So Many Red Suits . . . And Klaebo In a League of His Own

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Klaebo wins . . . we saw that coming.

Let’s face it: cross-country ski racing can be kinda boring. Races are long (even the short ones), speeds are really not that high, even the fastest accelerations occur in slow motion when compared to many other sports. There’s a bit of a draft that can protect opportunistic sprinters, but not really all that much. And even the most hotly contested World Cup races are typically dominated by a synchronized clot of red Norwegian suits striding up the trail in near-perfect unison, beautiful to witness, but kind of dull in its predictability. Watching cross-country ski racing isn’t for every sports fan, especially when predicting the winners is becoming such an un-challenging task.

But I’m not bored: I’m fascinated. And I find myself even more fascinated with each passing week. Here’s what fascinates me: how can a skier just continue getting stronger and stronger? Wouldn’t that be awesome for all the rest of us to experience? Knowing that we could just keep getting better and better? Coaches, counselors, motivational speakers all tell us that it’s possible: keep working harder and you’ll just keep getting stronger. But the performances of athletes at all levels show us that this rosy prediction just isn’t true. There’s a limit, a breaking point, a glass ceiling. Plenty of athletes work hard, and all the skiers in these World Cup races are fully committed and supremely talented. Yet even the very best athletes plateau, even the strongest racers stumble. And the margins at the tippy-top of athletic performance become amazingly thin, showing that almost any world-class contender can win on any given day. Ironically, FIS World Cup rankings from second place through last place are regularly re-shuffled: Gus Schumacher was second yesterday, today he’s 22nd. But the guy in first place is often the same guy. Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo wins more than half of the World Cup races he enters—that’s just crazy. Klaebo won again today, and he did it in an offhanded fashion that makes it appear he has only himself to compete against. I’m fascinated . . .

Goms, Switzerland offered these final World Cup events prior to the arrival of these same athletes at Olympic venues in two weeks. Spectators are fully aware that the race we watch this week may not be the same as the race conducted a few weeks from now. Dominance in January can translate into further dominance in February, but there are plenty of miles to cover between now and then. Germ-filled airline flights and nights of fitful sleep, breakfasts and lunches and dinners to orchestrate, supplements and strategies to employ, training to undertake, reset and recovery to seek. And somewhere deep inside an athlete’s body, the systems are churning . . . getting ready for a day when speed and endurance are needed, when courage and fortitude may lead to victory and glory, or to humiliation and defeat. Goms offered as accurate an approximation of those Olympic races as it’s practical to stage: Olympic races staged in Val di Fiemme will include a Team Sprint (like Friday’s Team Sprint), and a Classic Sprint (like yesterday’s Classic Sprint). But today’s 20 k Classic Mass Start may not offer a precise predictor of the Olympic 50 k Classic Mass Start. Fifty kilometers is really really far . . . and plenty can happen in those 50 kilometers. The 20 k is more straightforward, and offers less space for multiple attacks to occur. It’s possible that a 20 k field will wait for a single significant move. That’s the way things played out in Goms, today.

North American men performed well in today’s 20 k, especially considering the stress and accumulated fatigue of such a long and arduous World Cup weekend: Zak Ketterson was 18th, Xavier McKeever 19th, Schumacher 22nd, Antoine Cyr 34th, Hunter Wonders 36th, Zanden McMullen 38th, Remi Drolet 40th, Max Hollman 41st, Thomas Stephen 45th, Zach Jayne 52nd, John Steel Hagenbuch 55th, Luke Jager 59th. Many of those skiers began today’s race with start positions waaaay back in the field, spending 20 kilometers dodging pole tips and ski tips on their journey forward. Theirs was a decidedly different race from the calm, controlled, unmolested effort afforded the leaders. But everyone who’s ever started at the front got there by battling their way from the rear. The North Americans are battling . . .

Norway, Norway, Norway, Norway, Norway, Norway, Norway

While it may not always be evident on the surface, there’s drama in every meter of a Mass Start race—emergencies averted, difficulties overcome, disasters dodged, over-crowding endured, loneliness faced. Racers usually want to avoid as much drama as possible, and the racers least likely to encounter difficulty are those who start in the front row.  Four Norwegians made up the front row—Klaebo, Amundsen, Mattis Stenshagen, and Andreas Fjorden Ree. They’d lead the field out onto the first of four loops, monitoring the early pace set by pre-race favorite, Klaebo.

Lap 1 appeared to be a freebie. It’s understood that the pace would get high, but for every kilometer that Klaebo controls the pace at the front, it will be all that much more difficult to dislodge him later in the race. Klaebo is a fast skier, but his strategy is typically not one that attempts to shed other skiers. He’ll control the pace at the front, waiting for someone else to take control. If no one does, then Klaebo will likely win the sprint at the end. If another skier does attempt to assert themselves, then Klaebo will ride their tails and likely win the sprint at the end. Anyone who wants to beat Klaebo needs to drop Klaebo, and they need to do so well before the finishing straightaway approaches.

The other skiers likely to test Klaebo’s long-form endurance—including Klaebo’s own Norwegian teammates—were decidedly passive in Goms. And Iivo Niskanen—the skier most likely to test the strength of the field two weeks from now Val di Fiemme—was absent from the Goms start list. Through five kilometers, the leaders continued to be relaxed. Klaebo, Harald Oestberg Amundsen, Andreas Fjorden Ree, Emil Iversen (NOR), Mathis Deloge (FRA) and Savelii Korostelev (AIN) who had started far back in bib 33. Schumacher came through the five kilometer mark in 12th place, only two seconds behind the leaders.

Through 7.5 kilometers, Norway continued to enjoy the presence of eight skiers in the top 12, a level of numeric-dominance that Norway will not enjoy when the 50 k is run in Val di Fiemme (where Team Norway will be limited to four starters). The Norwegians were accompanied only by the persistent French, Korostelev, and Estonia’s surprising star, Alvar Elev. A small spit occurred in the field at 9.2 kilometers where bonus points were offered and Klaebo led a mini-break ahead of Iversen and Amundsen. What had looked like a pedestrian pace was revealed to have been a pace at which the vast majority of the skiers had been just barely holding on. Klaebo tapped the accelerator, and the field strung out helplessly behind him. Norway took the points for the first eight positions, but only Iversen and Amundsen were able to hold their positions at the front with Klaebo.

Korostelev led the chase of the three leading Norwegians, and the rest of Team Norway appeared perfectly willing to let him do so. Valnes latched on to Korostelev’s tails,and the other remaining Norwegians lined up behind Valnes. If this were a bike race, viewers could assume that team tactics were being employed—Norwegians lining up to defend Klaebo’s lead, and forcing other nations to chase. But today made it look like the field simply stretched out in a ranking of available strength and endurance. Anyone who could’ve gone faster would certainly have gone faster.

Though not exactly in dramatic fashion, the race continued to unfold at the front. Classic skiing creates a unique drafting dilemma: in order to be as close as possible to the skier in front, the following skiers are compelled to match the striding and/or double-poling tempo of the leader. It makes cross-country skiing uniquely picturesque, but it removes any advantage that a skier might seek by choosing a different tempo. Remember Therese Johaug? Her supernaturally-high tempo always appeared awkward and uncomfortable whenever she skied in the company of other racers. Fortunately for Johaug, she spent very little time in the company of other racers during her racing career. Today in Goms, the three dominant Norwegians set a steady pace ina predictable tempo. Iversen and Klaebo are in-season and off-season training patners: it makes sense that they’d adopt a similar tempo. Amundsen was the outlier of the three, but he followed their tempo in lockstep. Here’s the thing—if no skier seeks to take an individual advantage, then we can safely assume the at the advantage goes to Klaebo.

Korostelev continued to lead the chase group, but trailed by an ever-widening margin. With one lap remaining, the gap had stretched to nearly 40 seconds. With four kilometers to go, Klaebo was seen tightening his pole straps. Another bike race analogy: when a rider reaches down to tighten the straps on their shoes, they’re preparing for the sprint. For Klaebo to have done so—so quietly and so matter-of-factly—must have caused the hearts of his rivals to sink. He’s not hanging on, he’s preparing to pounce.

Klaebo would’ve been likely to outsprint both Iversen and Amundsen at the finish line . . . and while that may be the plan he intends to follow in Val Di Fiemme in a couple of weeks, it’s not the only winning strategy he possesses. Today in Goms, Klaebo showed that he can win in the most understated—though thrilling—way. He simply skied away. One little uphill (one of those from yesterday’s Sprint course) and he trotted lightly up it, exposing the truth that Iversen and Amundsen may have been close to their performance limits all along. Amundsen chose an inside line on the hill, but stalled on the steeper slope he ascended. Iversen sought better kick on an outside line beyond the groomed tracks, but continued to slip just a bit. And Klaebo just cruised off the front in a nonchalant manner that went all but unnoticed. None of the course-lining spectators even cheered. The decisive moment of a World Cup Mass Start Distance race, and almost no one even saw it happening. Well, Iversen and Amundsen might’ve noticed . . . both came nearly to an exhausted standstill at the top of the hill. Klaebo would get away to a gap of 40 seconds, ultimately coasting easily across the finish line followed by Iversen and Amundsen. Klaebo has shown in the past that he is a master of preparing for major championships. He appears ready, again.

There have been plenty of easy-looking wins in Klaebo’s illustrious career, but few of those 107 individual wins ever looked easier than this. And, for additional perspective, this “easy” win came in a 20 kilometer Classic Mass Start race ahead of the world’s finest Distance skiers. Team France found itself overmatched—no pesky Frenchmen tweaking the race pace today. Team Norway found that it really has only one contender for gold—the rest of them can fight it out for silver and bronze. Korostelev found that the dominance he’d enjoyed in the last few seasons behind Russia’s curtain did not translate into similar dominance on the World Cup (but who knows what he’ll look like in the Olympics). And Iivo Niskanen—watching the race on TV from his sofa in Finland—would’ve seen that Klaebo is ready for any surge that the courageous Finn may choose to throw down in Val di Fiemme. It won’t be the same race as today in Goms, but Klaebo’s performance today makes it difficult to image how different the final outcome may be. Good luck, Iivo. Good luck Savelii. Team Norway is strong, and their man, Klaebo, is off the charts.

There was one exciting moment: watching the eight-man chase group sprint to the line, where Stenshagen outsprinted Korostelev for seventh place. Korostelev tested himself against Team Norway, and found himself overmatched. Team Norway had faced another Russian challenger, and had stuffed him into the back seat. There’s a bitter rivalry there, one likely to be played out again when the Olympics get underway at the Nordic venues of Val di Fiemme in February. There won’t be quite so many Norwegians for Korostelev to deal with, but he might find that at least a few of those Norwegians—likely Amundsen, Iversen, and Klaebo—will be up the track, dividing the medals amongst themselves in the final kilometers.

Men’s World Cup 20 k Mass Start RESULTS

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