Tour de Ski

The conditions were seemingly perfect as it was sunny and blue skys with the temperature hovering around -4°C. The races were fast with the winning times of 23:14 for the men over 10km and 12:37 for the women over 5km. Today was a chance for those classic specialist take a bite out of the lead [...]

The course for tomorrows rather short courses – a 5km for the women and a 10km for the men – will see like sprints compared to today’s races. They will be in the classic style and the course appears to have a couple good climbs on it including one that rises 40 meters in elevation [...]

Today saw the start of the distance races with the first point A to B race of the Tour. It was pursuit style so there were expectations of great battles and tactics on the course. The results of this race would determine the overall classification of the Tour. Simple concept: win the race and you [...]

Today is the first to two very deserved rest days for the athletes. With the sprint portion of the Tour done for another year, more and more athletes will be dropping out, particularly sprint specialists. One the men’s side, the most notables to leave the Tour will be leader Emil Jönsson, stage 3 winner Eldar [...]

Today is the first to two very deserved rest days for the athletes. With the sprint portion of the Tour done for another year, more and more athletes will be dropping out, particularly sprint specialists. One the men’s side, the most notables to leave the Tour will be leader Emil Jönsson, stage 3 winner Eldar [...]

Today was final consecutive race day before a day off for the athletes. The Prague city sprints got off to a late start and saw the heats being run under flood lights. The track was tight quarters and who ever was in the lead at the first hair pin after the start would be nearly [...]

After the Oberhof sprint, the athletes hopped in team vehicles and started their journey to the Czech Republic; unless your name is Virpi Kuitunen, then you hopped on a plane home back to Finland. The Prague sprint tomorrow will be exciting as it’s the first city sprint and it’ll be fast and furious as the [...]

Today was the final of three race days in Oberhof. With numerous of the top sprint specialists not pariticipating in the Tour de Ski, it opened the door to others to get a taste of sprint action such as Matti Heikkinen, Simen Ostensen, and Jens Filbrich. The weather seemed to co-operate more or less and [...]

Tomorrow’s sprint race will be surprisingly the first time a classic sprint has ever been run in the Tour de Ski. The forecast is calling for snow and temperatures hovering around -0C, it’ll surely be a wax technicians nightmare. I’m expect some athletes in the post-race interviews will have some words about how their skis [...]