Tag: 2010 Season Preview

The 2010 World Cup season is set to start this weekend in Beitostolen, Norway, with a 10/15km freestyle on Saturday, and a 4×5/10km relay on Sunday.   Exactly 120 days later, with the conclusion of the World Cup Final in Falun, Sweden, one of athletics ultimate endurance challenges comes to an end.  A total of 40 races, including 13 individual sprints, 21 distance races, 3 relays, and 3 team sprints, are on the schedule.   This includes the Tour de Ski’s 8 races in 10 days, and the Olympics, which don’t score World Cup points, but definitely have a stranglehold on glory.

So what to expect?  The Olympics always make for an interesting season as the overall World Cup often takes a back seat to the opportunity to win gold.  Skiers will pick and choose races in the month leading up to the Games, as they hone their fitness, balancing the desire to stay sharp with the ever-essential need for rest.

The World Cup season is officially broken down into four periods.  Period I runs from the start until the Christmas break, Period II includes the Tour de Ski, starting on January 1, and the last European World Cups before the Olympics – in Estonia and Rybinsk, Russia.

Period III takes place exclusively in Canada with the pre-Olympic World Cup in Canmore and the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver.  The final period starts a week later and hits the classic ski venues of Lahti, Drammen, Oslo, Stockholm, and Falun.  The final four races, all in Sweden, make up the “mini-Tour” World Cup Final.

This structure has important implications for FIS points.  A new points list is released at the start of every period, drawn from all races from the previous year.  So the Period II points list includes Period I 2010 and Periods II, III and IV from 2009.   This impacts seeding, and Red Group status.

The period delineations also make for a convenient way to view the season, and so, without further ado, the 2010 FIS Cross-Country World Cup…

Period I

Period I tends to be the most consistent segment of the World Cup season in terms of participation.  Athletes are fresh, healthy, and looking to test their fitness against the rest of the world.  Major events like World Championships and the Olympics are a long way off.  After a long summer and fall of training, it is go time.

Because of this, we can expect to see some of the largest and most competitive fields of the year.  Add in the fact that we can expect a large and very tough Nation’s Group field in the first weekends in Norway and Finland.  For those not up on World Cup lingo, the Nations Group is the additional allocation of start spots that host nations receive.  The depth of the sport in Norway and Finland mean that this quota will go to highly accomplished skiers who are capable of top results.

As noted above, the season is long, and the fastest skiers at the beginning are not necessarily the fastest at the end.  Last year, men’s Overall World Cup Champion, Dario Cologna (SUI) did not crack the top-10 until the 5^th race of the season.  And the winner of the first World Cup, Marcus Hellner?  He only made it back on the podium once more.

On the women’s side, the top two in last year’s opener – Charlotte Kalla (SWE) and Marit Bjoergen (NOR) – finished 10^th and 12^th respectively in the overall World Cup standings.

But every point counts – whether it is earned on day 1 or day 120.

Speaking of Bjoergen and Kalla, both appear to be in fine form, winning FIS races by significant margins last weekend.  Expect both to continue to ski well during Period I.  The question, as usual, is whether or not they can maintain the pace over the next five months.  Both have a history of illness in recent  years.

Northug  is looking quite good as well.   He should come out of the gate quickly and is clearly the man to beat early on.  Cologna is recovering from a leg injury, and while he will race in the first World Cup is unlikely that he will be in top form.

Period II

Period II will see the biggest impact of the Olympics, and is the best opportunity to score World Cup points.  To have a shot at the overall World Cup title, a skier will need to be in top form during this stretch, and will have to place very well in the Tour de Ski.  Each of the last three male World Cup Champions also won the Tour de  Ski, and the female champions were 4^th, 2^nd and 1^st in the Tour.  Half points are awarded for each individual Tour race, but double points are given out for the overall Tour standings.

And with travel to North America looming, some skiers may choose to skip one or both of Otepää and Rybinsk World Cups.  This will open the door for a skier to potentially open a gap in the overall standings.

Expect defending World Cup champion Justyna Kowalczyk (POL) and World Cup sprint champion to have a strong presence in Period II.   Both women have shown remarkable stamina in the past and rarely skip a race.

Changing the rules to ski this year will have an impact on the size of the field. Points can now be Even if a skier does not complete the entire tour. This means we will see more sprinters starting the tour, and scoring points early before dropping out. This raises the interesting question as to whether or not a sprint specialist could win the overall World Cup.

Overall, I would expect to see a strong and deep field in the tour to ski, but with more dropouts than in the past. The following two World Cups in Estonia and Russia, will likely see smaller fields.

Period III

Period III is all about the Olympics.   The only World Cup race is a week prior to the Games in Canmore.  Participation should be high as athletes prime for the more important Olympic Games.  Usually a Canadian World Cup is an excellent opportunity for US and Canadian skiers to score World Cup points – fields are generally weaker as many European skiers choose not to travel to North America. However, this year, with the Olympics just a week away, the field will be as strong as any European World Cup, and points will be hard to come by.

We will be running a complete Olympic preview in January, so will not be providing specific predictions and analysis here.

Period IV

Like Period I, Period IV should feature all the best skiers.  With the Olympics over, the focus will be on World Cup points and prize money.  The overall titles will still be up for grabs.

Last year FIS introduced several new competition formats to the late season calendar, and overall, they enhanced the drama of the World Cup.

World Cup point premiums were included in the 30/50km races in Trondheim, making for more exciting races.  We have to hear if these preems will be available again, but the Holmenkollen 30/50km is a likely spot.

More significantly the World Cup final in Sweden, a mini tour, makes the final race is extremely important. Like the Tour de Ski, double World Cup points are available for the overall standings of the World Cup Final, in addition to half points for each individual race.   This means that even a 100-point lead will not be safe during the last weekend.

Four years ago, Fischer had just launched the Jibskate in West Yellowstone. In Norway, a 19-year-old Petter Northug Jr. was being touted as “the next Thomas Alsgaard,” having vanquished the entire national team in a rollerski race in the fall. And somewhere in Finland, the U.S. Ski Team’s Carl Swenson was alone in a car, stuck in a pair of sweaty windbriefs, driving himself 500 miles across northern Europe.

Swenson was on his way back from an early-season World Cup race in Kuusamo, where he had just finished a respectable 11^th and 12^th place in a pair of distance events. The rest of his teammates had opted to compete in the U.S. during the early part of the season, but Swenson had been training and living in Europe during the summer with his girlfriend. He figured he’d give the races a shot-despite the fact that he didn’t have a coach or support staff.

“It’s not recommended,” Swenson said recently of the long post-race drive. “I ended up getting back at 2 a.m., and then I flew back to Canada for the World Cups that were up in Silver Star…and I got sick.” The Kuusamo races, so early in the winter, were his best results of the whole season.

Swenson’s experience wasn’t exactly the norm for the USST back then-after all, it was just four years ago-but it does seem like a good metaphor. While the team was well-supported and held its own on the international stage, its skill and depth were a definite notch below their current levels. Today, the start of the 2009-2010 season sees the USST poised at the brink of a breakthrough, with no fewer than four of its members ready to contend for wins on the World Cup and at the Olympics.

While the USST will have a presence on the circuit before the Games begin, Vordenberg told FasterSkier in an e-mail that the team has “no major goals outside of the Olympics.” His athletes’ schedules are designed to get them to Whistler in peak condition, and for the first time since 1976, when Bill Koch scored a silver in Innsbruck, America might just see one of its skiers bring home an Olympic medal.

The Team

Sprinters: Torin Koos has earned his chops on the World Cup circuit, making the podium in a sprint race in Estonia in 2007. He’s hasn’t been back since then, but Koos has still scored numerous top-ten finishes in both individual and team sprints over the past few years. With another summer of training under his belt-and with a World Cup and the Olympics taking place in his back yard of the Pacific Northwest-look for Koos to be mixing it up in sprint rounds throughout the season.

Last year, Andy Newell proved that he’s one of the fastest men in the world. This year, if everything goes smoothly, he should be contending for the title of the fastest. After struggling in the later rounds of sprint races last year, Newell said he’d be putting an emphasis on longer threshold intervals during the summer. Those longer efforts might hurt his qualification speed a bit, but, as he said in a FasterSkier chat this spring, he’s “tired of qualifying fast and not winning the race.” Given the ease with which Newell was making the rounds last year, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem for him, anyway. This season, Newell should be a podium threat in any sprint race, and represents the USST’s best hope in that event at the Olympics, especially if he can get his tactics dialed in-and stay on his feet. He and Koos should also join forces to contest the team sprint event on the World Cup and at the Games.

Given her strong finish in last weekend’s 5 km race in Norway, Kikkan Randall might be better classified as an all-rounder, but her second place in the sprint at last-year’s World Championships still takes precedence for now. That was her second medal at the international level, having been the first American woman to win a World Cup when she took the victory at a sprint race in Rybinsk, Russia, in 2007. This winter, Randall again should be battling consistently for a spot on the World Cup podium in sprint races, and perhaps shorter distance races as well. The Olympic sprint will be a target, but it is in the classic technique, her weaker discipline.

Distance Racers: Morgan Arritola starts the season on the USST’s A-Team after a breakthrough year. With two top-tens at the U-23 Championships and a top-thirty at World Championships in 2009, Arritola told NBC that she’s ready to compete with “the big guns” this year. Distance races are definitely her forte, and if she’s able to up her game from last year, Arritola can contend for World Cup points every weekend. Podiums are probably still another few seasons away, but she has time: Arritola is only 23.

Two-time Olympian Lars Flora begins the 2010 season traveling with the USST and racing the World Cup circuit in Europe. Flora hung with the best last year on the domestic scene and has plenty of experience against international competition, but it will take a stellar race effort if he wants to break into the top-30.

The USST’s great hope in distance races for the last four years, Kris Freeman begins the 2010 season as a legitimate podium threat in any race 10 km or longer, whether it’s on the World Cup or at the Olympics. While Freeman has struggled to find consistency for a full season over the past few years, he has consistently shown flashes of brilliance: a fourth place at World Championships last year, a fifth place at a World Cup in 2008, a few top-20s sprinkled in. He’s already shown that he has the fitness this winter, with back-to-back fifths against a world-class field in a pair of early-season races in Norway. If he can stay healthy, 2010 should be Freeman’s big year.

Along with Arritola, Liz Stephen represents the second half of an American women’s distance revival. And just like Arritola, Stephen had an outstanding season last year. She took 4^th and 7^th at the U-23 Championships, then broke into the top twenty for her first time at the international level in two races at World Championships. This is her first season on the A-Team, but if Stephen can carry over her level of skiing from last season, she will have no problem staying competitive on the World Cup circuit. While probably not yet a good hope for podiums, Stephen should score some World Cup points this year, and on a very good day she could crack the top ten.

The Races

This year’s World Cup schedule begins much like last year’s, with the first block of races in Scandinavia followed by a second set of events in continental Europe. The season starts with this weekend’s opener in Beitostolen, Norway, which features a distance freestyle race and a relay. All the Americans save Newell and Koos should be competing in the individual race; as for the relay, Stephen wrote on her blog this week that the U.S. is trying to field a mixed team with a Canadian woman. The men will likely not compete.

After Beitostolen, the World Cup moves on to Kuusamo, Finland, for a classic sprint and distance race. The entire team as well plus Flora should be in action that weekend, which will see Koos and Newell making their 2010 debuts. After Kuusamo comes the sprint festival in Dusseldorf, Germany, and then the final two weekends of the first block-in Davos, Switzerland and Rogla, Slovenia-each include a sprint and distance race. Andy Newell will be the first-ever American participant in the Tour de Ski in early January, though he’ll probably drop out after the first four days.

Vordenberg wouldn’t give exact details of the team’s schedule for this early part of the season, but in an e-mail, he said that the USST will have athletes at all the World Cup races through the Tour de Ski.

Following the Tour, the second block of World Cups stops in Otepaa, Estonia, and Rybinsk, Russia-both venues where Americans have made the podium in the past few years. The USST will suit up for those races, but with fewer racers; Torin Koos is the only one whose participation FasterSkier could confirm.

Then, the entire circuit will pack up for the long flight across the pond to Canmore, the site of the final tune-up races before the Olympics begin in Whistler on February 15^th. During the next two weeks, six golds will be up for grabs for each gender in an individual sprint, sprint relay, distance relay, and three individual distance events. Assuming the season has gone smoothly for the USST to this point, Newell, Koos, Freeman and Randall should all be in contention for podiums.

When the Games conclude at the end of February, the World Cup circuit heads straight back to Scandinavia-without so much as a week off-for one last block of racing. The schedule includes stops at two Norwegian venues-Drammen and ski-crazed Holmenkollen-before wrapping up with the finals in Stockholm and Falun, Sweden. Like last year, the finals will consist of a four stage mini-tour, with the World Cup overall being decided by the finish of the season’s last race. Expect to see some American participation in this last month of racing, but the exact make-up of the group at this point will depend on the earlier part of the season. If Freeman wins an Olympic medal, as he told SkiTrax earlier this year, he’ll be staying home to work the late-night talk show circuit.