World Championships Postlogue

The snow was a huge factor. Namely, massive new falling, heavy wet
snow during racing.

From the USA perspective, we had (from memory without cross checking,
forgive errors):

Newell in 5th, individual sprint, nice.

Kris Freeman 19th in pursuit, after a crash where he hurt his
shoulder.

Kris Freeman in 12th in 50k CL with that shoulder, on soft conditions
which do not suit him, but he worked on that, and it showed. Nice
Worlds results for Kris, noting that with some racing luck going with
him instead of against him, he may have had far better results, but
this is some really solid stuff considering the important details.
Bottom line results: Two Top 20's at Worlds.

Nordic combined Billy Demong is Silver medalist ! Huge & exciting !

Norway: puts together a Gold-Silver in 50k CL with Estil in Silver,
Hjelmeset in Gold. Pretty cool, snatching Medals from the Germans who
have been so tough to beat in mass start races.

Norway: Junior Sensation in Silver in Womens 30k CL mass start.
Fantastic, from last at the start due to a fall. What is up with the
Norwegian youngsters?!

Norway: Northug first falls on his face in the pursuit, getting
worldwide judgement thrown at him for racing immaturity, then
incredible comeback in the anchor leg of the relay. Words fail to
decribe the move he put on. It was the same move he put on in the
pursuit, only this time it he stood up, and all doubters are silenced,
and turned into adoring fans of the kid. There is no doubt that if he
had not tripped himself in the pursuit, gold medal there as well.

Good worlds. I may have glossed over some other important details.
What did I miss?

"delltodd" wrote:

Good worlds. I may have glossed over some other important details.
What did I miss?

The women's performances, especially distance. Rumor has it that
the best relative distance time performance came with skis borrowed from
elsewhere.

The men's distance performances other than Kris Freeman (considering
that he was sick, Freeman did quite well in the 50k, giving support to
his decison to train with his own coach away from the USST center).

rm

"delltodd" skrev i melding
oups.com...


Norway: Junior Sensation in Silver in Womens 30k CL mass start.
Fantastic, from last at the start due to a fall. What is up with the
Norwegian youngsters?!

It was Junior Bronze; Steira won the silver.

--
Terje Henriksen
Kirkenes
69:41:41N 30:00:28E

schreef in bericht
...
"delltodd" wrote:
The women's performances, especially distance. Rumor has it that
the best relative distance time performance came with skis borrowed from
elsewhere.
Please elaborate on that?

Thanks!

I agree; this was a great worlds. I thought it was, overall, more
interesting and fun to follow than the Torino Olympics.

I really enjoyed the 30km and 50km races, both of which - but
especially the men's - went a long way to disproving the "mass starts
are terrible" argument. The pursuits did, too. It was great to see
packs get winnowed down to a few leaders who vie for the podium. Four
is the perfect number of racers on the finishing straightaway, because
then there's a German to be disappointed (Stehle, Angerer).

I also reveled in Virpi Kuitunen's dominance. Well, kind of dominance,
since she skipped races. She won short, she won long; she won on
teams, she won alone; she won in freestyle, she won in classic. Here's
hoping that she wraps up the World Cup titles, too - and doesn't turn
out to be dirty.

I was a bit disappointed that the U.S. didn't medal in XC, and that
Canada didn't, either. But heck, what's two more years to wait? I was
also disappointed to read that turnout was bad. I hope that doesn't
mean the FIS will be reluctant to stage worlds outside Europe, since
it sounds like Canmore would be a superlative venue. I was not
disappointed to see that there were no doping violations - until
Sunday, when the young Russian speedster Shiriaev was dinged for EPO.

One thing that perplexed me, contrasting the men's 50km at Sapporo to
the 50km at Torino, was the perception (perhaps incorrect) that there
is a smaller pool of racers who are capable of winning a long
classical races. The Torino marathon had a massive sprint finish, the
Sapporo marathon (like its precedent at Oberstdorf) the opposite . If
this is a real phenomenon, I wonder about the explanation -
overemphasis on skating in training? chance (Veerpalu out, for
instance)? less interest in racing classic?

tassava wrote:
One thing that perplexed me, contrasting the men's 50km at Sapporo to
the 50km at Torino, was the perception (perhaps incorrect) that there
is a smaller pool of racers who are capable of winning a long
classical races. The Torino marathon had a massive sprint finish, the
Sapporo marathon (like its precedent at Oberstdorf) the opposite . If
this is a real phenomenon, I wonder about the explanation -
overemphasis on skating in training? chance (Veerpalu out, for
instance)? less interest in racing classic?

Drafting is _much_ easier in skating!

Terje

--
-
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

"Terje Mathisen" schreef in bericht
...

Drafting is _much_ easier in skating!
Could you please elaobrate on that?
Is it the slightly higher speeds (greater gains), shorter skis (getting
closer behind), or something else?

On Mar 6, 3:02 pm, "Jan Gerrit Klok"
wrote:
"Terje Mathisen" schreef in ...

Drafting is _much_ easier in skating!

Could you please elaobrate on that?
Is it the slightly higher speeds (greater gains), shorter skis (getting
closer behind), or something else?

Skate speed is a little higher creating a little larger draft

The skis can be more overlapped in skating allowing the skier behind
to be closer than in classic where you just line up the tips and
tails; and those tails come flying up & back at you in classic
striding & Kick DP which tends to make you think harder about just how
close you'd like to be to the skier ahead because it can upset both
skiers on contact.

In classic when you have DP terrain, then you have drafting but in
striding generally drafting is not much of a factor. When you are
skating even V1 up a hill for some reason you can still pull a draft
off the skier ahead to some degree.