Holmenkollen WC

Terje or anyone who understood the announcers, what was behind behind
the DNS's in the women's 30K - Majdic, Jacobsen, Kowalczyk? From the
splits, the latter was pretty running well at 16k, and Jacobsen was
interviewed a couple of times on TV and didn't look sick.

rm

wrote:
Terje or anyone who understood the announcers, what was behind behind
the DNS's in the women's 30K - Majdic, Jacobsen, Kowalczyk? From the
splits, the latter was pretty running well at 16k, and Jacobsen was
interviewed a couple of times on TV and didn't look sick.

I'm in the mountains this weekend, but I tried to listen to NRK radio,
and it seemed like Astrid really wanted to try even though she had been
slightly ill.

Holmenkollen is her home ground after all, Heming/Njård is the ski club
located just underneath the race arena.

Just a few km after the start she realized that she had to withdraw,
trying to get well before the last races and the 200 points in the finals.

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

Kowalczyk is very tired, after Tour de Ski she was sick for a 3 weeks.
Now she is waiting for the end of this season, in interview which I
read two days ago, she said that she doesn't counts for great results
in Oslo and Bormio.

Soedergren has always said that a long distance individual start skate
race is to his advantage and he's sure showing it today. It's sort of
surprising, to me at least, how big and quickly the gaps develop within
the top 10 or so. Maybe it has to do with the conditions, low 40Fs
(6C), with drizzle and dense fog.


wrote:

Terje or anyone who understood the announcers, what was behind behind
the DNS's in the women's 30K - Majdic, Jacobsen, Kowalczyk? From the
splits, the latter was pretty running well at 16k, and Jacobsen was
interviewed a couple of times on TV and didn't look sick.

rm

wrote:
Soedergren has always said that a long distance individual start skate
race is to his advantage and he's sure showing it today. It's sort of
surprising, to me at least, how big and quickly the gaps develop within
the top 10 or so. Maybe it has to do with the conditions, low 40Fs
(6C), with drizzle and dense fog.

We've just listened to Anders Södergren being interviewed after winning
by 2.5 minutes, in front of Lucas Bauer, and with Remy Fischer from
Switzerland who was the first ever from his country to end up on the podium.

Anders and Thomas (the expert commentator today) have been training
together the last year, and Thomas pointed out Anders as his favourite
even before the start.

"Anders trains longer & harder than pretty much anyone else, even when I
tried to send him out for a 60-75 min high intensity pass, he'd sneak
back out to make it at least 2.5 hours."

Anyway, it seems pretty certain that Thomas 5th place in Vasa last week
was due to all the LSD training he's been doing with Anders!

Terje


wrote:

Terje or anyone who understood the announcers, what was behind behind
the DNS's in the women's 30K - Majdic, Jacobsen, Kowalczyk? From the
splits, the latter was pretty running well at 16k, and Jacobsen was
interviewed a couple of times on TV and didn't look sick.

rm


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

It was nice to see how great was Soedergren today. Other skiers hadn't
any chance. I think that for him it's bad that in World Championships
and Olympic Games 50 km is as mass start race, in my opinion in long
distance races he is better when every skier starts 30 seconds after
another, just like in Oslo.
Look that skiers from Sweden always were great in 50 km race - many of
them won gold medals: Jernberg many times in 50s and beggining of 60s
(I don't remember years well), Lundbaeck 1978, Wassberg 1982,1984,
Svan 1985,1988,1989, Mogren 1991,1993 and probably also other skiers
in earlier years. Now Soedergren is great, he won Holmenkollen also
two years ago. It's my favourite race, classical long distance, really
fantastic crowd, everything is great. I'm also happy that Skjeldal
retired with good result, he was 15th today, before many young good
skiers.

Jacobsen had cramps in her legs and had to stop. I'm not sure if that
was because she fell twice during the race.



On 2008-03-08 12:17:04 +0100, said:

Terje or anyone who understood the announcers, what was behind behind
the DNS's in the women's 30K - Majdic, Jacobsen, Kowalczyk? From the
splits, the latter was pretty running well at 16k, and Jacobsen was
interviewed a couple of times on TV and didn't look sick.

rm

On 8 maalis, 16:25, Terje Mathisen
wrote:

We've just listened to Anders Södergren being interviewed after winning
by 2.5 minutes, in front of Lucas Bauer, and with Remy Fischer from
Switzerland who was the first ever from his country to end up on the podium.

It was Remo's first-ever - but you've obviously forgotten the tie
between Vittoz and Toni Livers in the 15K in Davos last year. (My
memory doesn't go much further than that, but I'd bet that would sum
up the Swiss podium positions in World Cup history.)


Anders and Thomas (the expert commentator today) have been training
together the last year, and Thomas pointed out Anders as his favourite
even before the start.

It would've been easy money (if I'd gone to Ladbrokes) but in any case
it was a sentimental pleasu Södergren gets so much sXXt thrown at
him for being such a lousy race tactician and failing to adjust his
technique to get any kind of decent finishing kick at all that he
truly deserves to win a classic every now and then to show his class.

BTW if only there were a 50K at Lahti also, as up to the 60-70s...

BTW2 the men's race had slightly less suspense than the
ladies' (because the plot was given away early, as far as the winner
was concerned), but both races proved that a long event with interval
starts doesn't have to be boring!

BTW3 long events can also mean small gaps: Johaug missed the podium by
1.6 seconds, Vittoz by 0.2.



Anders

It was Remo's first-ever - but you've obviously forgotten the tie
between Vittoz and Toni Livers in the 15K in Davos last year. (My
memory doesn't go much further than that, but I'd bet that would sum
up the Swiss podium positions in World Cup history.)

Yes, Andy Gruenenfelder, good skier in late 80's, was second and
third. Third place was in Calgary, during olympic games, but it was in
times when olympic games races were also added to World Cup standings.

BTW2 the men's race had slightly less suspense than the
ladies' (because the plot was given away early, as far as the winner
was concerned), but both races proved that a long event with interval
starts doesn't have to be boring!

BTW3 long events can also mean small gaps: Johaug missed the podium by
1.6 seconds, Vittoz by 0.2.

In my opinion races like this are better and more interesting than
mass starts In mass starts 50k the big group is fighting together
and first 30-40k of race aren't really exciting. Yes, last kilometres
are great, many skiers tries to escape, some others aren't so fast,
but like in Torino 2006 usually finish from group decided about
everything.
In Oslo every moment was great, in women race was a time when
Confortola was a leader, later Johaug was first, but Shevchenko was
stronger and in last km she was the best and she won. For me it's
better race than mass start.

On 10 maalis, 11:39, Daniel wrote:

It was Remo's first-ever - but you've obviously forgotten the tie
between Vittoz and Toni Livers in the 15K in Davos last year. (My
memory doesn't go much further than that, but I'd bet that would sum
up the Swiss podium positions in World Cup history.)

Yes, Andy Gruenenfelder, good skier in late 80's, was second and
third. Third place was in Calgary, during olympic games, but it was in
times when olympic games races were also added to World Cup standings.

Of course: the 50K specialist! And now that I've got my memory
working, there was another Swiss guy around in that period...Guichem
Guidon - and he had two podium finishes.

And when I let my memory jog a bit longer still...how could I forget
Reto Burgermeister! (Actually, i didn't - I just forgot that he, too,
had two podium finishes...in the early years of this millennium...)


Anders