Just a quick note (no graphs) with some historical perspective on the Swedish men’s performance in yesterday’s sprint race.
It was somewhat of a surprise seeing Marcus Hellner win, and indeed the Swedes put three (Hellner, Jönsson and Modin) all in the top 5. As far as I can tell, the last time the Swedish men had three in the top 5 in a WSC race was back in Val di Fiemme at the 50k freestyle. (Hey Americans! Carl Swenson was 5th that day. Remember that?)
In fact, since the 1991-1992 season, those are the only two instances of the Swedish men putting three skiers in the top 5 at World Champs that I can see. On four occasions the Swedish men have actually put four racers in the top 5, each time in a WC freestyle sprint race. And in addition to the two WSC races, the Swedish men appear to have managed three people in the top 5 on 9 other occasions (WCs and one TdS race); those are a mix of sprint and distance races.
Anyway, I thought that little factoid was interesting.
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