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Many world-class athletes spend season after season diligently training, preparing, imagining, rehearsing for opportunities that never come. Advancing in World Cup standings is extraordinarily difficult: training is not enough, technical refinement is not enough, determination is not enough. Commentators and ski-pundits make much of the results of Junior World Championship medalists as though those podium performances are signs of future dominance in the senior ranks: they’re not. The senior level of the World Cup circuit is a talent show of the highest degree, and there is no “age category” for competitors to hide behind. All the best are here, all the best stay here for years at a time, and none of those winners willingly make room for newcomers. Success at this level must be wrestled from the stubborn grasp of strong-willed champions. Ultimately, hard work is vital to eventual success, but that eventual success also requires patience, and good fortune, and opportunity. Those who will succeed need to be ready when those opportunities arise. Today, in Davos, opportunity arose . . .
It’s so important at this point in the World Cup season for skiing’s brightest stars to remain healthy and fresh, and Davos’ high-altitude venue is the sort that can steal both health and freshness from any skier. Racing these stressful events at elevations over 5500 feet definitely shuffles the results—those who hit the uphills too hard find themselves with insufficient time to recover on the downhills. Lots of blow-ups among skiers on Davos’ thin-aired race course. Not only is the racing difficult, but the post-race recovery is difficult as well with many racers going home exhausted or sick. And December is no time to be sick. With the Olympics less than two months away—and with this being a season in which the stars are mostly prioritizing Olympic results over World Cup standings—many stars elected to stay home from Davos, thus setting the stage for today’s 10 k race to shine a spotlight on the efforts of those who usually fill understudy roles. Today in Davos there was no Jonna Sundling (SWE), no Ebba Andersson (SWE), no Frida Karlsson (SWE), no Heidi Weng (NOR). Jessie Diggins (USA) doesn’t take many days off, and she would toe the starting line in Davos. But after skiing every single event in Period 1, she may have been at a little less than her best. Moa Ilar (SWE) has stood on the World Cup podium already this season, but her efforts are often overshadowed by her teammates Sundling, Anderson, and Karlsson. Likewise, Astrid Oeyre Slind (NOR) has delivered multiple podium performances in this young season, but she’s still recovering from an Achilles tendon injury. It’s not known if she is fully back to form. It was a day for understudies to grab the spotlight. And grab it they did, as Karoline Simpson-Larsen (NOR) skied away with the win, followed two seconds later by Ilar and Slind.
Diggins did not shy from the fight, delivering an impressive fifth place finish in the 10 k, and continuing to show that she’ll be a medal contender in all individual events in Milano-Cortina. She was followed in the standing by her Americn teammates: Lucinda Anderson was 25th, Julia Kern 30th, Alayna Sonnesyn 33rd, Kendall Kramer 44th, Kate Oldham 56th. Sophia Laukli announced last week that she is delaying the continuation of her World Cup season. Rosie Brennan has been forced to deal with health and performance issues of her own in recent months. She would start the 10 k in Davos, but would fail to finish. Canadian, Katherine Stewart-Jones, continued to be the sole Canadian representative in World Cup Period 1. She would finish 28th.
Also notable in this week’s list of Davos’ understudies was the performance of Maia Dahlqvist (SWE). Her fourth place finish continues to show her abilities in both sprint and distance racing, and today’s performance likely established as the favorite to team with Jonna Sundling in the Olympic Team Sprint. If that’s the team that Sweden fields in Val di Fiemme, they’ll be hard to beat.
Davos’ World Cup events were also notable for the return to competition of Individual Neutral Athletes (AINs) from Russia and Belarus. Clad in a very non-Russian purple and aqua race suit, Dariya Nepraeva—a Junior World Championship gold medalist in 2022, and the fast-skiing little sister of former World Cup champion, Natalya Nepraeva—had ranked an inauspicious (and nearly invisible) 39th after Saturday’s Freestyle Sprint qualifying. Russian athletes are back on the World Cup course, and Nepraeva would deliver a solid result, finishing the day in 20th.
10 k Freestyle
FIS World Cup Period 1 is quite a test: three straight weeks of three races/weekend. And the conclusion of each weekend has been a 10 k. Whether Freestyle or Classic, ten kilometers is a challenging distance over which to compete. Davos version offered two laps over a five kilometer course, the low-point of which sits at a breathtaking altitude of 5400 feet. The 10 k Freestyle Interval Start will be an Olympic event when those Winter Games take place in Val di Fiemme. Though not quite as high as Davos, Val di Fiemme will represent altitude challenges of its own. Davos would seem to be an excellent venue for this pre-Olympic dress rehearsal.
Diggins came through early checkpoints even with Ilar, two seconds behind Slind, and in the company of the latest French revelation, Leonie Perry. Diggins would finish fifth on the day, maintaining her lead in the World Cup standings but leaving some question as to her ultimate desire to claim another Crystal Globe (as the season progresses, don’t be too surprised if Diggins skips some races—and eschews World Cup points—in favor of Olympic preparedness). Fans usually think of Diggins as the strongest contender in any 10 k event. Today, though, was one for fresh arms and rested legs, and Diggins (like many in the field) found herself feeling less sparkly than usual.
It was Larsen who would put up the best intermediate times of the day, even extending her lead over Ilar in the closing kilometers. Seated in the sled-shaped leader’s chair in the finish area, Larsen fidgeted nervously, surrounded by teammates who smiled and giggled as they repeatedly checked the splits of other contenders, each of whom would fail to best Larsen’s time. In the end, none did, and Larsen found herself with the first World Cup win of her career, and a likely nod onto an Olympic Team of which she had dared not dream. Opportunity arisen, opportunity grabbed.
In a season often dominated by Team Sweden, Davos’ 10 k offered a chance for Team Norway to top the podium. But the Norwegian National Team is a cruel and unforgiving environment, especially when so many of the world’s best skiers are vying for spots on the team, but there’s so little room at the top for all of them. Less than a year ago, another notable understudy, Kristin Austgulen Fosnaes (NOR), found herself under the spotlight for the wrong reasons when she was dismantled by Team Sweden during her leg of the World Championship Relay in Trondheim. Today in Davos, Fosnaes found herself with the an entirely respectable finish (seventh place). Ironically, today’s race winner—Larsen—may end up taking Fosnaes’ place in Norway’s Relay roster in Val di Fiemme during the Olympic Winter Games.
How truly ironic that a skier like Fosnaes could earn a seventh place in a World Cup event, and still find herself staying home from the Olympics (or at least being left off the roster in the event—the Team Relay—where she has a chance to medal). Her own team may be quick to remind her, “Yes, you finished seventh, but none of the true contenders were even there.” While that may be true, the absence of the contenders is what served up the opportunity for Karoline Simpson-Larsen to step into the spotlight. And it’s the fast that she did step in that will probably see her name aded to the roster of Norwegian Olympians in Milano-Cortina.
Women’s 10 k Individual Start Freestyle RESULTS
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John Teaford
John Teaford 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.
