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Cross country skiing is a winter sport, but it’s the spring season in which we see it in all it’s glory: sunny skies, blue horizons, fields of purest white. A venue like Holmenkollen offers a sophisticated system of snow making, so most of the snow on which the skiers will race is man made. It’s durable snow, able to freeze deep without icing, able to withstand sun even better than natural snow. After a week of racing in the rain and slush of Trondheim, the women’s World Cup field seemed delighted to race at sunny Holmenkollen.
“It’s awesome! We have so much sun here!” beamed USA’s Julia Kern before today’s race. “It’s variable snow, but it’s a really exciting and challenging course with a lot of turns.”
Spring is also the season in which World Cup race results can be surprising, confounding, illuminating. The prime contenders have the most experience in peaking and tapering for championship events (like last week’s World Championship in Trondheim), and the most sophisticated national team programs often hit their stride most effectively at big events like those. But the season didn’t end in Trondheim, and a half-dozen more races still fill the schedule before final awards are presented at season’s end. For those who have committed all their training and preparation to performances at the end of February, the journey through March’s schedule can become something of a slog.
But there are other skiers on the World Cup start list, those who may have misjudged the preparation for World championships, those whose fitness is only now (in mid-March) rounding into form. For them, the sunny days of spring can bring otherwise unexpected victories. Todays 10 k Freestyle in Holmenkollen delivered one such victory.
Before today, Moa Ilar (SWE) had only one other win on her World Cup résumé, and that was from two seasons ago in Ruka, Finland. She’s waited a long time to stand on the top of the podium again. Today was her day . . . Ilar started fastest of all contenders, and hung on for a thrilling victory over Heidi Weng (NOR) and Victoria Carl (GER). Filling out the top six were more of those racers whose peak performances may have come at the World Championships in Trondheim: Ebba Andersson (SWE), Therese Johaug (NOR), and Jessie Diggins (USA) in fourth, firth, and sixth, respectively.
Other American finishers included Julia Kern 24th, Rosie Brennan 35th, , Kate Oldham 44th, Alayna Sonnesyn 49th, Sydney Palmer-Leger 50th, and Sammy Smith 56th. Canadians recorded impressive finishes from Sonjaa Schmidt 27th, Liliane Gagnon 30th, Katherine Stewart-Jones 32nd, and Alison Mackie 39th.
10 k Freestyle
It would certainly be nice if skiers got to pace a 10 k, but if skiers don’t go out fast enough, they risk never being able to catch up at all. Those necessary pacing strategies make it seem as though 10 k is just a frenzy. But sometimes—like today—the distance is mastered by a skier so in control that she is able to utilize splits to create a race of utter perfection. That was the race that Ilar created, and much of it was based on her having on-course access to the earlier split times of other race contenders, most notably Johaug and Diggins.
Diggins has won four of the last six 10 k Freestyle events, including the last event in Cogne Italy, but Johaug, Andersson, and Weng were absent from that event. Today’s race in Holmenkollen would also be contested in the absence of Swedish skiers who could’ve significantly affected the finishing order: Frida Karlsson, and Jonna Sundling.
Andersson, Diggins, and Johaug raced through the two kilometer mark with splits in the top ten, seeming to temper their early-race efforts in order to finish with speed. By 4.3 kilometers, Johaug had ratcheted up her pace and flew to the fastest split. Diggins trailed Johaug at the 4.3 kilometer checkpoint, but by less than a second. Starting later, Ilar had all that information at her disposal, and she supplanted them both at the mid-race checkpoint.
By the 7.6 kilometer checkpoint, the field had sorted itself out. Early leader, Anja Weber (SUI) had begun to fade, while Johaug came through with a lead over Katherine Simpson-Larsen (NOR). Then Diggins came through to top them both, only to be supplanted by Ilar once again. It was time to start taking the Swede seriously . . .
Johaug was the leader when she crossed the finish line, but Diggins, Carl, and Ilar were still to finish. Diggins’ technique appeared ragged in the final kilometer where her finishing speed was not enough to catch Johaug. Diggins would slot into second (seven seconds behind) while she and Johaug awaited the arrival of Carl, Andersson, and Ilar.
Ilar continued her charge to the finish, losing none of her earlier momentum, crossing the line with a 17 second lead over Johaug—a stupendous margin over so short and intense a distance.
It feels amazing,” beamed Ilar. “It’s been such a long time . . . I’m so happy to be back on the podium!”
Carl managed to slip onto the podium behind Ilar—ahead of Johaug and Diggins—only to find herself supplanted by the latest starter among the contenders, Heidi Weng (NOR) who built her early speed and took advantage of information received on course to deliver a dashing second place finish.
Diggins coach and wax tech, Jason Cork, crunched the numbers on placings and points in the World Cup overall race, and delivered himself a well-earned birthday present (Diggins was happy to sing to him before the start of today’s race). If Cork’s math is correct, then Diggins’ performance in today’s 10 k Freestyle has secured the overall World Cup Championship. Regardless of how well her closest rival, Victoria Carl, might ski in remaining events, Diggins will collect the Crystal Globe in Lahti at the end of next week.
Ilar’s victory also represented a bit of redemption for Salomon (Ilar’s ski sponsor) whose reputation had been tarnished by the comments of numerous ski-pundits following the apparent under-performance of Salomon skis during the Trondheim World Championships. Salomon’s performance had been similarly derided by hot-mic gaffs from skiandsnowboardlive’s on-air commentators prior to today’s race. It’s understandable: this is professional ski racing, and equipment matters. In Trondheim, it was evident that Fischer skis appeared more often on the podium than any other (joined in significant placings and performances by the Rossignol skis on the feet of Sweden’s Jonna Sundling). The soft, wet conditions of Trondheim are not what most ski designs are intended to solve . . . but with so many of Norway’s prime contenders living and training on Trondheim’s rainy coast (and with Fischer sponsoring so many of them) it’s logical that the best skis for those conditions would find their way into the quivvers of those skiers.
But spring is the season in which new possibilities are born, and new flowers bloom. Moa Ilar and her wonderful victory in Holmenkollen’s 10 k Freestyle are proof of that.
Women’s 10 k Freestyle Interval Start RESULTS
John Teaford
John Teaford—the Managing Editor of FasterSkier — has been the coach of Olympians, World Champions, and World Record Holders in six sports: Nordic skiing, speedskating, road cycling, track cycling, mountain biking, triathlon. In his long career as a writer/filmmaker, he spent many seasons as Director of Warren Miller’s annual feature film, and Producer of adventure documentary films for Discovery, ESPN, Disney, National Geographic, and NBC Sports.
