Havard Bjerkeli was very impressive while winning the World Cup sprint classic in Drammen. He is now considering focusing entirely on the sprint events
” I tried to race regular races in addition to sprints before Christmas. That didn’t pan out well, and I have for that reason done mostly sprint races after Christmas,” explains the sprint winner from Drammen.
“The recipe after Christmas has been to prioritize important races and skip certain other races, even when I have wanted to participate in more races.”
Bjerkeli decided that it was more important to do well in the big races rather than skiing races just to race. He is now considering focusing entirely on the sprint for next season.
” I believe that the sprint will develop even more than it has done up to this point. You might have to focusing and train entirely toward the sprint if you want to succeed in next years World Championship and the following years Olympics in Italy. This goes for both strength training and certain types of interval training.”
He will soon decide if he is going to be a pure sprinter
“I’m going to take a hard look at this at the end of the season. We’ll see. I’m afraid that I have to specialize to be competitive.”
Support from Aune
He is supported by the sprint coach Ulf Morten Aune.
“I believe that specializing in necessary. He can become an even better sprinter by specializing,” said Aune.
He pointed to weight and strength training as one of those areas that can be directed more toward the sprint.
Aune thinks that specializing should be considered by more members of today’s Norwegian sprint National team that are now training for both sprint and all-around events.
It has been a common belief recently that FIS wants to move toward even shorter distances for the sprinters, but (FIS) Race Director Jurg Capol expressed today that they are not going to change the race length much.
Aune and the Norwegian skiers liked that comment.
Bjerkeli is hungry for more sprint success.
“It was incredible to win today,” said Bjerkeli.
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We have to wait to see what he decides to do.
