Bjørgen is having a pretty good end-of-season, and so is Norway

Falun 5+5 today was a perfect replay of the 30K in Kollen, with the same
three Norwegian ladies, in the same order, on the podium.

Marit has a 50 second lead before the last event of the year tomorrow,
while Justyna seemed quite tired after a strong start, taking the first
15 bonus seconds.

The only downside was the total disaster for the team on yesterday's
prolog: The waxing team discovered halfway into the race that one of the
components they had used (a yellowish liquid I've never seen before,
possibly a klister binder) had gone bad (or maybe a manufacturing
error?), which meant that the klister didn't stay put at all:

After a few K it became obvious that the klister was migrating along the
sole, going way into the glider sone and icing up as well. :-(

At this point in time there was just 10 minutes to the last starts, so
the waxers ran over, grabbed Marit's skis and rewaxed them (since they
were already marked they couldn't just replace them), bringing them back
just in time for her start slot.

Marit admitted after the race that she was quite worried when all this
took place. :-)

Terje
--
- Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

Both of the prologue winners had a hard time. I wonder if Kowalczyk
will change her approach to racing next year, since I think she only
missed two races. She's also reportedly put in a whole lot of hours
the past two off seasons, and I wonder how long she can mentally keep
that up.

Gene


On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 14:04:18 +0100
Terje Mathisen "terje.mathisen at tmsw.no" wrote:

Falun 5+5 today was a perfect replay of the 30K in Kollen, with the
same three Norwegian ladies, in the same order, on the podium.

Marit has a 50 second lead before the last event of the year
tomorrow, while Justyna seemed quite tired after a strong start,
taking the first 15 bonus seconds.

The only downside was the total disaster for the team on yesterday's
prolog: The waxing team discovered halfway into the race that one of
the components they had used (a yellowish liquid I've never seen
before, possibly a klister binder) had gone bad (or maybe a
manufacturing error?), which meant that the klister didn't stay put
at all:

After a few K it became obvious that the klister was migrating along
the sole, going way into the glider sone and icing up as well. :-(

At this point in time there was just 10 minutes to the last starts,
so the waxers ran over, grabbed Marit's skis and rewaxed them (since
they were already marked they couldn't just replace them), bringing
them back just in time for her start slot.

Marit admitted after the race that she was quite worried when all
this took place. :-)

Terje
--
- Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

Eurosport announcers say Kowalczyk came back from Vancouver with a cold
and is still "croaking" during press interviews.

Gene