilled. Vike was 0.80 seconds back in third. There is, admittedly, no individual skate sprint in the Olympics this year, but the team sprint will be in skate. While neither Heggen nor Vike are new to the scene, their youth, shorter palmarès, yet recent success will likely make an already challenging Olympic selection even more difficult for the Norwegians.
To the more local results, four of the six American men on the start list qualified: Gus Schumacher, Ben Ogden, Kevin Bolger, and Jack Young. JC Schoonmaker and Zak Ketterson both narrowly missed out on qualifying for the heats. Schoonmaker was 0.06 seconds out of 30th, finishing in 32nd. Ketterson was 0.32 seconds behind Schoonmaker, finishing the day in 36th.
When asked about both today and his overall Tour goals, Schoonmaker responded, “My goal for the tour is to race my best and stay healthy. I’m bummed to not qualify today but happy to be close and feeling good.”
Ketterson, meanwhile, told us, “My qualifying race today was actually quite good for me. Skate sprinting has historically been my weakest discipline, so to end up only 0.4 seconds from making the heats in such a deep field is actually really encouraging. I am super excited for some distance races coming up and just focusing on the next steps.”
In response to my question about sustaining performance through the Tour, the Team Birkie skier added, “Recovery is definitely just a matter of fueling and recovery. Main focus will be to consume enough carbs day to day, especially in the windows directly after the races.”
[Editor here: Devin, who grew up in Maine and now lives in London, has, accurately, blurbed the above as, “a very badass slo-mo of Gus in the qualifier.” My inveterate Alaskan self, meanwhile, says more, “Man, look at that Kikkan Randall free skate a decade later!” Both things can be true.]
Neither Ben Ogden (13th) nor Jack Young (19th) progressed out of Heat 3. Young had had a strong result in the Davos skate sprint, finishing fourth, and seemed maybe a bit disappointed with today’s result.
Young told Nordic Insights, “This was a little short of what I was hoping for today. [A] stronger qualifier would have meant a better lane assignment for the quarter final which is so important on this course, as it is really tight. However, I’m happy enough with how I skied and am now thinking ahead to how I can put myself in as good of a position as possible for stage 5: classic sprint.”
If you, like me, are perpetually on Strava, you might have noticed that Young posted a photo of a copy of Lord of the Rings with his race post. Unable to resist, I asked him to put together his ideal sprint final from himself and five characters from Lord of the Rings.
Here’s Young: “If we’re talking winnable, I’ll take the four hobbits that are part of the fellowship [Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took, and Meriadoc Brandybuck] and Gimli the dwarf. However, this may prove tough because Gimli claims to be (at least in the movie—I haven’t gotten to this part in the book) a better sprinter than anything else.”
While I don’t disagree with this take, there’s a conversation to be had here about power-to-weight ratio and aerodynamic potential in hobbits that Young might be overlooking. Regardless, it’s a great book choice and I won’t spoil the ending for him.
Kevin Bolger narrowly missed out on a semifinal spot from Heat 4, finishing 15th and continuing a streak of great results out of a strong Period 1.
Bolger told Nordic Insights he was “coming off of period 1 with a lot of motivation — just missing out on a few opportunities hurt — but I knew the shape was good — so packing the bag and heading to Altitude seemed like a good plan, mostly Maja’s — and I was glad to tag along — since I’ve generally responded well to altitude. And once we got there, setting up a good plan with my coach Einar Moxnes — and just let the altitude do the work. [… R]esults like today don’t come from sitting on your butt and doing nothing — so super motivation knowing that coming off a big period 1 with the load of racing and good training over Christmas break helped. So moving into the next stage, I’m happy with where the shape is. Also, just having monster skis today helped a ton!”
Gus Schumacher was the only American man to make a semifinal, progressing from Heat 5 with Benjamin Moser (Austria) and ending up in 11th overall to lead the U.S. today.
Heat 5 featured what may be the best fall of the day. Noe Naeff (Switzerland) tripped on himself during the crux of the race as he, James Clugnet (Great Britain), and Schumacher launched themselves over and down the final hill in pursuit of Moser and a qualification spot. What was shaping up to be a sprint to the line between Naeff, Clugnet, and Schumacher ended early in a faceplant, a skillful but time-consuming save, and a direct route to the semifinal for those three, respectively.
Naeff’s sustained faceplant would surely have resulted in major Index points, if only it were on the other side of the finish line. Hopefully he is uninjured and finds his way to his first World Cup semifinal soon, and — more importantly — to Diggins Collapse Index points before that.
put it in the Louvre (click on any photo to enlarge):
We stay in Toblach tomorrow for the second stage of the Tour de Ski, with an interval-start 10-kilometer classic race starting at 11:45 CET (5:45 a.m. Central, 2:45 a.m. Alaska). All six American men from today are on the start list, slash still in the Tour: Zak Ketterson, JC Schoonmaker, Kevin Bolger, Ben Ogden, Gus Schumacher, and Jack Young. Schumacher is highest-placed in the Tour standings, tenth overall through one stage.
Results: skate sprint | Tour standings
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