By Gavin Kentch
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Kris Freeman said a few years ago, in what I think was a comment read on the Devon Kershaw Show but don’t quote me on that, that Klæbo skis with “annoyingly perfect” technique. It, truly, was not an insult; that is just how the man moves across snow.
Today, Johannes Høsflot Klæbo’s annoyingly perfect technique was married to annoyingly perfect pacing, yielding a victory in Thursday’s stage four of the Tour de Ski, a 20-kilometer classic pursuit, that can only be described as metronomic (again, this is not an insult, I promise).
Athletes covered five laps of a 4km course today in and around Nordic Arena Toblach–Dobbiaco. Klæbo’s lap times were, in order, 9:12, 9:11, 9:12, 9:09, and 9:08; someone forgot to tell him that this was not an interval-start contest. He started the day with a lead of 45 seconds in the pursuit-start format, and crossed the line with a lead of 51 seconds. His lead in the overall Tour de Ski standings increased by the same six seconds. Dude was just plain consistent out there.
The real action today was in the chase pack, so let’s jump to that. Lars Heggen went out on course 45 seconds after Klæbo, reflecting his position in the overall tour standings through the first three stages. Harald Østberg Amundsen went next, 57 seconds back. Benjamin Moser, 59 seconds. Mattis Stenshagen, 1:01. Our hero, Gus Schumacher, 1:09. Emil Iversen, 1:10. Federico Pellegrino, 1:16. Edvin Anger, 1:22. That’s a lot of talent pushing through the start wands within a 37-second window.
By five kilometers in, a fourth of the way through the race, things had started to coalesce in the battle for second. Klæbo had stretched his lead, adding another 12 seconds, so people on the ground could probably sense that he wasn’t coming back. Behind him, places two through seven skied within five seconds of each other, with Schumacher in sixth.
By twelve kilometers, through lap three of five, it was largely more of the same. The chase group was eight athletes now, Anger and Pellegrino having made up the few remaining seconds to bridge the final gap and join the fun.
By 16km, the end of lap four, Stenshagen had decided to set out on his own. The rest of the chase pack — Iversen, Anger, Schumacher, Pellegrino, Moser, Amundsen, and Heggen — remained within five seconds of each other. One of them was likely going to finish third, and another ninth. The margins are small at this level, for everyone not named “Klæbo” or “Diggins.”
Four kilometers later, your margins looked like this (see slide two above for finish video): Klæbo, first at the finish, by 51.1 seconds, as already noted. Stenshagen’s lap-four flyer held, affording him breathing room on his way to second overall. Behind him, Anger (DOB 2002) narrowly outlunged Pellegrino (DOB 1990) for third; both men received a time of 59.8 seconds back.
Within the next second came Iversen in fifth, Schumacher in sixth, Heggen in seventh, and Moser in eighth. Amundsen was another two-plus seconds back for ninth. #margins
Iivo Niskanen led in his chase group for tenth on the day, the classic maestro looking disturbingly mortal.
“I definitely look at the start list and think about who’s close in front and behind,” Schumacher told Nordic Insights when asked about his strategy on the day.
That said, he added, “It always looks a little different when you’re actually out there, and Emil [Iversen] also came up to me at the start saying he’d take over the lead to catch the guys in front of us after 500m. Didn’t really happen but we caught them anyway.”
Schumacher “really liked” how he skied, he told me. “Stayed in it when the pace got hot and kept my technique together. It wasn’t the very hardest day which was nice, but it didn’t have to be insanely special, I just wanted to stay in there, and thankfully we opened some time on the group behind us too.”
Ben Ogden and Zak Ketterson were the next American men across the line today, in 29th and 42nd, respectively. I didn’t catch up with Ogden, but I have so many #insights for you from the rest of the guys, so, on to Ketterson.
I told Ketterson that his Tour de Ski this year looked, from the outside, a little snakebitten, particularly after such a scintillating start to Period 1 racing, and asked him how he was handling it.
“It’s been really tough,” the Team Birkie skier candidly said, “especially because my shape feels just as good as in Period 1. The main thing that tomahawked this tour was my crash on stage two where I lost several minutes in that 10km after I stood up. From there, the overall was somewhat doomed, and in formats like pursuit it becomes pretty tough to do much of anything either. But my mindset has been to just take it one day at a time, and do my best. The classic sprint is of course a big priority too that has kept me going.”
As for today’s ski, Ketterson was pleased with his performance, particularly given the constraints placed on it from the outset. “I think for starting in bib 70, I’m pretty happy to have moved up so much,” he wrote. “It was really chaotic with the wave start having 60 guys, and starting towards the back of that group. To move up 30 spots or so was fun.”
I believe that Ketterson moved up the greatest number of spots today in the men’s field. This is rather a dubious honor — it likely presupposes a strong skier starting farther back in the field than their actual level — but it is also better than falling back 30 spots, so chapeau to Zak in that context.
Next up for the Americans today was fellow Team Birkie skier Kevin Bolger, the recent recipient of some unexpected financial largesse from American finance mogul Greg Goldfarb that should soften the pain of traveling the circuit as a non–national team athlete.
Bolger started as the third bib in the wave start of several dozen athletes, but wrote that he nonetheless had “plenty of space out there,” enabling a low-stress day.
At least to start with. “I like these kinda starts,” Bolger wrote; “I tend to be pretty patient and work my way up last few laps. Which I was really doing today — until at the end of lap 3 I broke a ski and lost at least 1 min — causing me to really go backwards and loose a good group of skiers.”
You can see the ski above. The skis aren’t supposed to do that tag on this website unfortunately brings up more articles than you may think it would.
I had also asked Bolger, nicely, in so many words, if he felt old by now (he is all of 32 lol), demurely phrasing it rather along the lines of, “Do you do anything differently at this point in your career compared to earlier?”
Bolger, unoffended, immediately sniffed out where the question was going: “Haha no I feel old,” he replied. “And think sometimes back to when I was younger that I was never going to be skiing when I was 32 but here I am — and still delivering some great results.” Bolger called it “motivating for sure — despite the age.”
Bolger was followed on the results sheet by JC Schoonmaker, who finished in 56th.
“In a pursuit is probably when I look at the start list the most beforehand to try and make a plan and strategy for the race,” the APU sprinter said in response to my question about pre-race strategy.
“It’s nice to see where some guys are and see who might be coming up from behind you and skiing well. Today I was hoping to catch a ride with [Joni] Maki and [Johan] Ekberg for a bit because I know they’re strong classic skiers but just couldn’t hang on much. The pace of pursuits are always really hot right out the the start and I’m still working on figuring out World Cup 20ks.”
Last in the results for the Americans, but first in the heart of Tolkien fans everywhere, was Jack Young, who I feel like has been skiing at this level for several years now but somehow graduated from Colby just this past spring (both things can be true).
I asked Young three questions, all of which he graciously answered. First I was curious about the sprinter’s views on race length… he had said of stage two that a 10km classic was “about 6km too long,” and of stage three that he liked the 5km, because “the shorter the better!” So what on earth was his take on a 20km?
“20k is wayyy too long!” came the honest answer. “Unless I have a nice group to ski with at or a bit faster that threshold.”
Relatedly, it is no secret that Saturday’s preview of the Olympic classic sprint course is the main draw for the pure sprinters still remaining in the Tour de Ski; cf. Skistad walking around the course today en route to an unhurried DFL in the women’s race. So I asked whether Young was, like, RACING racing out there today, or if he had some incentive to keep a bit in reserve.
“The classic sprint coming up definitely encouraged me to hang back a bit,” was his take. “I was still pushing a bit, but I wasn’t ever in too much pain out there. Just a nice even, semi-fast effort.”
And finally, the single most important part of this article, to what Lord of the Rings scene would Young liken today’s race?
“I would liken my race to the four hobbits’ trek from the shire to Bree,” Young reasoned.
“My group was on its merry way, but we were also slightly nervous about the danger of being chased by the leaders lapping us (the Nazgûl or specifically, the witch king Klaebo).”
Scene.
Athletes drove two-ish hours from Toblach to Val di Fiemme following today’s race. Tomorrow is an off day; Saturday afternoon is a classic sprint on the Olympic course; Saturday evening probably half the remaining field drops out of the tour. Sunday is the final climb.
Klæbo continues to lead the 20th edition of the Tour de Ski, by 51 seconds over Stenshagen. All of Schumacher, Iversen, Anger, and Pellegrino are tied for third, one minute back. Heggen and Moser sit one second behind that bunch, with Amundsen two seconds further in arrears. TLDR, Schumacher is third, but is also just three seconds above ninth. See supra re: tight margins.
Results: stage four | Tour de Ski overall
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