WC in Borlaenge, SWE

Tuesday was a good day in Borlaenge, SWE at the XC World Cup
for the Canadian Team. A bronze for the Sara Renner and a bronze
for Devon Kershaw! This is the first WC medal for Canada's men since
Pierre Harvey in the late '80's. Kershaw had shown his potential in
thj Olympics with the relay where he had not only kept up to the
lead pack, but lead it for much of his leg. This medal solidifies this.
Kershaw just beat out Bjoern Lind of Sweden for the bronze.

These are very cool results :-)

US skier Kikkan Randall also had a very good day finishing 5th.
The Swedes took the men's top two spots (Fredriksson and Larsson).
Italy (Arianna Follis) and Norway (Marit Bjoergen) were the top 2
Women.

Rodney

two words on todays WC race: Petter Northug!

http://www.vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=148003

wrote:
two words on todays WC race: Petter Northug!

http://www.vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=148003

I know!

Yesterday he skied around everyone in his heat during the sprints, won
that but got beaten in the next round due to burning too much energy.

Today in the 10+10 he was quite simply amazing, among other things he
set a record as the youngest guy to ever win a world cup event.

Afterwards he told about being very tired on the second to the last lap,
feeling the sprint effort, but then on the final stretch he simply blew
away the field.

Angerer, Teichmann, Gjerdalen and Estil followed.

Petter Northug trains with Frode Estil these days, Frode said that even
though he has a pretty good final sprint, he has never been able to
match Petter.

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

I didnt watch the race, but it once again to be a 19K march to a
sprint.

This "double pursuit" format has got to go, the classic portion is
meaningless..

The thread on mass sprints has been beaten to death here, so I wont
review.

However, as far as the classic part of the "pursuit" goes, the
incentive on classic has been killed. You only have to be a decent
classic skier to hang on, and be a great skater to win. If anything,
the old format was more of an incentive to work on your classic than it
is now.

As far as the triathlon analogy goes,
I wouldnt compare the classic leg of the pursuit to the swim portion of
the tri. the swim is alot smaller in % time total. and I havent kept up
much with triathlon drafting rules these days, but I do remember that
you could win on the basis of a really good bike ride, and survive the
run

Of course, it's not just nordic skiing where
we're beating the big guys these days.
(Couldn't resist, sorry!)

Best, Peter


U.S. Falls in Shocker -

http://letters.washingtonpost.com/W2...F747332E325F90

Americans Are In Dire Straits : Canada 8, United States 6
(The Washington Post)

Okay, before someone else says it, the USians are in the
final 8, and the Canadians ain't. It was fun while it lasted.
Now back to skiing--sorry!

Best, Peter