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TRONDHEIM — It’s back.
It’s been 14 years since Norway hosted a cross-country skiing World Championships, with the 2011 event going off along Oslo trails mobbed with Scandinavian fans.
The championships return to the skiing-mad nation again Thursday, with the first of six medal races, a freestyle sprint, set for the Granåsen venue in the central Norwegian city of Trondheim.
Organizers say they’ve already sold more than 200,000 tickets, with avid fans scouting out spots alongside the trails where they plan to pitch tents and camp to watch races over multiple days.
Trondheim’s top municipal official follows the sport closely enough that he’s rooting not just for the home team — but for a particular American star, too.
“I will be a smiling mayor if Jessie Diggins does well,” Kent Ranum, Trondheim’s mayor, said in an interview Wednesday.
If Oslo is Norway’s urban center of cross-country skiing, Trondheim, and the surrounding Trøndelag region, is the sport’s heart.
Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, the Norwegian superstar, is from here, and “we have raised most of the medalists throughout all the years,” said Ranum — including 15-time Olympic medalist Marit Bjørgen, who now coaches the Norwegian women’s team.
Ranum also describes Trondheim’s residents as “world-class hosts,” and concerts and other events accompanying the championships are planned at venues across the city.
“It’s looking like it’s going to be a huge party for the next 10 days,” said Tony Cyr, a Canadian athlete, after his workout at Grånasen on Wednesday. “You walk around town and everything’s about skiing.”
Ben Ogden, a young American star, added: “The entire town, you can feel, is prepping for something.”
At Grånasen, athletes were greeted Wednesday by an enormous grandstand looming multiple stories above the stadium. The stands were empty — but they’re expected to fill up for Thursday morning’s sprint.
Dozens of nations trained at the venue Wednesday, after finishing tuneup camps at resorts and cabins scattered across Europe. The atmosphere was semi-organized chaos, as athletes, coaches and ski technicians tested out the tight 1.4-kilometer sprint course.
“This level of chaos — this just screams championship,” said Ogden. “And not only championship, but a championship that everybody is getting fired up for.”
Ogden — who, in spite of recent World Cup podium finishes, is still not a household name across America — got his own dose of Norwegian ski fervor when he went to a Trondheim camera shop this week to buy some equipment for his video blog.
The man at the counter, Ogden said, asked what the gear was for.
“I was like, ‘Oh, I have a YouTube channel,’” Ogden said. “He’s like, ‘Oh, are you Ben?’ I was like, ‘This is so cool.’”
Mayhem could be on tap in Thursday’s sprint
Thursday’s opening medal event takes place on a compact course that’s nearly all viewable from the Grånasen stadium — essentially, a long climb followed by a long downhill into a tight, bending curve, back up the hill, then back down to the stadium, with a sweeping, 180-degree righthand turn before the finishing stretch.
That final corner could end up being a defining feature, as it claimed numerous athletes in slips, skids and falls during Wednesday’s training session. American sprinters Ogden, J.C. Schoonmaker and Kevin Bolger tangled in a three-way crash that broke one of Bolger’s skis.
“We were doing a group speed and getting a little aggro,” Ogden said afterward. “But it’s a good way to learn what not to do for tomorrow.”
Trondheim’s above-freezing temperatures — forecast to continue for at least the next few days, with potential for rain and snow mixed in — also contributed, producing conditions that were simultaneously sloppy and slick.
Ogden said that the final corner will be a spot to watch.
But he also said the course’s climbs are “really long,” giving at least a chance for some athletes to break away.
“I don’t know what you’ll see tomorrow. I think some of it will depend on how firm it is,” he said. “If it’s slushy, like today, it’ll be so costly to try to make a gap on the hill that I don’t think you’ll see a lot of people doing it.”
Another U.S. athlete, Rosie Brennan, described the sprint’s two corners as “very spicy.” But, like Ogden, she also said “there’s a lot to the course.”
Klæbo, the local, has won the last three World Championships sprints — in 2019, 2021, and 2023 — and has not lost a sprint on the World Cup in more than a year.
He’s the favorite in Thursday’s men’s race, especially since he’s known for his skill in navigating sharp turns like the final one on the Grånasen course.
Ogden said it’s still too early to name that curve “Klaebo corner.” But, he added, “it has all the marks of being dubbed as such before too long.”
“He knows how to navigate tricky situations better than anyone I’ve ever watched,” Ogden said. “I’m sure he’ll put on a master class there tomorrow.”
The women’s race is more of a toss-up.
Norway has Kristine Stavås Skistad, a rising star who won last year’s test sprint race at Grånasen.
But Skistad missed competitions earlier this year while recovering from a surgery, and two weeks ago, she finished behind Swedish star Jonna Sundling in the last World Cup sprint race before the championships.
A duel between Skistad and Sundling would certainly give Scandinavians something to feud about over the next week of ski racing.
The ever-present rivalry between Sweden and Norway has heated up with the approach of the championships — including with the release of a diss track by Swedish rapper Markoolio, who mocked Norwegian cross-country superstar Petter Northug’s past history of cocaine abuse.
Ranum, the Trondheim mayor, summed up the mostly-generous spirit of the Norwegian hosts when he said he wouldn’t mind seeing Diggins knock local athletes off the podium.
“It would be great,” he said. “Anybody but the Swedes.”
U.S. and Canadian starters, men’s sprint: USA, Ben Ogden, Gus Schumacher, Jack Young, J.C. Schoonmaker; Canada, Xavier McKeever, Sasha Masson, Graham Ritchie, Pierre Grall-Johnson
U.S. and Canadian starters, women’s sprint: USA, Julia Kern, Jessie Diggins, Rosie Brennan, Kate Oldham; Canada, Katie Weaver, Alison Mackie, Sonjaa Schmidt, Liliane Gagnon
Nathaniel Herz
Nat Herz is an Alaska-based journalist who moonlights for FasterSkier as an occasional reporter and podcast host. He was FasterSkier's full-time reporter in 2010 and 2011.
