A measly three World Cup sprint races has been conducted so far this season including the record early October sprint in Düsseldorf, Germany. Only two individual sprint competitions after that makes it hard for the Worlds best sprinters to showcase their skills and stay sharp and focused. More than sixty percent of the season is now happening in a three week timeframe.
Norwegian sprinter Havard Bjerkeli has these comments:
“The number of total competitions is fine, but I don’t like the distribution of them. The races should have been spread out more. It’s nothing we can do about it but we have got signals indicating that it will improve next seasonâ€
The Norwegian men’s team has obviously been aware of the schedule and trained accordingly. This is when they want to get in peak shape. They are hoping to be doing better now than how they did early in the season.
Fighting for the top spot in the overall World Cup is still the goal.
Sweden’s Thobias Frederiksson and Peter Larsson will make that difficult. Five different Norwegian men have made it to the sprint final so far this season. They are Svartedal, Dahl, Ronning, Hetland and Bjerkeli.
The top US sprinters are making their World Cup debut in Stockholm on Wednesday.
Canadian’s Beckie Scott, Sarah Renner and other members of Cross Country Canada is also gearing up for skiing fast around the Kings Castle inStockholm, Sweden.
Check in for results on Wednesday
The remaining sprint World Cup races:
February 19 classic – Stockholm, Sweden
February 24 skating — Trondheim, Norway
February, 26 classic — Drammen, Norway
March, 5 skate — Lathis, Finland
March 10 skate – Pragelato