Olympic Sprint Champion: “It’s Getting Tougher And Tougher”

Hetland is, in other words, still a good all-rounder. There might be fewer of them in the future. Hetland is convinced that you have to specialize if the development of the sprint races continues in the same direction as now.

“The sprint races are getting harder and harder and you have to specialize if you are going to have a chance to be at the top, especially if  the development  continues toward a race length of 1000 meter,” says Hetland.

Frode Estil suggested earlier this season that cross country skiing should be divided into two separate events, sprint and traditional long distances. Hetland disagrees.

“Cross Country skiing is a relatively small sport World wide. It’s too small to be divided into two (smaller) sports,” says Hetland.

The development of shorter sprint races will divide cross country skiers into two different groups of ski racers – specialized sprinters and traditional racers. Hetland believes that someone needs to step in and stop this in order to avoid this split in a small sport. He feels that the sprint needs to be a little more like traditional length racing.

“They need to consider making the sprint a little longer. Another alternative is to have a different elimination method instead of the prolog [preliminary qualifying round]. The FIS point list could be used and the number one ranked skier could ski off against the lowest ranked and the second best skies against the second lowest ranked and so on. After several rounds of this you are down to 16 skiers that could race each other in traditional heats of four skiers as we have today. This method would add a few races and challenge the endurance even more, says Hetland.