Jessie Diggins (U.S. Ski Team) smiles after finishing the 2017 Tour de Ski in fifth place after the final climb in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
In non-Olympic and non-World Championships years, the Tour de Ski (TdS) stands as the highlight for many all-around World Cup athletes and fans. This year’s U.S. team for the TdS includes four men and seven women, all current members of the U.S. Ski Team (USST): Sadie Bjornsen, Rosie Brennan, Sophie Caldwell, Jessie Diggins, Kikkan Randall, Ida Sargent, Liz Stephen, Erik Bjornsen, Paddy Caldwell, Simi Hamilton, and Andy Newell. (Here’s a list of some TdS teams from other nations.)
Sadie Bjornsen (U.S. Ski Team) racing to her first career World Cup podium last season at Stage 5 of the 2017 Tour de Ski in Toblach, Italy. She placed third in the 5 k freestyle on Jan. 6, 2017. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
In an Olympic year, a seven-stage tour over nine days may not fit into every top skier’s race plan. A long tour event might tweak the body in ways that make peaking for the Olympics in mid-February untenable. While for others, the grind of the TdS offers an opportunity to ski into top-shape race fitness.
Here in the U.S., TdS starts have become a topic for discussion due to the small fields finishing last year’s edition of the tour — which was a World Championships year. The argument goes that in smaller fields, it’s easier to score valuable World Cup points by finishing in the top 30 of a given race. For example, in last season’s TdS, 31 women and 40 men completed the final stage. The year before — a non-championship or Olympic year — 43 women and 52 men finished that final climb atop the Alpe Cermis in Val di Fiemme, Italy.
For both World Championship and Olympic selection criteria, results in specific World Cup races and/or rankings on the distance and sprint World Cup lists can determine if a skier meets the USST’s objective qualifying criteria. In other words, if a U.S. skier on the World Cup does not lock up an Olympic spot during Period 1, their Olympic qualification may be determined by points scored during the TdS. It goes without saying that while the USST members at the TdS solidify their Olympic nominations, many other domestic-based skiers vying for Olympic-team nods will be racing at the upcoming U.S. Cross Country Championships in Anchorage, Alaska, which start next week.
FasterSkier emailed U.S. Ski Team Head Coach Chris Grover on Dec. 23 with the following questions regarding the selection of this year’s TdS team:
FasterSkier:Starting with those that aren’t racing: Was Scott Patterson offered a spot that he decided not to take? What are his plans over the next few weeks?
Chris Grover: As you may recall, we added some guidelines to the 2018 World Cup Selection criteria this fall prior to the start of the season in order to better define to the community how we would utilize discretion picks to World Cup, including the Tour de Ski. The guidelines are:
Athletes who have not met the General Criteria may be selected to the team via discretion if they satisfy any of the following:
Outstanding competition results from the 2016/2017 or 2017/2018 seasons, including as a member of a team event, indicating a potential for Olympic success.
Recent positive direction or trend of competition results indicating a potential for Olympic or World Championship success.
Indication of medal potential in future Olympic or World Championship competition (such as international age group results and age rankings) that would be materially enhanced by selection to the team.
We did offer Scott a Tour de Ski start. He is a young athlete on his first season of World Cup and we would like to see him build his experience on the Tour. The discretionary pick would have utilized the third bullet point above. Scott chose to return to Anchorage for Nationals because he felt his chances of qualifying for the PyeongChang Team were better there. Scott is currently training in Bozeman and will head to Anchorage next week.
FS:Was Chelsea Holmes offered a spot on the tour roster? If not, what were some of the reasons or considerations taken into account for that decision?
CG: Chelsea was not offered a TdS start, as much as we would have liked to see her start there. She did not meet any of the above guidelines, so it was important for us to adhere to the guidelines and have her compete in Anchorage against the SuperTour field for the additional PyeongChang selections.
FS:Was Noah Hoffman offered a spot? If not, what were some of the reasons or considerations taken into account?
CG: Noah was not offered a TdS start. Same rationale as Chelsea.
U.S. Ski Team Head Coach Chris Grover speaking with Sadie Bjornsen in Quebec City, where she went on to place eight in the freestyle sprint at Stage 3 of the 2016 Ski Tour Canada. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com/NNF)
FS:Of the 11 athletes racing the TDS, which plan to complete the tour in its entirety? And for the sprinters that don’t plan to do the whole tour, what stages do they plan to complete?
CG: Jessie, Sadie, Liz, Rosie and Paddy are targeting the entire Tour. Andy, Simi, Sophie, and Ida will either stop after Stage 4 or Stage 5, and then rest and begin preparing for Dresden. Erik will probably decide during the Tour how far he will go and may stop after stage 5 to also prepare for Dresden. Kikkan had originally planned on only racing the first 3 stages in Lenzerheide, but her plans may be evolving.
FS:This summer you mentioned that the standard for scoring points in the TdS would not be as “easy” this year as in past years because you anticipated that “this year you’re going to have much better numbers of athletes that are actually finishing the Tour.” Do you still believe this?
CG: Yes. Last spring, we expanded the start quotas for the Tour de Ski. Now the top-20 women and top-20 men in the Sprint World Cup are additional quota spots for the Tours. This means that the nations don’t have to wrestle with a decision about whether to take one of their best all-around or distance skiers to the Tour versus a sprint athlete currently ranked in the top-20 who may be fighting for a top year-end ranking in the sprint World Cup. They can take them both. Last year’s Tour only included one sprint; this Tour has two sprints. The pure sprinters may still drop-out after the second sprint, but their respective countries may have brought additional distance skiers that are planning on skiing the entire Tour. When it comes to total numbers of athletes left standing at the end of the Tour, the x-factor is always illness, and whether athletes and Teams have managed to stay healthy. Occasionally a bad cold or flu will circulate through the TdS field and it’s not uncommon to see an entire Team contract the virus. These health scenarios are impossible to predict.
FS:You also mentioned that it is “an easier path for an athlete to make the Olympic team” via podium finishes at U.S. nationals than by surviving to the end of an attrition-ravaged TdS. In light of the numerous top athletes who have said they will be opting out of this year’s pre-Olympics TdS, do you still believe this?
CG: Yes. I still believe that there is more opportunity for USA athletes that are skiing fast competing against a domestic field at US Nationals that doesn’t include the USA TdS athletes, then there is fighting to stay healthy and score points at the Tour itself. However, both paths require an athlete to be skiing fast, which is clearly the goal of the selection process.
FS:For those athletes who are doing the TdS, how do you see that fitting into their season-long preparation and goals, either for the Olympics or otherwise?
CG: Those athletes that are targeting the entire Tour generally see the Tour as a way to build peak race fitness. When followed by adequate rest, these athletes have looked to the Tour to sharpen race fitness and help them prepare for a major Championships in February. For the very best athletes the Tour has also been a place for stand-out results, podiums, and gathering critical World Cup points for those hunting for top season-end Overall, Distance, or Sprint rankings.
FS:Do you foresee a time when the TdS is no longer held during Olympic years?
CG: That’s doubtful. The Tour de Ski is by far the most popular Cross Country TV spectator and fan event of the season for the FIS. It is only rivaled by the Olympics and World Championships. As long as there is massive fan interest, and a lot of prize money and World Cup points on the line, the athletes and the teams will be there.
FasterSkier’s International Skiers of the Year: Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov and Norway’s Marit Bjørgen. (Photos: John Lazenby/Lazenbyphoto.com)
With the 2016/2017 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This honor goes to outstanding international skiers of the year.
Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov celebrates with supporters after winning the final climb and his first Tour de Ski overall title in January at Alpe Cermis in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov was dominant when it seemed to matter most this season. He finished second in the Overall World Cup, he won his first Tour de Ski (TdS) — punctuated with an unprecedented six victories in seven TdS stages, and he brought the deflated Russian team five medals at World Championships.
The day before World Championships began, five of Ustiugov’s teammates implicated in the second McLaren report detailing systematic state-sponsored doping at the 2014 Sochi Olympics had their provisional suspensions upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Those athletes were declared ineligible for the 2017 World Championships.
It’s an open question whether that news motivated Ustiugov. Over the course of the championships, the 24 year old won gold in the 30-kilometer skiathlon and team sprint. He hauled in two silvers, one in the individual sprint, the other in the 50 k skate. He helped Russia, and himself, to a fifth medal: silver in a nail-biter 4 x 10 k relay, which Norway won.
After that relay, Sundby called Ustiugov the best skier in the world during a press conference. And for most of the season, Ustiugov indeed proved himself one of the world’s best, if not the man to beat.
Ustiugov stood on five other World Cup podiums outside the TdS, four of which were in individual races.
Ustiugov, who turned 25 last weekend, gained recognition back in 2012 when he won four gold medals at the Junior World Ski Championships. In 2013 he racked up two more golds in the 15 k skate and 30 k skiathlon at U23 World Championships. He backed those performances up as he matured, winning a skate sprint and 15 k classic at the 2014 U23 Worlds.
The young Russian skier’s rise to World Cup prominence hasn’t been meteoric. It’s been a steady step onto podiums at each stage of his international career. Ustiugov’s 2016/2017 season makes his case as Russia’s next best hope and he’ll likely remain Sundby’s foil in the upcoming Olympic year.
Marit Bjørgen,Norwegian World Cup Team
Norway’s Marit Bjørgen with her 1-year-old son Marius after she won her 15th World Championships gold in the women’s 15 k skiathlon at 2017 World Championships in Lahti, Finland. (Photo: John Lazenby/Lazenbyphoto.com)
Yes, she’s a new mom. But with the the 2016/2017 season in the review, Marit Bjørgen is the same ol’ machine. After skipping last season while pregnant with her first child, the 36-yar-old Norwegian (who turned 27 last month) opened the first distance race of the year with a win in the 10 k classic in Kuusamo, Finland, just 11 months after the birth of her son, Marius.
It was the third race she had competed in since March and her second victory (she also won the Beitostølen 10 k FIS race the weekend before).
Less than a week later, Bjørgen was back on the podium in Lillehammer, Norway, this time in third behind American Jessie Diggins in first and her Norwegian teammate Heidi Weng in second in the World Cup 5 k freestyle.
She closed curtains on 2016 with two more top-three finishes: second in the La Clusaz 10 k mass start and first in the 4 x 5 k relay the next day, during which she posted the fastest second-leg time. The win was Bjørgen’s 25th relay victory and a predictor for the following two relays she’d enter this season in Ulricehamn, Sweden, and at World Championships in Lahti, Finland, both of which she anchored.
Marit Bjørgen (3) leading the pack in the women’s 30 k freestyle mass start on March 4 at 2017 World Championships in Lahti, Finland. (Photo: John Lazenby/Lazenbyphoto.com)
If there was any doubt about her ability to regain dominance, she wasted no time dispelling it.
Opting to sit out this year’s TdS, Bjørgen returned to the World Cup race scene five weeks after La Clusaz, adding another 10 k win to her list. She’d tally four more 10 k victories — one of them at world champs — to end the season undefeated at that distance.
By the end of world champs, Bjørgen had accumulated four gold medals. She’d go on to win the Holmenkollen 30 k classic mass start by more than two minutes and capped off the Québec City World Cup Finals with a mini-tour victory. All while simultaneously being a mom.
Honorable Mention: Heidi Weng, Norwegian World Cup Team
Two seasons ago in Kuusamo, Finland, in November 2015, Norway’s Heidi Weng made an honest mistake in a 10 k classic pursuit and “spaced”: she skied past the lap lane and into the finish, crossed the line and collapsed. She still had an entire lap to ski. Weng righted the situation, backtracked, and finished ninth.
Who doesn’t make mistakes? Unfortunately Weng’s was exposed on the world stage.
Norway’s Heidi Weng (3) celebrates her third World Cup victory and first-career sprint win in the women’s classic sprint in Lillehammer, Norway. She edged her teammate Maiken Caspersen Falla (r) by 0.48 seconds. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
At the time, her teammates Therese Johaug and Marit Bjørgen were the dominant Norwegian forces on the women’s side. It was as if Weng’s narrative would be continually defined by race place and time back to Johaug and Bjørgen.
This past World Cup season, Weng proved her detractors wrong. She finished the season first in the Overall World Cup, first in the Distance World Cup and fourth in the overall sprint standings. That’s two crystal globes in Weng’s trophy case. Weng also won her first Tour de Ski.
Those awards were for a stellar season in which the 25 year old sustained her fitness and motivation. But there’s more — she won two golds at World Championships in Lahti in the classic team sprint and 4 x 5 k relay. Weng added a silver to that collection when she placed second in the 30 k skate mass start.
“I must have a little more confidence that I am a good skier because I always think I am not as good as the others, but now I have a better head,” Weng said after the last race of the season in Quebec. She placed second in the World Cup Finals mini tour, behind Bjørgen.
Honorable Mention: Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, Norwegian National U23 Team
There were a number of names Norway planned to enter in the first race of the season. Johannes Høsflot Klæbo was not one of them. He was a three-time Junior World champion in 2016, but his World Cup experience? None. That, however, did little to deter the 20-year-old from making a statement his first year racing on the circuit.
Norwegian Johannes Høsflot Klæbo racing to his second career distance win in the men’s 15 k freestyle pursuit at World Cup Finals in Quebec City. (Photo: John Lazenby/Lazenbyphoto.com)
In his debut World Cup race, one he wasn’t even originally supposed to start, Klæbo sprinted to third, after qualifying first to start the day. His second career World Cup sprint was just as sweet: he podiumed in third, finishing behind American Simi Hamilton and fellow Norwegian Sindre Bjørnestad Skar.
And by the his third World Cup sprint, Klæbo was calling the shots. He earned his first World Cup win in February, besting his teammate Finn Hågen Krogh and Russia’s Ustiugov by more than half a second.
Following world champs, he would go on to place second in the Drammen sprint and win the final two distance races of the year (his first-ever distance World Cup wins) to win World Cup Finals. On top of all that, he also ended the season as the Sprint World Cup leader, earning his first Sprint Crystal Globe.
Honorable Mention: Martin Johnsrud Sundby, Norwegian World Cup Team
Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby leads Finland’s Iivo Niskanen during the World Cup 50 k classic mass start at Holmenkollen last month in Oslo, Norway.
There have always been racing hot streaks, peaks for major championships, timeless and historic runs on the World Cup. FasterSkier’s International Skier of the Year could have gone to Martin Johnsrud Sundby, who has been on a roll of his own following a professional and emotional setback last summer when he was sanctioned for an anti-doping violation.
Back in full force for the 2016/2017 World Cup season, Sundby captured his third overall Crystal Globe in the last four seasons (he was stripped of his 2014/2015 overall title for the infraction).
Those prizes were the result of 12 individual podiums, five of which were wins. All but one of the remaining podiums were for second place.
In his final World Cup race of the season, the 50 k Holmenkollen classic, Sundby dueled with Finland’s Iivo Niskanen for much of the race. In the closing chapters of the race, Sundby pulled away for a solo win to the delight of tens of thousands of Norwegian fans.
Yet Sundby did not win the Tour de Ski or secure his first-career individual World Championships gold medal. Make no mistake, Sundby’s season was stand out. But the albatross around Sundby’s neck, in particular when it comes to his standing as one of the all-time Norwegian greats, is still that individual world champs or Olympic gold. The next two years offer Sundby more opportunities for that world title: there’s the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, and the 2019 World Championships in Seefeld, Austria.
Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov celebrates with his supporters after winning the final climb and his first Tour de Ski overall title on Sunday at Alpe Cermis in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Noah Hoffman.
There were moments in Sunday’s 9-kilometer freestyle climb up Alpe Cermis, the seventh and final stage of the 2017 Tour de Ski, that Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby appeared to be putting some serious time into Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov up front.
In the first two kilometers, Sundby as the runner-up entering the day had gained three seconds on Ustiugov, who had won all but one stage so far in the Tour. Norway’s reigning Tour de Ski champion lost about six seconds over the next four kilometers leading up to the climb itself, which began in earnest around 6.2 k, but after that, Sundby regained about 13 seconds on Ustiugov by by 8.1 k.
Despite looking relatively strong on a course that ascends an alpine run with an average grade of 28 percent, with less than a kilometer remaining, Sundby was still 53.8 seconds behind Ustiugov. At one point, an unofficial, TV-generated speedometer estimated Sundby was going 1 k per hour on one of the steepest sections of the course. At that rate, there was no possible way he could catch Ustiugov, unless the Russian stopped before the finish line at the top.
Ustiugov didn’t let off, and actually took back nine seconds on Sundby in the final kilometer. The Russian crossed the line without anyone in sight in 30:27.7 minutes for his first Tour de Ski title at the ripe age of 24. Sundby finished 1:02.9 minutes later — with a net gain over his 1:12-minute starting deficit — to place second overall.
“There is no other venue in the world that makes the best skiers in the world look like amateurs.” — Canada’s Devon Kershaw on the Tour de Ski’s final climb up Alpe Cermis
“He’s a worthy winner,” the 32-year-old Sundby told NRK after. “The gap was too great, and my chances would have been slim either way.”
He noted that his leadup to the race wasn’t ideal.
“I’ve had a stomach problem all night, so the buildup to the race wasn’t that good. It’s frustrating,” Sundby said. “It was brutal.”
Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov racing to the victory in the final climb of the 2017 Tour de Ski on Sunday in Val di Fiemme, Italy. He finished more than a minute ahead of Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby (not shown) in second after starting with a 1:12-minute lead. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
Overall, Ustiugov moved into second overall in the World Cup standings, 177 points behind Sundby. Before the Tour, he ranked eighth, and had won one World Cup this season: the freestyle sprint in Davos, Switzerland. This year, Ustiugov became the first man to lead a Tour from start to finish, through every stage. He lost just once, in Saturday’s 15 k classic mass start, and for a grand total of approximately 128,000 Swiss francs (about $125,700 U.S. dollars) during the Tour.
According to an International Ski Federation (FIS) press release, Ustiugov became the first man to win five consecutive stages of a Tour de Ski, surpassing Sundby’s four-straight wins last year. After Switzerland’s Dario Cologna, he is the second-youngest man to win the Tour. (Cologna was 22 when he won it in 2009.) And he’s the second Russian to win it after Alexander Legkov (currently provisionally suspended) won it in 2013. Russia is now the second nation, other than Norway, with two different Tour de Ski winners.
In a televised post-race interview with FIS, an emotional Ustiugov started off by thanking his original coach.
“As for now, I don’t have any emotions, no thoughts,” he said through a translator. “I did it for all my guys, so boys, we did it, and thank all of Russia. I know everyone was watching and they all were supporting me.”
According to FIS, Ustiugov later said it was “like a dream come true. I fought very hard for this. Today was incredibly tough. I thought I was on autopilot, I did not actually realize I crossed the finish line. It is an amazing feeling to be a Tour de Ski champion.”
France’s Maurice Manificat celebrates his “time of day” victory in Stage 7 of the 2017 Tour de Ski, with the fastest time in the 9 k freestyle hill climb in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Salomon/Nordic Focus)
Starting behind Ustiugov and Sundby on Sunday, Switzerland’s Dario Cologna ended up posting the fifth-fastest course time (in 29:42.7) to hang onto third overall (+1:19.1). He finished 16.2 seconds after Sundby and 7.8 seconds ahead of France’s Maurice Manificat, the “winner of the day” based on his course time (29:20.0) and fourth overall (+1:26.9).
At the start, Cologna had 52 seconds separating him from second and 29 seconds between him and Finland’s Matti Heikkinen in fourth. Heikkinen started 1 second before Manificat and 9 seconds before Canada’s Alex Harvey, who entered the final stage ranked sixth.
By the 4 k checkpoint, still skiing along a thin ribbon of snow winding through the valley at the base of Alpe Cermis, Harvey was leading Manificat and Heikkinen with Cologna in clear view, about 20 seconds of them. Harvey had previously caught the Frenchman and Finn by 1.8 k.
The three continued to pursue Cologna in a hunt for third, skiing together into the base of the climb, with Manificat leading at 6.2 k, and with Heikkinen sharing the load up front though 7.1 k. Over the next kilometer, Sweden’s Marcus Hellner (who started seventh, 12 seconds behind Harvey) successfully caught the Canadian and was a second ahead of him by the 8.1 k checkpoint.
Switzerland’s Dario Cologna celebrates third in at the top of the final climb in the last stage of the 2017 Tour de Ski on Sunday in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
The two were 14 and 15 seconds behind Heikkinen in fourth, while Manificat began to drop Heikkinen in his quest for Cologna. With 0.5 k remaining, Manificat had caught Cologna, even leading him at one point, before Cologna passed him back and held onto his position through the finish.
“I had to fight hard with two of the strongest climbers behind me,” Cologna told Swiss broadcaster SRF. “It was a difficult position, having to push right from the start. I went into the climb with a little gap, and could ski my own tempo, then I noticed they were getting closer. But the moment Manificat came up to me I slowed down a little, saving a little bit for the counterattack, and that worked out great.”
Manificat finished 7.8 seconds off the overall Tour podium in fourth, but outlasted Heikkinen by 6.1 seconds for to win the “time of day” and with it, Stage 7.
Norway’s Hans Christer Holund placed third for course time (+15.8), ahead of Hellner in fourth (+19.0). Harvey’s time ranked 14th (+1:04.9) ahead of American Noah Hoffman in 15th (+1:05.3) and Ustiugov in 16th (+1:07.7).
Harvey ended up seventh across the line, 2:39.7 minutes behind Ustiugov and 33.9 seconds behind Hellner in sixth, for Harvey’s best Tour de Ski result. His previous best was 10th in the 2011 edition. With his seventh-place Tour finish, Harvey improved to fifth in the overall World Cup standings — after entering the seven-stage series ranked ninth in the World Cup.
Canada’s Alex Harvey racing to seventh in the men’s 9 k freestyle hill climb to end the 2017 Tour de Ski in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: CCC/NordicFocus)
“If it was a one-day race it would be relief when you reach the finish line. Throw in six races before this race and it is absolute relief when you get to the top,” Harvey said, according to a Cross Country Canada press release.
“It was quite good today. That was the best position ever for me up the climb, and I had the 14th best time on the day,” he said. “I was skiing with Manificat and Heikkinen, who had the top-two times on the day. I was with them for a bit, but it was just a bit too fast for me. They crushed everyone on the hill.
“The first part is not so bad, but when you hit that first pitch your legs feel like concrete and then you have to tough it out for the last 15 minutes,” Harvey explained. “Normally you have a downhill, and flats, to recover, but here you don’t flush any lactate. You just keep going and it is a battle against yourself.”
Moving forward, Harvey was positive about his chances in next year’s Tour.
“This gives me a lot of confidence for next year to know that if I’m in the top three, I am fast enough to keep it together on the last day and get on the overall podium,” he said. “It feels great to have my best finish ever. I had a really good start of the season with a number of top 10’s, but sometimes you start to think, is seventh the best I can do? I wanted to take that next step and get on the podium in the Tour and I did that.”
Two Canadians and an American raced the final climb, with Devon Kershaw (Canadian World Cup Team) placing 25th (+9:32.2) after starting 7:19 back in 23rd. Of 40 finishers, the least amount ever in 11 years of the Tour, Kershaw’s course time ranked 39th. (Of note, the 34-year-old Kershaw is one of three athletes to have started all 11 Tours, according to Cross Country Canada.)
“It was a raunch-fest today for me up the hill, I am actually kind of embarrassed,” Kershaw said on the phone after. “I was destroyed after that classic race yesterday so I think I just didn’t recover well enough, and going up the hill, it’s not a ski race, it’s just survival. I mean, there is no other venue in the world that makes the best skiers in the world look like amateurs and when you’re a bit off, like I was today … it was awful, but I am happy to stay 25th in the overall of course. That is not where I want to be, but all things considered 25th is better than I was last year at the Tour de Ski.”
At last year’s Tour, Kershaw placed 32nd, while Harvey placed 14th. In the penultimate stage of this year’s Tour on Saturday, Kershaw finished 27th in the 15 k classic mass start, one of his target races. His best result of the Tour (and best result in nearly three years) came in last week’s Stage 3 in Oberstdorf, Germany, where Kershaw placed 10th in the 20 k skiathlon.
“What I take forward from it is the 10th place and being so close to the podium there. That really meant a lot to me,” he reflected. “… The goal for the season is to have a few great races and I have had one that was that was so close to great that I hope to, at World Championships and beyond, have some more races like that.”
Hoffman of the U.S. Ski Team moved up four spots after starting 30th and 9:32 back to place 26th overall in the Tour. With the 15th-fastest course time, Hoffman crossed the line 8.1 seconds after Kershaw and 9:40.3 behind Ustiugov.
Last year, Hoffman placed 22nd in the Tour, again with the 15th-fastest time of day up Alpe Cermis (to improve from 26th to 22nd). Hoffman said Saturday that his goal was a top 15 for time of day on Sunday.
“I am definitely pleased to have a top 15 time today, and to move up solidly into the top 30 for the Tour,” Hoffman wrote in an email. “I definitely feel like this race can be a stepping stone for me for the rest of the season. I haven’t skied at a world class level yet this year, but I know that I’ve trained at that level and I believe I can show it in the remainder of the season, especially at World Champs.
“This hill climb is really fun for me,” he added. “It plays to my strengths and it’s just a cool unique event. I’m glad I had another opportunity to race it.”
Canadian World Cup Team skier Graeme Killick was slated to start 37th and 11:25 back on Sunday, but did not start.
Killick and Harvey could not be reached for comment.
The Canadians left Val di Fiemme shortly after the final climb and planned to head in different directions. On Saturday, Hoffman said the U.S. team planned to stay there until Tuesday, then venture to Seiser Alm, Italy, to recover.
“Alex [Harvey] is heading to Seefeld … and I am headed home to Oslo tomorrow morning,” Kershaw said. “Graham is heading back to Canada for a couple of weeks to recharge. The midpoint of the season is over and we are all going to go back and regroup and recharge and get ready for the next part here.”
‘It’s Gigantic’
Getting back to Ustiugov’s victory, which is certainly a high point for Russia, after the nation has been embroiled in the revelations of its state-sponsored doping program dating back to before the 2012 London Olympics and marring much of the 2014 Sochi Games.
“It’s gigantic,” Ustiugov’s coach Markus Cramer said to German broadcaster ZDF of his athlete’s overall win on Sunday. “I am incredibly happy for Sergey, and of course for the whole team with how much we recently were shaken up with the whole circumstances. Of course, it’s really beautiful to bring, in the end, a convincing victory home into the finish.”
The circumstances Cranmer was referring to were the provisional suspensions of six Russian cross-country skiers being investigated as a result of the McLaren report. Ustiugov, along with all of the Russians still competing on the circuit, was not reportedly named in that report.
“You’ve got to tip your hat to him, the guy had five wins and then today…,” Canada’s Kershaw said Sunday. “Ustiugov came into this tour, like, ‘I have been around a decently long time.’ … We didn’t know that when he won world juniors and then swept U23 [World Championships] and won some sprints, then now we know. … He won so many different ways this Tour; I have never seen anything quite so dominant…”
“… I will maybe take some heat for this, but you have to be innocent until proven guilty,” Kershaw continued. “FIS did take a position and banned six athletes and Ustiugov wasn’t one of those people. … The only thing that I didn’t really like — but I understand maybe he doesn’t know or maybe none of us really know, it’s pretty murky — is when he said, ‘This is for the boys back home.’ I realize he is a bit pissed [about the suspensions], but he is a young athlete.
“If we cant believe in our winners than it’s probably time to step away from the sport altogether,” Kershaw continued. “I really hope he is clean, and we have seen dominance in skiing before and we will see it again, and this was something pretty special.”
Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l) well ahead of the field as he double poles toward the finish in Saturday’s 15 k classic mass start, which he won by 2.2 seconds over Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (third from r) while Finland’s Matti Heikkinen (second from r, ahead of Ustiugov) placed third at the Tour de Ski Stage 6 in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
Six laps. Three climbs per lap. Fifteen-kilometer classic mass start. If you’re in it to win it, where do you make your move?
That was the kind of calculating Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby was doing throughout Saturday’s Stage 6 mass start, the second-to-last stage of the 2017 Tour de Ski, in Val di Fiemme, Italy. Every time he rounded the 2.5 k loop, the man he needed to beat — Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov — was right there, either leading or within a few strides of first.
Through five Tour stages, the 24-year-old Ustiugov was unbeaten. Could he be beat? Yes, Sundby thought, but it was going to take some brains as well as brawn.
He had to be patient, despite being extremely frustrated with his race on Friday, when he placed 14th in the 10 k freestyle in Toblach, Italy. That put him more than a minute and a half behind Ustiugov in the overall Tour with two stages to go.
“Yesterday’s race was really bad and it is good I could win today,” Sundby said, according to an International Ski Federation (FIS) press release. “I was little bit conservative at the beginning. I wanted to win some bonus seconds. I had some power left and I am happy about victory.”
He attacked on the last lap just before the 13.9 k mark, after pulling up alongside Ustiugov on the first long climb out of the stadium, while Switzerland’s Dario Cologna did the same on the other side of the Russian in the Tour leader’s bib.
Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby glances back to make sure he’s out of reach during the final kilometer of the men’s 15 k classic mass start at Stage 6 of the Tour de Ski in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
Sundby’s move wasn’t obvious then, but it was along a long false-flat, where he began dropping the field with an unmatched double pole. Heading into a tricky descent before the final climb, Sundby had successfully broken away and frequently checked back to make sure Ustiugov wasn’t anywhere near him.
Ustiugov and two of his Russian teammates, Andrey Larkov and Alexander Bessmertnykh, continued to lead the chase, followed by Cologna, Finland’s Matti Heikkinen, Norway’s Niklas Dyrhaug, and even Italy’s Francesco de Fabiani had worked his way into the mix.
Up that last steep climb, Cologna switched from the right to the left tracks suddenly, appearing to cut off Heikkinen, who moved outside the tracks to get around him. A few strides later, Dyrhaug stepped outside the right tracks to get around Ustiugov, but Ustiugov wasn’t having it. He stepped out as well, forcing Dyrhaug to file back in behind him. All of this was shaping up to be a fight for second; Sundby was too far gone.
The second-ranked man in the Tour, Sundby finished in 40:40.0 minutes, while Ustiugov caught a draft and out-double poled the chase pack for second place, crossing 2.2 seconds later. That still puts Ustiugov 1:12 minutes ahead going into the final climb (yep, he’ll start 1:12 minutes ahead of anyone else in the 9 k freestyle hill climb up Alpe Cermis), but at least for Sundby it’s not 1:34.
But as Ustiugov said Friday, “For Martin, a minute does not mean anything … The main thing is not to lose all that has been so hard-earned in these five races.”
“Today’s performance gives me a different starting point in tomorrow’s race,” Sundby told NRK. “I need a little miracle tomorrow, but I’m not going to quit before I cross the finish line.”
Finishing 0.6 seconds behind Ustiugov on Saturday, and nearly being taken out by the Russian at the finish when Ustiugov collapsed sideways across the line, was Heikkinen in third (+2.8). Fourth through eighth place were all within 1.1 seconds of the podium, with de Fabiani taking fourth (+3.2), Larkov fifth (+3.3), Dyrhaug sixth (+3.5), Cologna seventh (+3.8), and Bessmertnykh eighth (+3.9).
After that, there was a 6-second gap Norway’s Hans Christer Holund in ninth (+9.9), Sweden’s Marcus Hellner finished 10th (+10.3), France’s Jean-Marc Gaillard 11th (+13.6), Sweden’s Jens Burman 12th (+14.9), and France’s Maurice Manificat 13th (+16.3).
Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (r) leads his Russian teammates Alexander Bessmertnykh (23) and Alexey Larkov (l) during the men’s 15 k classic mass start at Stage 6 of the Tour de Ski in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
The fact that Ustiugov finished second was largely in part to his teammates, Larkov and Bessmertnykh, who drove the pace and helped box out competitors up front, especially early in the final lap. Ustiugov even drafted one of them on the final descent into the stadium before switching to an open lane in the finishing straight and double poling to the front of the chase pack.
“I am grateful to my teammates,” Ustiugov said, according to a loose translation. “If they did not help me, one of them could have won the mass start. Tomorrow’s race? We’ll see. In any case, it will be interesting. I understand perfectly … what is waiting for me, despite the fact that I was only passed once on the final uphill.”
One thing Saturday showed: the Russian is beatable. Last year, Sundby won the climb, both as the first man at the top and with the fastest time up the 9 k grind. France’s Robin Duvillard, who is not competing in this year’s Tour, was second (+7.2) for time of day, and Heikkinen was third (+11.8).
Ustiugov as the fourth starter clocked the 13th-fastest time, 47.6 seconds behind Sundby. Of note, American Noah Hoffman was 15th (+56.4) and Canada’s Alex Harvey 16th (+1:07.4) for final-climb time.
Ustiugov ended up third overall in the 2016 Tour, arriving at the top near four minutes after Sundby.
Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (front, in Tour leader’s bib) leading early in the men’s 15 k classic mass start on Saturday, along with Canada’s Alex Harvey (l) at Stage 6 of the Tour de Ski in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
“… I think he’s in better shape now,” Harvey said on the phone Saturday about Ustiugov. “So I think those two guys [Ustiugov and Sundby] will stay in front, and Sundby probably second. I think it will be just a really good fight…”
On Sunday, Harvey will start sixth in this year’s final climb, 2:42 minutes behind Ustiugov and 38 seconds behind Cologna, who is third overall.
“I am third at the moment with a lead of more than 20 seconds, that surely looks positive, but it’s a long flat section before the climb,” Cologna told Swiss broadcaster SRF. “It’s almost a minute to Sundby, and he is not a bad climber, either. So I really have to look how I can defend my third place. That’s the goal for tomorrow.“
Harvey entered Saturday’s 15 k classic mass start in fourth overall but dropped two spots when he finished 19th, 38.7 seconds after Sundby. Also slated to start ahead of Harvey on Sunday are Heikkinen, who is fourth overall (+2:33) and Manificat in fifth (+2:34).
“Manificat will try early on the hill, and then Heikkinen. I’m sure they’ll be pushing really hard down the flat to kind of close that 26-, 28-second gap that they have on Dario [Cologna],” Harvey anticipated. “… When you see someone up the hill, like 10 seconds, it seems like they’re three meters ahead, always. So I think that it’s a good position to be in, for Heikkinen especially. My guess for the podium is probably Ustiugov, Sundby, and Heikkinen, but I’ll be in there, too, so we’ll see.”
On Saturday, Harvey surged to the front of the pack early, leading at 1.1 k, with superior skis on the uphills, he said. Also up there with him was Romania’s Paul Constantin Pepene — sort of a surprise at this point in the Tour.
“The Romanian guy started really fast and then he blew up right away,” Harvey said, of Pepene falling off the pace after 2.5 k. “There was a prime in the second lap early on … and I think I had one of the best grip out there today, so on that steep hill it was pretty easy for me to just run in the track and get that prime [for 15 bonus seconds].”
Alex Harvey (Canadian World Cup Team) en route to 19th in the men’s 15 k classic mass start on Saturday, which puts him sixth overall in the Tour de Ski with one stage remaining in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Salomon/Nordic Focus)
Heading into Lap 3, Harvey said the wheels started to come off.
“When we lapped into the stadium, I was starting to get kind of yo-yoed a bit near the end of the group,” Harvey recalled. “And then tried to fight my way back up on the climbs, but I was getting yo-yoed a bit, and then the elastic just broke.”
Fewer than 5 seconds out of first at 5 k while skiing in seventh, Harvey was down to 15th by the end of the next lap, yet still within 7 seconds of Ustiugov in first.
Early on the fourth lap, he was 15 seconds back in 18th, just ahead of Great Britain’s Andrew Musgrave and Harvey’s teammate Devon Kershaw in 19th and 20th, respectively. Another three seconds back, a third Canadian, Graeme Killick was skiing in 25th (+18.7) at 8.6 k.
“I actually didn’t know he was there until he just passed me, but yeah, I skied with him for a bit,” Harvey said of Kershaw, who passed him shortly after.
Harvey recalled that Kershaw “got kind of tangled up with a Russian in the herringbone part, and then I think he said he lost our group there.”
Kershaw could not be immediately reached for comment after Saturday’s race.
The start of Lap 5 saw Harvey 10 seconds back from the leaders in 18th and Kershaw another five seconds back in 24th, with Killick following roughly three seconds later in 26th. Harvey was nearly 20 seconds behind one lap later, skiing in 17th, and he closed the race out in 19th (his worst result after placing 11th on Friday in the Toblach 10 k) of the Tour.
“I don’t know. The body was good,” Harvey said.
As for Sunday: “Oh I’m ready,” he said. “I kind of want revenge after today.”
“Alex is a competitive guy and is hungry,” Canadian World Cup coach Ivan Babikov said, according to a Cross Country Canada press release. “He will be in a group of about four guys who are all good climbers. Dario is always strong, but anything is possible.”
Kershaw finished the race in 27th (+1:21.1) and Killick 32nd (+1:31.0). They will start the final climb in 23rd (+7:19) and 37th (+11:25), respectively.
“Coming into the Tour this year the priority races for me to target were the 10km in Val Mustair and the 15km tomorrow in Val di Fiemme,” Kershaw wrote in an email on Friday. “… [The 15 k mass start] will be a real battle royale and it’s the crux of this tour for the top 10. A lot of really strong guys are grouped close together and aside from Ustiugov who has made a mockery of this years event I would say it’s wide open.
“What that means is that with the two bonus sprints on course and the time at the line – there is 45sec available – there will be a lot of hungry racers gunning for it. Blend that with a difficult and punishing course here in Val di Fiemme and I think this race will be blown open pretty good,” Kershaw anticipated. “I hope to have a good start and really just feel good in the body because you are going to need that for sure if you want to have a good race.”
“It is a tough course and the guys are pretty tired but they dug deep today,” Babikov said Saturday, according to the press release. “We might have missed it a bit with the skis. We may have gone with something a bit too sticky.
“It was really hard-packed snow and this is a tough course to get the skis right,” Babikov added. “Ideally you want to have good kick and a fast glide, but it is a gamble on a course this tough. The tracks were firm and icy but there were some sections where there were no tracks and others with powdery snow. We will debrief on it tonight.”
The lone American to finish, Noah Hoffman landed in the points for the second-straight stage in 30th (+1:17.1) after skiing in 34th for the first two-thirds of the race. By 12.5 k, Hoffman was up into 29th, right behind Russia’s Petr Sedov in 28th and about 50 seconds behind the leaders.
“I actually felt like I skied the second half pretty well,” Hoffman said on the phone. “I was able to make contact with that group that contained all the way up to 22nd place by the end. I didn’t really lose that much time … But I mean, yeah, certainly not a standout result. I kind of feel like a broken record, when every race I’m like, ‘Well, there were some good signs and I’m optimistic that it’s going to come around, but it’s not here yet.’ That’s kind of where I’m at.”
Hoffman will start the final climb — a race he hopes to place in the top 15 in for time of day — in 30th (+9:42).
“I’ve been top 20 on time on day a couple times, but I’m kind of frustrated, I feel like I haven’t shown what I can really do up a climb like that,” he said. “It’s a stage that was built for me, especially if I have help down in the valley, which I do tomorrow, because I’m starting with Sedov and that Swede [Viktor Thorn right behind me].
“So I will definitely rely on some help to get to the base of the climb, and then I feel like once we get there, then I just need to use my energy and show what I can do,” Hoffman added. “I think I can move up. Certainly a spot or two would be great, but there’s some pretty good time gaps [ahead of me]. But I would love to be at least top 15 for time on day, and I feel like that’s something I can do if I show my aerobic capacities.”
Erik Bjornsen’s crash caught on camera during the first lap of the men’s 15 k classic mass start at Stage 6 of the Tour de Ski on Saturday in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: CCC/Eurosport screenshot)
American Erik Bjornsen started the race but crashed on the first lap on a climb which plagued top competitors in the women’s race as well.
According to Hoffman, he and Bjornsen watched the women’s race on TV in the athletes’ lounge before their race.
“And it was in that exact same spot, Kalla and Pärmäkoski went down. … That corner does not ski challenging when you’re alone, but it’s a corner that when you get into a pack, it transforms a bit,” Hoffman recalled. “There was just an ice patch that opened up. I kind of couldn’t believe it when Erik went down, I was like, ‘Oh my god, that is exactly what we just watched Pärmäkoski and Kalla do.”
Hoffman was behind Bjornsen at the time and narrowly avoided a pileup Russians he created.
“I believe [Erik] broke a pole, but I have not had a chance to talk with him about why he decided to drop out,” Hoffman said of Bjornsen pulling out of the race at the halfway point at the end of the third lap.
Bjornsen could also not be immediately reached for comment.
The women’s podium at the 5 k freestyle on Friday at Stage 5 of the 2017 Tour de Ski, with two Americans: Jessie Diggins (c) in first and Sadie Bjornsen (r) in third, and Finland’s Krista Parmakoski in second. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Lining up at the start of the women’s 5-kilometer freestyle individual start on Friday, it was a different Jessie Diggins than a year ago. Here the American was, again in Toblach, Italy, again in the third-to-last stage of the Tour de Ski, again about to race another one of those rare formats on the World Cup circuit: the 5 k individual.
But this time last year, she had never won a World Cup, let alone reached the podium in an individual race. Thirteen minutes later (well, more than that, after all of the 5 k racers had finished), that all changed.
This time around, reporters asked her leading up to the 5 k freestyle whether this race was hers to lose. She joked that she was shooting for a top 23.
“I did feel that I was working hard to not put a lot of pressure on myself,” Diggins recalled on the phone after Friday’s race, Stage 5 of the 2017 Tour de Ski. “… Of course I want to go out there and win. I believed in myself, I believed in the team, I believed in the techs, so I knew that if everything went well, I knew I could win. But I didn’t want to make this bigger than big, crazy, pressure-filled day.”
So she woke up and went for a jog, “did a little happy dance,” and prepared as she would any other race day.
“When an athlete is in the top five, you get asked some pretty aggressive questions,” U.S. Ski Team Women’s Coach Matt Whitcomb said on the phone after Friday’s race. “They just want to focus on skiing the best race possible, but the media is asking you if you plan to defend your title. So I think [Jessie has] developed a really professional approach to some of the harder questions that she’s getting asked in these flash interviews just before the races. She’s saying, ‘Yeah, I do plan to defend my title,’ but just because you say that, it doesn’t mean you’re betting your house. You’re identifying that you are going to go out there and race with all you have.”
Per her request, Diggins started 12th on Friday in a field of 40 women remaining in the Tour.
“I asked the coaches to start me as early as possible for no other reason than I didn’t want splits,” she recalled. “It didn’t matter to me. I just wanted to go and race.”
Jessie Diggins (U.S. Ski Team) racing to first for her third-straight 5 k freestyle victory on Friday at Stage 5 of the Tour de Ski in Toblach, Italy. Diggins won her first World Cup race in the Toblach 5 k one year ago. She remains fifth in the Tour standings with two stages to go. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
One 5 k lap and 12:45.6 minutes later, Diggins finished as the new race leader, 14.9 seconds faster than Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla in bib 10. It was almost exactly 30 seconds faster than Diggins’s time on the same course last year.
She was psyched, but had no idea if it would be fast enough to stay in first. Either way, she had to race again the next day, so Diggins proceeded to gather her clothes and begin her recovery routine, starting with a snack.
By the time Diggins returned to the finish area, she realized that her time not only stood, but her fellow U.S. Ski Team member Sadie Bjornsen was contending for a podium as well. Bjornsen started 26th and initially finished second, 0.3 seconds ahead of Kalla and 14.6 seconds behind Diggins. By the time Diggins reached her teammate, Bjornsen was third after being bumped by Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski, who was still 13.6 seconds off Diggins’s time.
“I came back just as Krista finished and bumped her down one, but we were still just like, it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen,” Diggins said of Bjornsen’s first career podium. “And we were just so excited, jumping up and down. I hugged Sadie and she started crying and then I started crying. It was so cool because if the whole team can celebrate like that … when you win by yourself, that’s fun, and people are psyched and stuff. When more than one person’s on the podium, then the whole team really celebrates. It’s a different feeling and it’s way cooler and I love it a lot.”
Sadie Bjornsen (U.S. Ski Team) after placing third for her first career World Cup podium on Friday in the 5 k freestyle at Stage 5 of the Tour de Ski in Toblach, Italy. She is now ninth in the Tour standings. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
“At first I couldn’t believe it,” Bjornsen recalled on the phone about her third-place finish, which became official not too long after she celebrated with Diggins.
“Two months ago, I was struggling so much that I wasn’t sure if I would be starting on the World Cup,” she said of painful bone spurs in her heels. “The emotions of what it took to get there comes to you at that point. … I had to wait till Heidi [Weng of Norway] came in to seal the deal.”
Bjornsen’s reality began to set in once Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (who entered Friday ranked third overall in the Tour) finished seventh, 8.9 seconds off Bjornsen’s time and 23.5 seconds behind Diggins. Then the last starter, Norway’s Heidi Weng (previously ranked second in the Tour) crossed the line in fifth, 2.9 seconds slower than Bjornsen and 17.5 seconds off Diggins’s winning time. That bumped Østberg to eighth (and subsequently everyone else after Weng down one place as well).
So that was that. Diggins defended her victory in the Toblach stage one year later and notched her third-consecutive 5 k win, which ties the record set by Russia’s Elena Välbe in the 1990s (for the most 5 k freestyle victories in a row), according to an International Ski Federation (FIS) press release.
Also of note, Friday marked the 17th World Cup win for the U.S. women’s team. According to FIS, 13 of those wins came in sprints. The four others were a 3 k freestyle prologue (won by Kikkan Randall at the 2012/2013 Tour de Ski) and now three 5 k skate races (all won by Diggins in the past year).
“The skill we are all trying to accomplish, to acquire, is to become a faster ski racer, and also how to win, and how to be not such an emotional and taxing process,” Whitcomb explained. “It’s a big deal. There’s a lot of responsibilities along with success, so the difference between [Diggins] this year and last year is her dealing with these little pieces of the equation that come with being a ski racer, and particularly a successful ski racer.”
As for Bjornsen’s podium, he said that was expected.
“Not in a way that would put pressure on Sadie, but in a way that … we believe in her,” Whitcomb said. “She’s an incredible competitor. For it to finally come together in an individual race, Sadie’s been on the podium numbers of times [in team events] and with teammates. To have it happen in a distance event, in an individual race, that’s very special.”
“It feels so good to get my first individual podium… but even more special to get that first one with a teammate on top,” Bjornsen wrote in an email. “All the girls on this team are an inspiration to me. We are dreamers, but we are also believers. It’s crazy how much confidence you can get from a teammate’s success if you allow yourself to stand beside them.”
‘What Would Jessie Diggins Do?’
Jessie Diggins celebrating her third career win (in three-consecutive 5 k freestyle races) as well as double podium for the U.S. women with teammate Sadie Bjornsen (not shown) in third on Friday at Stage 5 of the Tour de Ski in Toblach, Italy. (Photo: Salomon/Nordic Focus)
In terms of the 5 k itself, it was one you couldn’t attack like a sprint. Or else you’d die, Diggins said. Then she laughed. “Well, probably not die, but you know, I’m feeling dramatic at the moment,” she jested.
Same ol’ Diggins after all. At 25, the Minnesota native simply has seven more podiums and three more wins than she did before last year’s Toblach 5 k.
All kidding aside, Diggins said it was important to be mindful of Toblach’s altitude, some 4,500 feet above sea level. Also, the first half of the course is a bit of a grinding, winding uphill, she said.
“If you finish the very first climb, and you’re like, I nailed it, now I really need to tuck for a minute, you don’t get that [in Toblach],” Diggins said. “So I guess you do have to ski each section fast, but with enough gas in the tank that you can finish hard.”
Before the race, Diggins made a plan that included breaking the course into sections and attacking every part of it to the best of her ability.
“Instead of thinking about splits or worrying about what anyone else was doing, I was just thinking, right now I need to V2 this climb as well and technically good as I can, and then I’m going to corner on the fastest part of the snow possible, and then I’m going to ski this downhill in a tiny tuck,” she reflected. “Just really dissecting the course, and focusing on each second. I guess Matt [Whitcomb] would probably call that being in the flow.”
Diggins found her rhythm, as did Bjornsen, who came close to a podium three days earlier with her previous career best of fifth on Tuesday in the Stage 3 skiathlon.
Sadie Bjornsen (U.S. Ski Team) racing to her first career World Cup podium on Friday at Stage 5 of the Tour de Ski in Toblach, Italy. She placed third in the 5 k freestyle. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
“All this time, it’s like, I know I can do that, it’s just a matter of doing it,” Bjornsen said.
She had been waiting for this moment all her life, but felt particularly ready for a breakthrough after getting sick in France in mid-December. Then at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski in Val Müstair, Switzerland, she said she went out to win the 5 k classic mass start, but ended up 35th, outside the top 20 for the first time this season. Bjornsen said she “exploded” because of the altitude, which crushed her confidence.
“I had to work hard to get mentally back in the game and that confidence from that fifth was huge for me,” she said of Tuesday’s 10 k skiathlon. “And I was like, that’s crazy in skating that I can be that strong. After that I was like, I should believe in myself.”
Throughout the race, she told herself two things: “Stay strong Sadie,” and “What would Jessie Diggins do?” Bjornsen wrote. “There is so much work on the second half of the race, and Jessie is just amazing at being strong on that section … so I was imagining her the whole second half in front of me, and it seemed to have worked”
A year ago, Bjornsen blew up on this course and hung on for the second half for 13th at the finish. Not too shabby, but she had been out to win.
“Last year I told people, ‘I’m going out there to win,’ and at the time that was maybe a little bit of a joke because I hadn’t had too much skating success…,” she said.
This time, she decided to have more of a plan and told herself Friday’s race would be 12 minutes of solid work without any rests. Mostly, she told herself to back off slightly early on. At one point, she was concerned she started too hard.
That made Bjornsen laugh later on Friday as she considered her splits. At 1.6 k, her time ranked 10th and by 2.1 k, she was 12th overall. But by 3.4 k, she was back in the mix in fifth out of the 40 finishers. (Diggins paced it similarly, with the seventh-fastest split at 1.6 k and fourth-fastest at 2.1 k, before taking the lead for good at 3.4 k.)
“I finished and I was like, hmm, I wonder how that went,” Bjornsen said, after specifically requesting no splits during her race, like Diggins. “I wanted to go out there today and see how strong I could be inside my head. I love this course, but pacing is important, and I wanted to do my own thing.”
Then she saw Randall’s husband Jeff Ellis, who conducts televised post-race interviews for FIS, at the finish. He showed her the live results on his phone. Bjornsen couldn’t believe it. She sat down, and a few moments later she started walking out of the finishing pen.
“One of the [finish-area officials] told me I should stick around and I was like, ‘Really?’ I didn’t think that was necessary,” Bjornsen recalled.
Then Østberg finished, and she realized her result was for real.
The women’s podium at the 5 k freestyle on Friday at Stage 5 of the 2017 Tour de Ski, with two Americans: Jessie Diggins (c) in first and Sadie Bjornsen (r) in third, and Finland’s Krista Parmakoski in second. (Photo: Salomon/Nordic Focus)
“We were just so giddy,” Diggins recalled of the moments following the race, including a cool-down jog together before standing on the podium. “… I remember how psyched she was for me last year when I got my first one, and I was so psyched for her. It was cool to share that experience.”
They shared that moment with the rest of their team as well.
“As one of the U.S. coaches, as you approach the media zone, people just make way for you,” Whitcomb said of the experience of having an athlete, especially two athletes, on the podium. “They move their huge television cameras so you can experience a piece of that podium, and make sure you get your little picture on your iPhone, too, and having the opportunity to share it with them.
“What’s also special … what makes our team different the most, is right behind me, hopping over fences is Rosie and Liz and Kikkan, who managed to see the podium ceremony as well,” Whitcomb said of U.S. women’s team members Rosie Brennan, who placed 23rd (+43.3), Liz Stephen, who placed 32nd (+49.7), and Randall, who placed 40th (+1:38.6), on Friday.
“You don’t see other teammates out there very often; that’s something we take a lot of pride in, making sure to really take a moment to celebrate the success of your teammates,” Whitcomb said. “It’s easy to say, but hard to do.”
Brennan reflected on her first glance at the live results. When she got as far down as Bjornsen, she stopped before finding her own name.
“At that point, Sadie was sitting in second and Jessie was winning,” Brennan said on the phone. “I was like, ‘Oh my god!’ It was crazy ’cause literally in that second, it was the best my legs had felt all day. I got a flush of really good feelings, so then I ran back out to find them. So I didn’t know how I finished until much later.”
Beyond being incredibly excited for both her teammates, Brennan said it was inspirational seeing her year-round training partner at Alaska Pacific University, Bjornsen, finally reach the World Cup podium.
“I know how hard she works for it, and I know a lot of the challenges that she’s had to overcome to get there,” Brennan said. “It gives me a huge sense of confidence because I train with her … and I know that it’s possible for all of us to be there, and it just makes me believe in my program and what we have going on. It’s huge for everybody.”
During the women’s race, Bjornsen’s younger brother and teammate, Erik Bjornsen, was in the car en route to the next World Cup stop in Val di Fiemme, Italy, with teammate Noah Hoffman, but followed the live timing online.
“I kind of feel like I won today just because Sadie had such an outstanding race!” Bjornsen wrote in an email. “I’ve pretty much trained beside her since we started taking this sport seriously. I’ve seen her make steady improvements over the years, but this summer/fall she took another big step in her skating. I’d never seen a girl ski that nicely and I knew she was going to get some podiums this year. … She’s a ridiculously dedicated and hard worker, she deserved that result more than anyone!”
“It was an incredible day,” Stephen wrote in an email. “Seeing anyone’s first individual podium is always a really special thing. Sadie has worked so hard on her skating and distance skiing and to see it pay off is really amazing, and it will not be her last. As for Jessie, Toblach is decidedly her course! Two years in a row taking the win, and today by a wide margin is a pretty fun thing to see. Our girls are on fire and it is a momentum for the team to latch onto for sure.”
Weng New Tour Leader, Diggins 5th, Bjornsen 9th
Overall, Diggins kept her spot in fifth in the Tour, 1:23.3 seconds behind Weng as the new Tour leader with two stages in Val di Fiemme to go. Østberg is up to second overall, 11.1 seconds back, and Sweden’s Stina Nilsson slipped to third (+16.3) — after starting in the Tour leader’s bib — when she finished 20th (40.5 seconds behind Diggins).
Pärmäkoski remains in fourth overall, 36.8 seconds out of first and 20.5 seconds off the podium.
In an interview with iltalehti.fi, Pärmäkoski said she was surprised to be on the podium and felt it was more of a reflection of others being tired. Either way, she said a podium on Friday was an important step in her quest for a top overall finish.
“The weekend, with respect to everything, is open,” she said, according to a loose translation. “But the chances are good.”
“I guess I never expected to see that,” she said. “I mean you hope and you dream, and you train your butt off, but that was definitely a crazy thing, to realize that I could win by [not] just squeaking through, and I’m still trying to process that I guess.”
Bjornsen picked up three places for ninth overall in the Tour, 3:18.1 out of first and 6.8 seconds behind Germany’s Nicole Fessel in eighth.
“I’m just trying to think about each day individually,” Bjornsen said, “because as soon as I start thinking about overall, I get too nervous. Tomorrow’s another awesome race for me so I’m excited. I’m trying to conserve energy through this exciting time.”
The women race a 10 k classic mass start on Saturday followed by a 9 k freestyle hill climb up Alpe Cermis on Sunday to end the Tour.
“Every race is totally different. It’s a new opportunity, a new chance, so I’m going to go out tomorrow and go as hard as I can,” Diggins said. “I know that my fitness is in a great place. I have belief in myself that way. I think I just need to be focusing on my technique, as always. It was really weird, I had people ask me, ‘Will you be conservative tomorrow before the final [hill climb]?’ And I’m like, ‘When do you ever start a race and not plan on giving everything you have?’ I’m definitely going to go out there and race as hard as I can, and do my best, and then after, I’ll recover and then I’ll look forward to the next stage.”
Brennan Back in the Points
Also on track to finish out the Tour, Brennan notched her best result of the first five stages in 23rd, 43.3 seconds back from Diggins. Her split times were consistent, yet gradually faster, clocking in at 27th, 24th, and 23rd overall after she started 15th, a minute and 30 seconds after Diggins.
“We had really good skis … and I’ve raced this course quite a few times now, so I guess I had some familiarity with how it works, kind of how I wanted ski it,” Brennan said. “My legs felt absolutely horrible all day today. I was just trying to not think so much about how my body felt because it’s an individual start and you never know what’s going to happen. … I had no idea how well I was doing … and it worked out. It was great.”
U.S. Ski Team member Rosie Brennan (43) racing to a season-best World Cup result of 22nd in the 10 k freestyle mass start on Dec. 17 in La Clusaz, France. (Photo: Toko/NordicFocus)
Previously this season, Brennan placed 22nd in the 10 k freestyle at the World Cup in La Clusaz, France. That cemented her decision to stick around for the Tour de Ski.
“I really like the Tour format, it’s something that I think suits me pretty well, so it was definitely something that I had on my goals for the year,” she said.
“I’ve had a pretty rough Tour, and the last two days in Oberstdorf were particularly rough for me, and I was starting to wonder what the hell was going on,” Brennan explained. “I tried to start over fresh and just try to be like strong in my head, so I was really glad to see that I still had that, and that works, and I still had something in me.”
“We have two more days of racing so I don’t know how that will affect it,” she said of her overall World Cup standing. “It depends on how I do and how the people around me do. Any day you can score points, it’s going to help you.”
According to Whitcomb, he and Brennan discussed World Championships qualifying the night before.
“Last night we talked, just kind of cleared the air and discussed how qualifying for World Championships is a stressful thing, and the fact that we had made the commitment to this tour, which means that you can’t go home and try and prove it at nationals anymore, you’re in it,” Whitcomb said. “Rosie went into this race trying to focus just on it, through a fresh lens, without the stress of the disappointing races she’s had so far in this tour. .. It’s one thing to say what you’re going to do, but to actually execute it is challenging.
“I think she did that today, and skied fantastically,” he continued. “It was really impressive also to watch her work the downhills and generate speed on false-flat downhill sections … areas where someone like Jessie can really crank, that’s not one of Rosie’s strengths. Her jam is the gradual uphill … It was almost one of the most satisfying races of the day, for our team, was to see Rosie break out like that. … However World Championships selection shapes up, she’s certainly gotten two very competitive results. She’s feeling better about herself going into tomorrow.”
Liz Stephen (U.S. Ski Team) racing at the Lillehammer World Cup last month. (Photo: Toko/NordicFocus)
The fourth U.S. woman continuing on in the Tour, Stephen finished 32nd to move up one spot to 25th (+5:01.7) overall.
“I was shooting for a top 20 today, but was satisfied with my position, given how hard I skied and how mentally engaged I was today,” Stephen wrote. “My overall standing in the Tour this year is not where I would like it to be, but it is not over and I won’t stop trying to catch people until we cross the finish on the top of Cermis!”
Randall finished 40th to slip from 10th to 22nd overall (+4:44.9). On the rest day before Stage 5, Randall decided she would be finished with the Tour after today.
“I actually felt pretty good going into today’s stage,” Randall reflected in an email. “I had a good ski yesterday and felt fresh on my jog last night. It’s been fun to race back-to-back just to get so many opportunities to race and work on getting the feelings back. My body has seemed to handle it pretty well but maybe today was one race too many.”
Kikkan Randall (U.S. Ski Team) finishing Friday’s 5 k freestyle in 40th at Stage 5 of the Tour de Ski, which put her 22nd overall. The night before, Randall planned to withdraw from the Tour after that stage in Toblach, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Her plan all along had been to stop after the fourth or fifth stage of the Tour.
“I decided yesterday that I would stop after today’s stage and rest up for next weekend’s sprints here in Toblach,” Randall explained. “It was actually a little harder decision to stop than anticipated since my overall result in the tour was going so well. But I felt that a partial tour and sprints next weekend would be the best prep for my biggest goals of the season in Lahti.”
Randall will spend the next week in Toblach preparing for the next weekend’s regular-season World Cup individual and team sprints there Jan. 14-15.
“This season is really a big experiment to see how my body returns from having the baby,” she explained. “I’m happy with some of my results here during the tour in which I felt better race feelings coming around. My biggest goals of the season are still focused on finding top form in the world championships and all the decisions around racing are being geared towards then.”
Whitcomb reiterated that the team “took a gamble” in choosing Randall for the Tour.
“She had not scored any points before the Tour de Ski, so we saw it as more of an investment in her winter, to get her these starts, that fixed start position,” he said. “It meant that other skiers who had scored World Cup points were not able to be selected, but that’s one of those decisions that’s painfully hard to make, and I think Kikkan really made the most of it with having some really breakout results, and we feel good about things.
“The goal of the Tour de Ski, for Kikkan and a few of these other people, is not necessarily to finish it, but to have some great races and to use it in what ways we can to prepare for the later in the season,” he continued. “Most specifically, the World Championships. The Tour de Ski is, for a lot of these athletes, is a separation tool we use to build some fitness, and then recover, and move into Period 2.”
“We’ve known Jessie would be strong in this race but I’m especially psyched for Sadie,” Randall continued. “She’s been qualifying so well in sprints this season and now she took it all the way through 5km. All fall she was battling problems with her heels but she stayed focused, didn’t get deterred and now she’s flying!
“I vividly remember the joy and excitement of getting those first podiums and it makes me so happy to see the girls get to experience that for themselves,” she added. “I’m glad I have played a part in helping them succeed and it’s such satisfying vindication for our whole program and everyone that helps contribute to USA’s success!”
Asked how the U.S. team usually celebrates a World Cup podium, Bjornsen said they usually have “some sort of little toast.”
“I don’t know if it will happen [tonight], but it will happen at the end of the Tour,” Bjornsen said.
The Tour de Ski Stage 5 women’s 5 k freestyle podium on Friday in Toblach, Italy, with two Americans — Jessie Diggins (c) in first and Sadie Bjornsen (r) in third — and Finland’s Krista Parmakoski (l) in second. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/ Twitter)
FIS Cross-Country Tour de Ski Stage 5 (Toblach): 5/10 k freestyle
Two U.S. women on the podium. Remember when that happened with Kikkan Randall and Sophie Caldwell back in March of 2014 in the skate sprint in Lahti, Finland? Or at 2015 World Championships, with Jessie Diggins and Caitlin Gregg in the 10 k freestyle? Well, it just happened again, this time with Diggins placing first and Sadie Bjornsen third in the women’s 5-kilometer freestyle individual start on Friday at Stage 5 of the Tour de Ski in Toblach, Italy.
“This is just my thing I guess,” Diggins said in a televised post-race interview after her third-consecutive 5 k freestyle victory. That puts her on par with the record set by Russia’s Elena Välbe for most 5 k freestyle races won in a row in the 1990s, according to FIS.
“My coaches and I were joking around, saying, ‘OK, just go for top 23 and see what you can do, and we were just having a lot of fun,” Diggins continued. “I love this course.”
Diggins experienced her first World Cup win a year ago in Toblach at the Tour de Ski in the same race. Since then, she’s been on the podium seven more times, including today’s victory in Toblach — her third-career World Cup win.
A clear race favorite ranked fifth going into Stage 5, Diggins blasted the competition. She started 12th and finished in 12:45.6, nearly 15 seconds faster than Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla at the finish. Bjornsen in bib 26 ended up bumping Kalla to third by 0.3 seconds after finishing 14.6 seconds off Diggins’ time in second. Finland’s Krista Parmakoski then finished 13.6 seconds behind Diggins for second, bumping Bjornsen to third, where she would remain for her first World Cup podium.
For the U.S., it was the first time having two U.S. women on the podium in this Tour. For Diggins, it was her second podium of the multi-stage series, after placing second in the Stage 3 skiathlon.
“To see sadie on the podium with me, I knew she was going to do it this year, I had so much belief in her and to see her up here is just making me so happy,” Diggins said.
Also for the U.S., Rosie Brennan notched 23rd (+43.3) for her second individual top 30 of the season, Liz Stephen was 32nd (+49.7) and Randall 40th (+1:38.6).
Sweden’s Kalla ended up fourth (+14.9) for her best result this season. Norway’s Heidi Weng was 17.5 seconds off Diggins’s winning time in fifth for her first time off the podium in this Tour. Finland’s Kerttu Niskanen placed sixth (+18.0), Switzerland’s Nathalie von Siebenthal was seventh (+20.5), ahead of Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg in eighth (+23.5).
The Tour leader heading into Friday, Sweden’s Stina Nilsson dropped to third overall after placing 20th (+40.5). She is now 16.3 seconds behind new Tour leader, Weng, who has an 11.1-second lead on Østberg. Parmakoski remains fourth (+36.8) ahead of Diggins in fifth (+1:23.3). Bjornsen is up to ninth overall (+3:18.1), and fewer than seven seconds behind Germany’s Nicole Fessel in eighth (+3:11.3).
Randall dropped from 10th to 22nd overall (+4:44.9), Stephen improved to 25th (+5:01.7), and Brennan is 37th (+8:07).
Sergey Ustiugov of Russia topped the podium for a fifth straight stage of the FIS Tour de Ski, winning Friday’s 10 k skate by just 0.4 seconds over Maurice Manificat of France (left). Norway’s Simen Hegstad Krueger was third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
Sergey Ustiugov of Russia is beginning to seem like quite a familiar face atop the Tour de Ski podium. He took a fifth-straight win, this time in Toblach, Italy, in the 10 k freestyle. It was hard-earned as Maurice Manificat of France clocked a time just 0.4 seconds slower; Ustiugov had the later bib, so knew what time he had to beat.
Norway’s Simen Hegstad Krüger, the U23 World champion in the 15 k skate last year, was third – his first World Cup podium – 16.6 seconds back. After that it was a list of veteran favorites with Matti Heikkinen of Finland fourth (+17.3), Marcus Hellner of Sweden fifth (+25.8), Didrik Tønseth of Norway sixth (+27.2), and Dario Cologna of Switzerland seventh (+27.9).
Martin Johnsrud Sundby of Norway, second place in the Tour behind Ustiugov, lost ground on the Russian. He finished 14th (+36.9) and also missed out on bonus seconds awarded to the top three.
Meanwhile, Canada’s Alex Harvey finished 11th (+34.2). Harvey had been in third place in the Tour, but will be narrowly overtaken by Cologna leading into Saturday’s 15 k classic. Both, however, gained time on second-place Sundby.
Overall, Ustiugov leads the Tour by a whopping 1:34.1 minutes over Sundby. Cologna is 2:07.5 back in third, and Harvey another 0.5 seconds back in fourth with two stages to go. Manificat is up to fifth (+2:14.5) and Heikkinen is sixth (+2:32.3) ahead of Krüger in seventh (+2:34)
Harvey’s teammates Devon Kershaw and Graeme Killickwere 32nd (+1:06.0) and 35th (+1:11.9), respectively, and currently rank 24th (+5:56.2) and 39th (+9:43.3) overall in the Tour.
For the U.S., Noah Hoffman placed 25th (+55.8) for his first top 30 of the Tour to move into 31st overall (+8:14.8). Erik Bjornsen just missed the points in 31st (+1:04.6) for 42nd overall (+10:13.6).
The Tour now moves to Val di Fiemme, Italy, for the Stage 6 10/15 k classic mass starts on Saturday and Stage 7 final freestyle hill climb on Sunday.
In the first IBU World Cup women’s race of the new year , Gabriela Koukalová of the Czech Republic came out firing on all cylinders, shooting clean in the 7.5 k sprint for a 21.3-second victory in 22:28.5 on Friday in Oberhof, Germany.
Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen placed second with two penalties in her standing stage (0+2), and France’s Marie Dorin Habert reached the podium in third with one miss (0+1).
Canada’s Rosanna Crawford led the North Americans with her best result of the season in 21st (+1:32.3), with clean shooting (0+0).
American Susan Dunklee got the top 60 needed to qualify for Saturday’s pursuit in 50th (+2:36.3), despite two four penalties (2+2). Clare Egan is in there as well in 52nd (+2:40.5) with two prone misses (2+0).
Canada’s Megan Tandy missed the cutoff in 65th (+3:17.1) with two penalties (0+2), as did her Biathlon Canada teammates Sarah Beaudry in 85th (+5:02.9) with three penalties (0+3) and Emma Lunder in 87th (+5:28.0) with five misses (4+1).
Canada’s Alex Harvey in his well-known guitar stance to celebrate third in the men’s 15 k freestyle pursuit on Wednesday at Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
Canada’s Alex Harvey is still on the podium.
Then there’s the U.S. women’s team, with athletes in fifth, 10th and 12th in the Tour de Ski standings after big-time performances in Oberstdorf, Germany.
Harvey kept himself in third overall and ahead of Switzerland’s Dario Cologna with a strong pursuit finish on Wednesday, and Jessie Diggins led her U.S. teammates on consecutive days, notching second on Tuesday for a career-best skiathlon result and holding onto fifth overall in the pursuit. Not far behind her, Sadie Bjornsen captured a career-best World Cup result of fifth on Tuesday, and Kikkan Randall skied into the top 10 on Wednesday. Also for the U.S., Liz Stephen clocked the seventh-fastest 10 k time in the pursuit.
Here are some of the comments and photos that didn’t make it into our race reports:
On the strategies for Jessie Diggins and Sadie Bjornsen: “The plan is flexible in the Tour. You never know what type of body is going to show up for you on any given day. We try and be a little bit flexible and try and respond to the cards that you are dealt that day. If you do feel good, try and control things a little bit, stay up near the front third of the pack that you are in, that will decrease the amount of turbulence and crashes and what not. That’s exactly what Sadie and Jessie were able to do today. It worked out fantastically.”
On Liz Stephen: “Pretty strong classic performance out of her today. At the top of the first climb on the last classic lap, she was only 19 seconds out of the lead and just in contact with the main pack, so we expected pretty big things.” (but then skis were bad, as covered in piece.
On slow skis: “It’s tough. We don’t often focus on it too much, but when an athlete or two are skiing really well, I think it’s important for them to be able to put some of the responsibility on the skis. It’s not always the athlete. A bit ironic today, as we felt we had some of the fastest skis in the race as well. There’s a lot that goes into making good skis… I think every brand of skis have their strengths, you know have their conditions that they’re great in. Some brands have some conditions that they can struggle in, a bit more than others. Sometimes, with this new snow, which we have a little bit of trouble with occasionally, not specific to any one. While it is a cold, fresh snow kind of day, it doesn’t mean it is going to be particularly straightforward on the glide.”
On starting alone in a pursuit: “That’s something to consider, but in a tour like this for the women, it’s also important to remember that a lot of people will be released from the gate alone. It’s not like everybody’s in a pack except for her. It will be a pretty fair race tomorrow.”
Sadie Bjornsen, U.S. Ski Team:
On last weekend: “Val Müstair was a little interesting. I definitely wasn’t stoked about my sprint and then I had quite the blowup in the classic race. It definitely was challenging mentally, but I felt pretty confident in how I felt in my qualifier, the very first day, so I knew I couldn’t be in a disaster zone, I just forgot that I was at altitude in that 5 k race, and I did things a little bit wrong there.”
On the pace in the skiathlon: “It’s hard to tell because the people in the very front look like they’re working hard, because I think they’re breaking the wind, and then there’s that draft effect for the middle section, and then you go a little bit farther back and then it becomes like they are working hard again, because it’s that constant traffic jam, it’s like, stop-go, stop-go, stop-go. I actually watched the race this afternoon, because they were showing it on TV, and that’s interesting, like it looks like it is a different pace than normal.”
On her own pace in the skiathlon: “I felt like I was working hard at the beginning of that classic section simply because I was having to go through this accordion effect. But the times when I was conserving energy, I was certainly conserving, but it would be like conserve to sprint. That’s like a challenge of it’s own. I think that’s part of mass-start racing with not much snow anymore, you kind of deal with a little bit of that.”
On lack of a breakaway: “I don’t really know if it was windy, I didn’t notice. I think it was just that maybe the type of snow, that it just seemed [windy]. All those downhills had flat sections afterwards, that may have a been a part of it, too. It was almost like there was more flat than normal in this course, because there’s that middle section that’s very flat. Most World Cup courses, you’re either going up or down, I think that’s what made a draft.”
On the final climb: “It’s hard for me to remember, actually, what happened. I felt really strong going up that climb until maybe the last 20 meters of it, I was like, ‘Oh man, I hope I’m gonna make it over the top of this, ‘cause I’m red-lining.’ That’s certainly where I looked up and saw that those front four girls had gapped, and it was simply a difference right there.”
On leading a group to the finish: “I was definitely stressed about being in the front of that pack, because I knew that there was a draft on the bottom. And I don’t know what happened, I tried to take that last downhill really well, and I had no idea what was going on behind me. I knew it was not ideal, but I was just going to go for it.”
Jessie Diggins, U.S. Ski Team:
On energy conservation with fast skis: “I had great skis, and then our techs did a great job. And then on top of that, downhills are my thing. So it was great because it was a really hard course to move around a lot, and change position. So if I just let myself just tuck the final parts of the downhill, like glide and draft and find myself able to kind of make some moves out there, or just chill out a little bit. So that was really cool.”
On lack of a breakaway: “I actually don’t think anyone was really seriously trying to make any breaks, and I don’t know, that’s just my opinion, from where I was sitting, but it seemed like a different sort of race out there.”
On uphills in traffic: “That will happen, you kind of have to keep your head on a swivel. There were times I felt like I was doing a little hopscotch thing, trying to not step on anyone’s poles, and very carefully, I’m going to put my ski here, and, ‘Oh well.’ ”
On mixed new and manmade snow: “There were a couple sections where over the top of the hill, if it was powdery, if it had been raked or something, you might kind of get a little ‘ooh’, kind of tripping. I thought the downhills were skiing really well; they’re just fast, with some turns at the bottom. The one where the men crashed, everyone was skidding it, it was one of those corners, that maybe if you were by yourself, you could maybe just step it, but like in a group you need to skid it, and sometimes you don’t have room. Yeah, it’s always harder to ski in a group.”
On her energy level in the Tour de Ski: “In general, tours are good for me, because I tend to get stronger as I go. And I really like the big grind of it, and because I can stay really positive, I think that’s a strength of mine. It’s not like you can smile away the tired feelings, but you kinda can [laughs]. I’m looking forward to it, so far it has felt really good.”
Sweden’s Stina Nilsson (r) and American Jessie Diggins (l) lead Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla (second from l) and Heidi Weng (second from r) down the finishing stretch of the women’s 10 k skiathlon on Tuesday at Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
Sweden’s Stina Nilsson celebrates her first World Cup distance win in the women’s 10 k skiathlon on Tuesday at Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski, just ahead of American Jessie Diggins (l) in second. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
Jessie Diggins (U.S. Ski Team) celebrating second, her career best in a skiathlon, at Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
The women’s 10 k skiathlon podium at Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany, with Sweden’s Stina Nilsson (c) in first, American Jessie Diggins (l) in second, and Norway’s Heidi Weng (r) in third. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
Jessie Diggins (U.S. Ski Team) loving on her Salomon boards after placing second in Tuesday’s 10 k skiathlon at Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (in blue) leading the men’s 20 k skiathlon with Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l) and Canada’s Alex Harvey (r). (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
Canada’s Alex Harvey (3) alongside Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (l) and Norway’s Emil Iversen during the men’s 20 k skiathlon at Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby leads Switzerland’s Dario Cologna, Sweden’s Marcus Hellner, and Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov, respectively, during the men’s 20 k skiathlon on Tuesday at Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby (2) racing at the front of the men’s 20 k skiathlon on Tuesday, with Canada’s Alex Harvey (3) among those chasing in Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Canada’s Alex Harvey racing to fourth in the men’s 20 k skiathlon on Tuesday for third overall in the Tour de Ski through Stage 3 in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
The men’s 20 k skiathlon podium at Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski, with Russian winner Sergey Ustiugov (c), Norway’s runner-up Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l), and Switzerland’s Dario Cologna (r) in third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
On pacing with Dario Cologna: “It was in both our interests, both him and I, to try and keep the speed high in the front and stay away from the chase group and maybe gain a few seconds from the front guys.”
On the conditions: “It was pretty windy today so you had a big advantage by following along on the flats.”
On race strategy: “I knew where he would try to attack me, which was on the big hill the same way he did [in the Skiathlon]. So I was just making sure I had enough legs to try and match his speed on the big hill.”
Devon Kershaw, Canadian World Cup Team:
On the upcoming stages: “I hope to feel good like this coming into Val de Fiemme and the classic race there, that’d be really really sweet. The uphill [final climb] is my least-favorite race in all of maybe any competition I’ve ever done, that’s a bit of a survival one, but the Saturday race is definitely something I look forward to.”
Sadie Bjornsen
On winter storms: “With the super-windy conditions and the slower snow, it was challenging to be exactly where you wanted when moves were made. Those hills were challenging today, but the flats were almost more challenging because of the strong wind and slow conditions. There really wasn’t any resting out there!”
Liz Stephen, U.S. Ski Team:
On how mass starts have been frustrating lately: “It’s a nice change! We’ve done so many mass starts, but I feel like there’s so much you can get right or get wrong. It’s nice to have a race that’s engaging because there’s people around. And I like skiing around people! I just don’t enjoy it when the courses are so narrow that you can’t make passes when you want to. Those are the only times I get frustrated with mass starts. I like to ski with people, but it’s hard to want to make these moves and feel like there’s no place to go. It’s nice to have a race I could do what I wanted out there.”
On form coming around: “I don’t know about yesterday. I feel like I’m coming up little by little, skis are part of it, sometimes, for sure, but I feel like I’m racing myself into the kind of shape that I’ve been trying to get in the season. The Tour generally does that for me. I’m looking forward to more racing and more time going this hard. And I think it’s helping me get into the race shape I want to be in, and I think this Tour is playing its role.”
On looking forward to Friday’s Stage 5: “Toblach is a really tough course for me. It’s just so gradual, and a 5 k is so short that I have it on my radar to not lose a ton of time. I’m not setting out there to get a podium or anything, or a top 10 on the 5 k skate here. I’m just setting out to not lose a bunch of minutes on a 5 k where I can help it. I want to pace it really well, and ski it the best that I can, and keep my eyes on the prize in Val di Fiemme.”
On her team: “Watching Sadie skate up the hills, she’s a different Sadie than she’s ever been. Jessie is just a fireball that can’t be caught right now. I think just being a part of the momentum of this team is really a special experience for me. I feel really proud watching my team out there, for sure.”
Noah Hoffman, U.S. Ski Team:
On form at this point in the Tour: “I still feel like my energy is good, even though I didn’t show it with a great result today, and I’m looking forward to three more stages.”
On the wave start: “Starting in a wave is a great position to start, getting a fast time on the day, because there are guys skiing around you who are fast, and guys to follow. I have no complaints about it. It’s basically a small mass start at that point. It’s a really effective way to have a good race.”
Erik Bjornsen, U.S. Ski Team
On form coming into the Tour: “I tried to put in a hard training block after La Clusaz and I think it was a little to close to the Tour. I’ve been feeling a little heavy and tired which is not the way you want to start a seven-stage tour.”
On overall Tour position: “I won’t be competitive in the overall tour. I lost too much time in the skiathlon. That doesn’t mean I’m ready to drop out, though. I’m excited to go into the next couple races with an open mind and try my best to put together a strong race and hopefully take home some more World Cup distance points.”
On the wave start/conditions: “In these conditions, it tends to makes drafting more important and passing even harder. Being in the wave start has its positives and negatives. It was hard to make passes out there, but at least being in the back we had a little drafting effect.”
Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov racing to his fourth-straight victory in the fourth stage of the Tour de Ski on Wednesday during the 15 k freestyle pursuit in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby racing alone, en route to second in the men’s 15 k freestyle pursuit on Wednesday at Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby en route to second in the men’s 15 k freestyle pursuit on Wednesday at Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Canada’s Alex Harvey outlasting Switzerland’s Dario Cologna in the final meters of Wednesday’s 15 k freestyle pursuit at Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
Sweden’s Marcus Hellner en route to sixth in the Tour de Ski Stage 4 men’s 15 k freestyle pursuit on Wednesday in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Graeme Killick used the Tour de Ski to hit Olympic qualification criteria. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Canada’s Alex Harvey celebrates third on the podium of the men’s 15 k freestyle pursuit at Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
Canada’s Alex Harvey in his well-known guitar stance to celebrate third in the men’s 15 k freestyle pursuit at Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
Sweden’s Stina Nilsson leading Norway’s Heidi Weng during the women’s 10 k freestyle pursuit on Wednesday at Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Sweden’s Stina Nilsson leading Norway’s Heidi Weng and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg during the women’s 10 k freestyle pursuit on Wednesday at Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Sweden’s Stina Nilsson en route to her second-straight distance win in the women’s 10 k freestyle pursuit on Wednesday at Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
American Sadie Bjornsen (l) racing to 12th in the women’s 10 k freestyle pursuit at Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski on Wednesday in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
American Sadie Bjornsen racing to 12th in the Tour de Ski Stage 4 women’s 10 k freestyle pursuit on Wednesday in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla leads American Kikkan Randall during the women’s 10 k freestyle pursuit at Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. Kalla ended up 18th and Randall 10th at the finish. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
American Kikkan Randall climbed to 10th place in the standings by the end of the Tour de Ski Oberstdorf stages. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
The women’s 10 k freestyle pursuit podium at Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski on Wednesday in Oberstdorf, Germany, with Sweden’s Stina Nilsson (c) in first, Norway’s Heidi Weng (l) in second, and Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (r) in third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Tour de Ski leader Sergey Ustiugov of Russia leads Canada’s Alex Harvey (3) on Tuesday in the Stage 3 skiathlon in Oberstdorf, Germany. Ustiugov won the 20 k race to maintain his overall lead in the Tour. Harvey placed fourth to hold onto third overall, and Switzerland’s Dario Cologna (6) finished third on the day for fourth overall. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
First things first: fresh snow in Central Europe. Rather than what we’ve been used to — seeing a farmed ribbon of snow snaking through an otherwise snow-free landscape — Oberstdorf, Germany, the site of Tuesday’s third and fourth stages of the Tour de Ski, looked Bavarian-alps idyllic. Snow!
Despite the new flakes, the Stage 3 men’s 20-kilometer skiathlon (10 k classic + 10 k skate) was still a dizzying affair. That had little to do with the eight total laps each skier contested around the 2.5 k race loop. There were near-constant lead changes, falls, a slinky line of skiers stretching and contracting, and some infighting involving Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov and Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby making a wrong turn.
After all the tactics and drama, Ustiugov made it three victories in three stages, winning the skiathon by a toe ahead of Sundby in second (+0.6). Swiss skier Dario Cologna placed third (+1.0). Canada’s Harvey, sitting third overall coming into the stage, was fourth (+2.7). Another Canadian, Devon Kershaw skied near the front for most of the race for a World Cup season-best 10th (+7.4).
Ustiugov came into the skiathlon as the the Tour leader with a 18.9-second lead on Sundby in second overall, and a 59.6-second gap on Harvey in third. With another win, the Russian increased those margins, further tightening his Tour de Ski grip. Sundby and Harvey are still second and third in the overall Tour standings, respectively, but now sit just a bit further back. Sundby is 29.5 seconds behind Ustiugov, and Harvey is 1:09.3 minutes back heading into Wednesday’s Stage 4: a 15 k freestyle pursuit.
“It was a really hard race today,” Ustiugov said, according to a FIS press release. “I gave my best. On the last climb I felt the pace went down and I decided to attack. It was not planned. I reacted to the situation.”
For the initial classic leg Ustiugov led. But whether setting the tempo or sitting back a few places, his race was never one of fighting to gain places. When some like Sundby were starting to double pole after a downhill runout, Ustiugov could glide. His skis a value added variable to his day-to-day dominance thus far in the Tour.
Before the swap from classic to skate, others besides Ustiugov and Sundby positioned themselves in front. There were Norwegians Niklas Dyrhaug and Didrik Tønseth, Russian Alexander Bessmertnykh and Harvey all taking their turns. It was a mass-start race where no skier could pull away, only those unable to keep pace fell off.
With the classic-to-skate exchange came some tension
High speeds and tight quarters led to some tension during the Tour de Ski Stage 3 men’s 20 k skiathlon on Tuesday in Obertsdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
At 10.1 k, the leaderboard looked like this: Sundby in first, Finland’s Matti Heikkinen second (+0.1), Kershaw third (+0.4), Harvey fourth (+1.2), with Ustiugov sixth (+2.2). At this point, Cologna was 18th (+6.0).
Sundby then played his traditional role up front. He came through the 12.5 k time check leading Heikkinen. Kind of ho hum. But then a quick loss of focus and Sundby missed the lap lane through the stadium. Heikkinen was caught lapsing and followed, too. All that at the start of the second skate lap with 7.5 k to go.
“A lot of weird things happened,” Tønseth, who placed 25th (+27.5), told Norwegian broadcaster NRK after the race. “Martin went the wrong way and then Ustiugov ran off. I think that’s poor sportsmanship.”
What Tønseth referred to was the perception that Ustiugov upped the pace when Sundby U-turned. Even if that was the case, the Russian’s acceleration wasn’t a doomsday type increase of speed for Sundby. The overall World Cup leader kept calm despite retracing his steps, heading back on course and bumping back to 18th (+12.8) at the 12.95 k mark.
“It isn’t that much to talk about,” Sundby told NRK about his wrong turn. “Real idiot! I hadn’t gone through the course beforehand. I don’t really understand what happened. It was very unintelligible.”
Ski racing is mental. It’s clearly physical, too. Unshaken, Sundby began picking off places and time. With less than a kilometer to go, it looked as if the parallel universe in which Sundby had skied off course didn’t exist — Sundby was in front.
Ustiugov outdueled Sundby in the ensuing finishing-straight drag race.
Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (r) edging Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l) on Tuesday in Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski, the men’s 20 k skiathlon, in Obertsdorf, Germany, with Switzerland’s Dario Cologna (behind Ustiugov) racing to third and Canada’s Alex Harvey (back left, in red) racing to fourth. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
“I wish I could have won, but I’m not the best skier in the world at the moment,” Sundby said to NRK. “That’s a Russian. I was so sore that it was mostly about finishing with pride and crawling over the finish line.”
For Swiss start Cologna, being on the podium after a considerable drought was welcome.
“It was an exciting race,” Cologna told FIS. “I like skiathlon competitions in Oberstdorf and I Iike the course. I wanted to ski carefully, there were some falls and I did not want to lose the race. I was feeling really good in the free technique portion. I tried to be in a good position. In the end I could follow Martin. I am very satisfied with the third place.”
In a post-race sidenote, Tønseth’s perception of poor tactics on Ustiugov’s part may not have been Ustiugov’s only faux pas. During the race, Sweden’s Marcus Hellner could be seen jostling with Ustiugov.
NRK quoted Hellner after he spoke to Swedish broadcaster SVT. Hellner claimed Ustiugov was skiing with aggression.
“I feel like Ustiugov was throwing his poles around,” Hellnerreportedly said. “It’s no big deal, but it’s frustrating when it happens … I asked him what he was doing and then he hit me with his pole again. It’s natural to be frustrated by stuff like that.”
Hellner boiled over. “I punched him back and added some well-chosen words.”
After crossing the line, Hellner could be seen having words with the winning Russian.
Maple-Leaf Duo
Canada’s Alex Harvey en route to fourth in the men’s 20 k skiathlon at Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski on Tuesday in Oberstdorf, Germany. With his season-best result of fourth place, he maintained his position of third in the Tour. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
At age 28, Harvey is on pace for an overall Tour podium. It’s still early, but with three stages down and four to go he sits third overall.
“The Tour de Ski, it’s all about consistency, being close to the leaders everyday,” Canadian World Cup coach Ivan Babikov told FasterSkier on the phone. “That will set you up for the good overall [result]. Alex is happy, it’s kind of bittersweet, that we are close to podium, but not really. I think for the long run, it’s a really good race for Alex, and now he’s still third with some clearance, and some good work to do tomorrow with Dario. I think Dario is the only one that is close to him.”
For the overall, Harvey is third (+1:09), Cologna fourth (+1:25.4), while Hellner lurks in fifth (+1:42.4), and Norway’s Emil Iversen is sixth (+1:44.5).
“[Harvey] did everything right … When it’s a mass start, it’s hard to ski away from the pack. You have to be super, super strong, you have to be stronger than everybody else,” Babikov said. “Today, just the plan was to stay with the group, try and collect some bonus points, and finish on the podium or as close as possible. And that’s what he did.”
“Things played out exactly according to plan,” Harvey said. “I had really good skis again and the body felt good. After watching the [women’s race], I knew it would be a tight race. I really thought I was going to be on the podium today, but in the end I came up a little short.
Harvey wanted both a podium and bonus seconds — time that in a seven-stage race like the Tour de Ski can pay long-term dividends.
“I knew with a tight pack I could go for the bonus seconds,” Harvey said. “I won the first sprint and was third in the second one so that gave me some extra time in the overall.”
Canada’s Devon Kershaw skied to a season-best 10th place on Tuesday’s at the Tour de Ski’s Stage 3 skiathlon in Obertsdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
It was Harvey’s best result of the year. That was also the case for his 34-year-old teammate Kershaw.
“It was just an excellent day for me,” Kershaw told CCC. “I woke up and I felt really good. I felt amazing in the warm up and all of my classic skis I tested felt really good. I took a lot of confidence in that while climbing the steep hill, and it just continued throughout the race. The guys (wax techs) gave me excellent equipment as they have all year and I’m just incredibly satisfied. It feels that extra little bit special since it has been a while for me.”
For a time as the classic leg was closing down, Kershaw put a ten-meter gap on the field.
“That was some of the best I’ve felt in classic-skiing in my career,” he said. “I have been feeling good in classic all year. It’s weird though. I feel I have been slightly on the wrong side of things and today I was able to ski at the top and also hold my own in the skate.”
Kershaw finished fourth overall in the 2012 Tour de Ski, and his 10th place on Tuesday is his best result since the 2013/2014 season. After three stages Kershaw is 20th overall in this year’s Tour (+ 3:01.9).
Also for Canada, Len Valjas placed 37th (+2:10.6) and is 32nd overall, and Graeme Killick 50th (+3:33.7) for 48th overall.
The U.S. Ski Team has two skiers remaining in the Tour: Noah Hoffman and Erik Bjornsen. Hoffman began the day in bib 44 but will start Wednesday’s stage in bib 37 as the Tour’s 37th ranked skier.
On Tuesday, Hoffman finished 35th (+2:06.8).
“I was very encouraged with Noah’s skate energy today, and with his attitude after the race,” U.S. coach Matt Whitcomb told FasterSkier on the phone. “He said, ‘Thank God there are four stages left.’ It’s not an athlete that is ready for the Tour to be over … I really believe that tomorrow could be one of the best days of the year for Noah. It’s a very challenging skate course, and he looked good doing it today. He spent about 30 minutes skiing by himself today, he unfortunately wasn’t able to maintain contact. That cost him some time, for sure.”
Hoffman was mindful of his bump in the standings but is keeping a big perspective on the season.
“It’s more than that for me, though,” Hoffman said on the phone. “I did a lot of really high-quality training this year and I have not shown that. I have not skied at the level that I have even at times last year let alone the Olympic season when I had fastest time of the day in two different pursuits…and I was skiing in the lead pack of the Olympics for 49 k … It doesn’t change the fact that I have done the work and that I have great energy and that I am healthy. The only thing I can do is to take care of the things that I can control.”
Expanding on his comments to Whitcomb about not wanting the Tour to be over, Hoffman said he wants more chances.
“Every opportunity is an opportunity to take that next step to get to where I want to be and I believe that it can happen. I’m just psyched that there are some more opportunities coming. There are some good parts of today to take away.”
One positive aspect of Hoffman’s race was deep into the contest, on lap seven of eight. Skiing solo, Hoffman chased down a group of skiers containing Canada’s Valjas. On that timed sector of course, Hoffman gained insight into what he’s capable of.
“I skied that section alone, chasing down Lenny’s group,” he said. “A group of like six or eight guys and I made contact with them and I had the eighth-fastest split for that segment, which means I am skiing the same pace as the lead pack on my own. So energy was good and I can ski at that pace and doing it lap seven out of eight. There are good things there.”
Bjornsen skied to 53rd (+4:22.4) for 52nd overall (+7:35.6).
Racing continues Wednesday with the women’s and men’s 10/15 k freestyle pursuits.
Race winner Stina Nilsson of Sweden (c) and second-place Jessie Diggins of the U.S. both had the best results of their careers over 10 kilometers, in Tuesday’s skiathlon in Oberstdorf. Norway’s Heidi Weng was third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
In the final kilometer of Tuesday’s 10-kilometer skiathlon in Oberstdorf, Germany, American cross-country skier Jessie Diggins saw a chance to grab her second World Cup win of the season.
It came on the final lap up a 35-meter tall climb, just a few hundred meters from the finish. All she had to do was go over the top and ace the next downhill – a downhill where she had been flying by other racers all day.
If only it were so easy.
“I had decided I was going to go ahead and try to win it,” Diggins said in a phone interview after. “I wanted my own lane, but I didn’t have any room. Luckily, I got in behind [Sweden’s Stina Nilsson] and was able to have a pretty clear shot at [the uphill]. But then I didn’t ski the final downhill the way I had in every practice. I kind of chickened out, my legs were really tired, and I was just so scared of making a mistake and falling, ruining everything.”
Nilsson was a good pick to follow, though. She crested the towering hill before anybody else, including the favored Norwegian women. Despite the lactate burning in her legs, Diggins stuck to her over the top.
Shooting off the downhill and into the finishing stretch, Diggins tuck-skated furiously as Nilsson picked up her poles. They battled all the way to the line, with Diggins crossing just 0.2 seconds back for second place.
Sweden’s Stina Nilsson leading over the top of a hill early on in the Oberstdorf skiathlon. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
“I wish I could do it again, because I know if I had skied that downhill the way I can, I would have given myself a better chance,” she lamented. “That said, I am obviously thrilled with how it went. But you know, at the end of a race, you always play back. What would I have changed? You ask, what have I learned from today?”
Second place was still good for Diggins’s first podium at the 10 k distance.
Packing It Up
It came on an unusual day. After seemingly years of one woman — usually Therese Johaug or a Norwegian teammate — shattering the pack in long mass-start races, World Cup saw something a bit unusual in this Tour de Ski stage: an entire skiathlon where the top four, count ‘em four, racers were never separated by more than three and a half seconds.
“It was definitely a very different race, with the whole lead group being such a big pack for so long,” Diggins said. “That was really cool, and very different. It’s not something we’re used to. I don’t know if it was the new snow on the course that was just conducive people sticking together more, or what, I don’t know, but it was really cool.”
Norwegian coach Vidar Lofshus speculated that perhaps after coming down from altitude – the previous races were held in Val Mustair, Switzerland – more of the field was feeling fresh and feisty.
But regardless of the cause, pre-race favorites like Norway’s Heidi Weng were unable to break away from the competition. And that meant tight quarters for the women – something the men’s field is far more used to – and not everyone was happy.
“It was a lot of bumping into each other here and there,” Weng told NRK. “If there’s a distance race here again then the course has to be wider. There is barely enough room for one person up the hill. It was goofy.”
That’s called ski racing, though, Diggins thought.
“I’m not going to name names, but somebody full-on used both hands and shoved me sideways, and I was like, all right, we need to keep our hands to ourselves,” she said. “I’m sure I did my share — not on purpose — of accidentally stepping on someone’s ski or their pole. It was wide enough for really two people. And when you’re in a pack of twenty and you’re trying to pass, and you come into the bottom of the hill thinking, oh there’s enough room for three and it turns into two, that is racing.”
In all that chaos, it paid to stay out of trouble and keep a cool head. Sweden’s Nilsson did just that, earning her second win of this year’s Tour and her first ever World Cup victory in a distance race.
Stina Nilsson going for the win in Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
“I always liked the skiathlon,” Nilsson said, according to the FIS news service. “It was a perfect day for me. My shape was great, everything was perfect. I knew if I wanted to be on the podium I had to be in the front.”
To take the win, she had to hold Diggins in the final meters.
“I felt Diggins was pushing very hard,” Nilsson said, according to FIS. “I thought I had more power than Jessie before the finish.”
And she did: just enough to take a 0.2-second win.
Norway’s Weng was third (+1.5), and teammate Maiken Caspersen Falla fourth (+3.3).
And then, after Falla: another charging American. Bjornsen held off hometown favorite Nicole Fessel to claim fifth place.
“She had her PR, big breakthrough, and that is so cool,” Diggins said of her teammate. “Sadie skied like such a champ, and I don’t want that to get lost either. She is such a consistent skier, she is always up there, and she’s going to be on that podium so soon.”
Another Norwegian teammate expected to be near the top missed big. Ingvild Flugstad Østberg broke a pole on the final climb.
“It’s at the bottom of the final hill where I as about to step out from the pack and increase my speed, but then the opposite happened and I crashed into someone else and broke my pole,” she explained to VG. “Then it becomes all about crawling/pulling myself to the finish line and losing as little time as possible… It’s extremely annoying, especially in a Tour. In a single race you lose a place or a podium finish, but here it’s about the Tour standing and seconds. I’m losing a lot because of this.”
She finished the day 13th, 19.2 seconds behind Nilsson, and lost the overall Tour leader’s bib to Nilsson as well. That puts her in third in the Tour standings, 12.4 seconds behind Nilsson and 8.4 behind second-place Weng.
“These things aren’t supposed to happen, that you’re falling behind, but I have to think positive now,” Østberg told VG. “About new opportunities and new races where I can cut the gap.”
Best-Ever Day for Americans
Sadie Bjornsen (U.S. Ski Team) racing to eighth in the Stage 1 freestyle sprint qualifier last Saturday in Val Mustair, Switzerland. She went on to place 23rd on the day. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
“I didn’t even know that she was right there,” Bjornsen said of the German she edged at the finish. “I bobbled and almost fell over, similar to what happened in my sprint race in Val Mustair. And I was like, ‘Oh no, not this again. I’m almost going to fall over.’ I didn’t realize that [Fessel] was there until almost at the finish line when I saw that somebody was right there. I was just trying to focus on getting across the line.”
It was a tight photo finish, but Bjornsen ultimately claimed fifth place. It’s a best-ever result for her on the World Cup.
“It’s fun to have a good race, but it’s way better when you have a good race with your teammate,” Diggins said. “And I think it’s cool to have a good race in the skiathlon, because it is proving to yourself that you are an all-rounder, which is something that I’ve always worked on, and I don’t want to speak for her, but I know Sadie feels the same way. We like to sprint, like to do distance, like to do it all, want to be able to do everything.”
Bjornsen was coming off a “blow-up” in the 5 k classic in Val Mustair. On Sunday, she went out hard and ended up spit out by the altitude. But the team wasn’t worried that her blowup would harm her for a second race in a row.
“Normally, when you have an athlete who is tired, they don’t bounce back that quickly,” U.S. Ski Team Women’s Coach Matt Whitcomb said. “So I think our guess that it was just a full-blown the other day at altitude was spot on. Not surprised to see her feeling good today.”
One remnant of the Val Mustair races was bib 22. Racers start Tour de Ski mass starts in the order they are ranked in the Tour, rather than their World Cup ranking. This put Bjornsen farther back in the mass start then she was used to.
“I was trying to just stay super-positive and just be a little more patient today,” Bjornsen said. “Trying to wait to find some openings. I could tell that I felt strong and I felt good.”
By the halfway point Bjornsen was up to 12th position, and then she let it rip.
“Generally in pursuits in the past, I’ve struggled a bit because I’ve always felt I’m stronger in the classic part,” Bjornsen said. “But I am starting to almost prefer switching onto skate. It’s exciting for me. As soon as I felt strong in the skate section, I knew it could be an awesome day. I just went for it after that.”
She was motivated, too, by the course’s big final hill, where she’s had success before.
“In Oberstdorf two years ago, there was a 3 k skate prologue and I got seventh, and at the time that was like my best skate result ever, by a long, long ways,” she said. “I think that kind of started my confidence that I could skate ski. I always get a little belief on that hill, and I was kind of just channeling my past results and just trying to tell myself I can ski hills strongly too.”
Both Diggins and Bjornsen enjoyed some of the fastest skis in the field.
“It was pretty cool to have some really great skis today because a [skiathlon], in the middle of the Tour de Ski, is exceptionally challenging for the waxing crew — just having to put together so much testing,” Bjornsen said. “So I definitely want to give some great credit, because if you watch the race at all, you can see we had quite amazing skis.”
“Just a huge thanks to our staff, obviously they did an incredible job,” Diggins agreed. “If you think the Tour is hard on athletes, it’s doubly hard on the staff, and they don’t even get any sort of thank-you’s, usually. I mean, they get them from us, but … they don’t get the same recognition for all of their hard work, and I think what they’re doing everyday is incredible. Not to mention, they have to tear down and rebuild the wax room.”
Next Steps for the U.S. Team
The women compete in a 10 k skate pursuit on Wednesday, something many are keenly excited for.
Pursuits are one of Diggins’s favorite formats. She will start more or less alone: in fifth position, 12 seconds behind Krista Parmakoski of Finland and 18 ahead of Kathrine Harsem of Norway.
“Tomorrow, I’m just going to go hunting, and chasing, and that is what I love to do,” Diggins said. “I love being given a goal, this really hard test, and I’m just going to go out there and try with all my might. Obviously, the girls that I am chasing down are incredible, incredible athletes. I’ve had some amazingly fun times skiing with Krista Parmakoski, where she’ll lead the climbs, and I’ll lead the flats and downhills. We ski really well together, so if there’s a chance I can catch her and work with her, that will be so fun. But I’m not any presumptions, I’m just going to go out there and try my hardest.”
“Nobody closes a gap more effectively than Jessie,” Whitcomb laughed. “So if she’s feeling good, she’s unlikely to be alone for too long.”
For Bjornsen, the pursuit brings four more cracks at her believe-in-yourself hill.
“I actually really excited,” Bjornsen said. “I just looked at the standings and it looks like I will get to ski with Nicole [Fessel] and [Yulia] Tchekaleva, so definitely I’m really looking forward to testing my skate skills again.”
Other Americans also have another shot. Kikkan Randall finished 28th in the skiathlon (+43.8) and Liz Stephen 30th (+59.9). Rosie Brennan clocked in 45th (+2:14.5).
“We didn’t get her skate skis going today,” Whitcomb said of Stephen. “So that was a little unfortunate and it’s a bummer for her. I know she was excited to attack that skate leg, but we struggled a little bit with [skis for] both Rosie and Liz on the skate section today. So they are both much better than their results indicated today.”
Randall summed up her race as “decent,” in an email to media outlets.
“I struggled to kick my skis in the classic and lost touch with the lead pack on the 2nd classic lap,” Randall wrote. “Had good energy in the skate though and was almost able to bridge back up to the back of the main pack. I was happy with the way my body felt today but a little frustrated with my classic skiing.”
The women’s 10 k skiathlon podium on Tuesday at Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany, with Sweden’s Stina Nilsson (c) winning her first World Cup distance race, American Jessie Diggins (l) notching a career-best skiathlon result in second, and Norway’s Heidi Weng (r) placing third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
FIS Cross-Country Tour de Ski Stage 3 (Oberstdorf): 10/20 k skiathlons
Positioned in third heading into the third stage of the Tour de Ski on Tuesday, the women’s 10-kilometer skiathlon, Sweden’s Stina Nilsson made the case that she’s more of an all-around threat than some might anticipate.
She contended with early leaders like Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg and Finland’s Krista Parmakoski throughout the 5 k classic leg, entering the ski exchange in eighth and 2.5 seconds out of first. Østberg led the pack in and came out 0.9 seconds faster than her Norwegian teammate Heidi Weng, while another Swede, Charlotte Kalla, emerged in third (+1.3).
Meanwhile, two Americans were setting themselves up for big finishes. Sadie Bjornsen picked off two places in the exchange to head out on the 5 k skate leg in 10th (+5.8), and Jessie Diggins left the transition in 14th (+7.6).
Diggins had previously taken the lead with Nilsson halfway through the classic leg. Despite dropping back to 18th and nearly 13 seconds back at 4.4 k in the classic leg, she quickly rebounded early in the skate leg.
Half a kilometer in, Bjornsen and Diggins moved within 5 and 6 seconds of the lead, respectively. With about 3 k to go, Diggins and Bjornsen were 3.8 seconds and 4.3 seconds within Østberg in first.
At 7.5 k, Diggins captured the lead, ahead of Kalla, Weng, and Østberg, with Bjornsen skiing 2.4 seconds back in 10th.
Despite challenges from the Norwegians (Østberg, Weng and Falla) and Kalla, Diggins kept herself in contention for the podium by attacking on the final major climb, along with Nilsson, who led her to the top. Diggins chased Nilsson to the finish and missed first by 0.2 seconds, taking second for her career-best skiathlon result. Nilsson won it in 27:23.8, for her second stage win in this Tour, and Weng notched her third straight podium in third (+1.5). Falla placed fourth (+3.3) and Bjornsen tied Germany’s Nicole Fessel for fifth (+8.1). Parmakoski ended up seventh (+8.5) and Kalla eighth (+8.8).
Diggins’s second place puts her fifth overall in the Tour, 51.4 seconds behind Nilsson, who recaptured the lead and of Østberg (now 12.4 seconds back in third). Weng is second, 4 seconds behind Nilsson, heading into Stage 4.
Bjornsen is up to 12th (+2:16.7), and her U.S. teammate Kikkan Randall is 20th (+2:32.9) after placing 28th in Tuesday’s skiathlon (finishing 43.8 seconds behind Nilsson). Also for the U.S., Liz Stephen notched 30th (+59.9) to move up to 36th overall, and Rosie Brennan finished 45th on Tuesday (+2:14.5) for 43rd overall.
The men’s 20 k skiathlon podium at Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany, with Russian winner Sergey Ustiugov (c), Norway’s runner-up Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l), and Switzerland’s Dario Cologna (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
[UPDATED] In the men’s 20 k skiathlon that followed, Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov racked up his third-straight victory in as many stages in the 2016/2017 Tour de Ski, with a 0.6-second win over his main contender, Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby.
Ustiugov extended his overall lead in the Tour by about 10 seconds, while Sundby remains second, 29.5 seconds back.
Switzerland’s Dario Cologna reached the podium for the first time this season, finishing third, 1 second behind Ustiugov.
Canada’s Alex Harvey kept his overall third spot in the Tour in fourth place (+2.7), ahead of Sweden’s Marcus Hellner in fifth (+3.6). Harvey is 1:09.3 minutes back in third in the Tour standings, ahead of Cologna in fourth (+1:25.4), and Hellner in fifth (+1:42.4).
Canada had two in the top 10 with Devon Kershaw in 10th (+7.4), which puts him in 20th overall (+3:01.9).
Noah Hoffman led the two U.S. men still in the Tour in 35th (+2:06.8) while Erik Bjornsen finished 53rd (+4:22.4). Hoffman is 37th overall (+5:36.2) and Bjornsen 52nd (+7:35.6).
Also for Canada, Len Valjas was 37th (+2:10.6), and Graeme Killick was 50th (+3:33.7). Valjas is currently 32nd overall (+4:56.1) and Killick 48th (+6:35.2).
Notably, Norway’s Finn Hågen Krogh did not finish and thus withdraws from the Tour.
The men’s 10 k classic mass start, with Canada’s Alex Harvey in bib 5 behind Norway’s Niklas Dyrhaug (28) and Sweden’s Marcus Hellner (18) heading out of the stadium on Sunday at the second stage of the Tour de Ski in Val Mustair, Switzerland. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
With the opening stages of the Tour de Ski in Val Müstair, Switzerland, behind us, we wanted to share some athlete and coach comments that didn’t make it into the race reports:
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On training over the holidays leading up to the Tour:
“We were in three different main locations over Christmas: France, Austria, and Switzerland, depending on which athlete you were. You kind of come back and see where everybody is. I think we all know each other so well that the feedback we got from France, even though as a coach, I wasn’t there, kind of told me where people were in terms of health and fitness.”
— U.S. coach Matt Whitcomb after Saturday’s freestyle sprint
On American Kikkan Randall qualifying for the heats for the first time this season in 29th, then going on to place 15th in the freestyle sprint on Saturday:
“Who skis poorly on their birthday? We knew Kikkan was going to get in there today. Even though she’s been coming from a different place than she’s ever been, it was cool to see her squeak in there and really fun to see her mix it up in what was actually a pretty fast heat. To be right there at the finish, to hit the gas like Sophie did, and to have some speed to access, says great things for the Tour.”
— Whitcomb
“We took a chance with entering Kikkan in this Tour, and she knows that. This is an investment, and she hadn’t scored points yet, she’d been close in Davos, she told us you know, ‘Hey, I want this, but I respect your call.’ We decided to make an investment and give her these starts because we really believe it’s going to help her get back to a place where she’s been before. Today, made me really happy to see her so happy about her results. She had a Christmas break where several key workouts went very well in Davos, she came out of there with some confidence and that’s always a good combination at the beginning of a World Cup.”
— Whitcomb
On American Sophie Caldwell qualifying in fifth and going on to place 13th on Saturday:
Sophie Caldwell (U.S. Ski Team) skating to fifth in the women’s freestyle sprint qualifier at Stage 1 of the Tour de Ski last Saturday in Val Mustair, Switzerland. She went on to place 13th overall. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
“One of the best qualifications that she’s ever had, certainly her best this year. It’s great to see her healthy again. She was sick over Christmas, she was the last of the team to go down. She’s healthy again, and so that qualification said great things. She got stepped on, on the final climb and had to cover a gap that got opened up. I was curious to see, at altitude sometimes she can run out of gas and have less than what is required in the finish, and she was really punchy, she hit the gas and got speed out of it, and there was just too many people to go by. She lost by five-hundredths of a second. It could have gone either way; it could have gone fantastically or it could have gone the way that it went.”
— Whitcomb
“I was really psyched with the qualifier today. This is a pretty long, hard course at altitude, so to qualify that high was a really good day for me. It’s funny because this is the second time I’ve raced here, and because it’s long hard and because it’s at altitude, both times I’ve had to tell myself to go easy the first lap or 2/3rds of a lap. Of course you never actually go easy in a race, but if I keep telling myself to go easy, then I can at least take it out a little slower and pace it pretty well.”
— Sophie Caldwell on Saturday’s qualifier
“I’m someone who has a lot of fast twitch and I can get up to speed quite quickly, which is sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse. On a quick course it can be a great thing, but on a longer course at altitude, I risk having an epic blowup if I start out too hot. So after the first uphill today I was like, ‘okay, good job, your legs don’t hurt and you’re not breathing hard’, then across the long gradual uphilll I started picking it up a bit and then tried to hammer up the hill the second time and of course, my legs hurt, but they were fresh enough to make it over the hill. I didn’t know I was having a good race because it’s hard to feel like you’re crushing it when you’re really trying to pace, but I was really happy to see I was fifth.”
— Caldwell on her qualifier
“Being .01 from advancing was tough, but I’ve also been on the winning end of a lunge before and I guess you can’t always be the lucky one!”
— Caldwell on placing third in her quarterfinal
On American Simi Hamilton:
“I’m expecting big things out of [Simi] in Toblach [at the regular-season World Cup Jan. 14-15]. I think he’s set up for success there. In sprint racing, that doesn’t mean anything, but it’s the best we can ask for. He’s starting to feel better, it’s just today he had a conservative approach to the start as a way of conserving energy, and in this particular heat it put him in sixth, and he had trouble finding windows to make any moves. That didn’t go well tactically today. I think it wasn’t that he was scrambling to hang on, he looked good, he had good acceleration through the finish, he was able to pick off a couple guys. He finished fourth in his heat, and 18th on the day. It’s positive for sure, it’s not where he can race. We’ll see him on the podium again.”
— Whitcomb after Saturday’s freestyle sprint
“I wasn’t surprised with how the qualifier went. I was definitely happy with it. It obviously wasn’t the best qualifier, if you look at the time out from the leader. If you take Ustiugov out of the equation, I think I was somewhat close. I definitely treat it as a sign that things are moving in the right direction.”
— Simi Hamilton after Saturday’s freestyle sprint, where he qualified 14th and went on to place 18th
On the decision for some U.S. Ski Team members to withdraw from the Tour:
“That’s been a part of the plan. It’s not something we decided on the spot. [Sophie Caldwell and Simi Hamilton] will participate in the OPA Cup in Slovenia along with Ida Sargent and Andy Newell this coming weekend. We saw a better opportunity for some of our sprinters than a skate sprint on Friday and a 10 skate on Saturday that they’ll do in Val di Fiemme, [Italy].”
— Whitcomb
On choosing between classic or skate skis for Sunday’s classic mass start:
Canada’s Alex Harvey (5) racing alongside Norway’s Niklas Dyrhaug (28) and Russia’s Andrey Larkov (7) in the men’s 10 k classic mass start at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski on Sunday, Jan. 1, in Val Mustair, Switzerland. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
“I tested the skate skis, I was ready to go. I had my pursuit boots, I was ready to go double pole, but the final call was just going to be whatever my competitors were doing. In the end, all the Norwegian guys, Dario [Cologna of Switzerland], and [Finland’s Iivo] Niskanen went classic skis, so I just made the call, kind of looking at what these guys were doing … classic was probably a safer bet and thinking ahead, thinking for the next few days it is a bit easier on the body to stride, and apply the pressure and use all your muscles rather than just the arms and the core so could be a bit better to stride.”
— Canadian Alex Harvey, after placing eighth in Sunday’s 10 k classic mass start
On the classic mass start course:
“There was one, just not super steep, but very long climb like when you started at the bottom of the stadium. It was kind of all gradual for almost four minutes so that was tough, but it was not steep. On the second lap I was skiing behind [Great Britain’s Andrew] Musgrave [who was double poling] the whole way up and not catching him, just going the same speed, but then at the end of the lap, you would hit the sprint hill that we did twice yesterday and that is kind of steep and that is where the double polers were getting bogged down and crashing even. [Others] were trying to herringbone around them and hitting their ski tips, I think had it not be that hill, more people would double pole. That hill, even though it is short, is just enough to put so much stress on the arms that after, you’re kind of paying for it the rest of the course.”
— Harvey on Sunday
On rebounding from illness:
Sadie Bjornsen (U.S. Ski Team) racing to eighth in the Stage 1 freestyle sprint qualifier last Saturday in Val Mustair, Switzerland. She went on to place 23rd on the day. Like teammate Jessie Diggins, Bjornsen was also racing for the first time in several weeks after missing the La Clusaz World Cup due to illness. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
“I was really nervous coming to this Tour for a couple of reasons; for one, when you felt great, and then you get sick, you almost lose confidence in your immune system, and you’re like ‘What the heck? Am I going to wake up sick before the tour as well?’ It was a big relief to wake up, and be like ‘OK, I feel good, I feel healthy, I’m racing; this is awesome!’ It felt funny because I hadn’t raced in three weeks, and then we’re at this long sprint course at altitude. It was definitely an awkward start. I didn’t feel like I was really going, and I’m sure a lot of people didn’t feel that either, on this course at this altitude. … I was just thrilled to make it to the final, that was a surprise, but a very welcome one.”
— American Jessie Diggins, who placed sixth in Saturday’s sprint final after missing the World Cup in La Clusaz, France, two weeks earlier because of illness
“A lot of people look at illness as a negative thing, it’s really only negative in that you miss some races. [It can be a] somewhat positive recovery process that just unfortunately has to happen. We come out of it feeling fresh and sometimes faster than we were. I think in Jessie’s case, very happy with where she is, I know she’s feeling good.”
— Whitcomb on Saturday
On baby-friendly venues:
Kikkan Randall (c) racing in the 5 k classic mass start on Sunday, Jan. 1, at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski in Val Mustair, Switzerland. She ended up 19th on the day. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
“The [Val Müstair] organizers did an amazing job with this race and had a really nice baby room that my mom utilized with Breck. They had diapers, a changing table and toys to play with plus gifts for all the mothers. It’s really neat to see the [organizing committees] getting behind the support for mothers!”
— Randall after Sunday’s 5 k classic mass start
On strategy and expectations for the next few stages:
“It’s easy to try and overcomplicate things as a coach. I mean, we really want what we have to say make a difference to these athletes, but sometimes I think it’s better to just step back and make sure they stay happy, make sure they have access to good food and lodging, and effective travel schedules, fast skis, and just trust that if they show up and the start line feeling happy, relaxed, and with trust of their teammates and service staff and their coaches, that it’s going to go as well as it possibly can. So we don’t overcomplicate things with regards to strategy in a Tour. There may be an occasional point here or there on a sprint day or on a mass start, but basically show up on the start line rested and happy is our Tour strategy.”
— Whitcomb after Stage 1 on Saturday
“I’m definitely not over-analyzing. For a Tour, there’s so many things that need to go right every day for you to be in a top position, and I take it day-by-day. I don’t dwell on the past, I don’t dwell on the future. It’s just the right now I need to drink a lot, eat a lot, recover, foam roll … I just live in the moment during the Tour, because tomorrow when we’re going to drive four hours, then we’re going to do this, it’s a few too many things. … That helps conserve my energy, and not worry about things I can’t help.”
— Diggins on Saturday
“Moving into Oberstdorf, it’s just going to be more of the same. Try and recover with the demanding travel schedule, try and stay hydrated, we’re moving down from altitude, so that should help. And keep having fun.”
— Whitcomb after Stage 2 on Sunday
The men’s 10 k classic mass start at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski, with Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l) leading Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov, in Val Mustair, Switzerland. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby (r) leading early in the men’s 10 k classic mass start on at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski on Sunday, with Alex Harvey (second from r), Norway’s Finn Hågen Krogh (3) and Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (second from front left, in light blue) among those matching his pace. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Alex Harvey wasn’t feeling 100 percent on Sunday, but he didn’t need to be. Within three seconds of the leaders and eighth place at the finish of the men’s 10-kilometer classic mass start was essentially what he needed to secure one of the most coveted positions on the Tour de Ski right now: third place.
Ahead of him, Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov and Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby have built a nearly one-minute and 40-second lead on third place, respectively. With another victory on Sunday, Ustiugov has back-to-back wins in the first two stages of the Tour. Sundby was fourth in Saturday’s freestyle sprint and second on Sunday, good enough for second in the Tour, 18.9 seconds behind Ustiugov.
Then there’s Harvey, of Canada, who finished sixth on Saturday then eighth on Sunday for third in the Tour. He realized during the mass start that it was all about whom he was ahead of rather than a specific place he needed to finish in.
For instance, Finn Hågen Krogh. The Norwegian was third going into Sunday and finished 34th in the mass start, 50.1 seconds behind Ustiugov. That puts him 11th after two stages, nearly 1 1/2 minutes out of first.
“Not a lot happened, I just skied really slow,” Krogh told VG after Sunday’s race. “It was boring to do such a slow race.”
He wasn’t sure exactly what went awry on Day 2 of the Tour, but Krogh — expected to be one of Norway’s biggest threats aside from Sundby — was considering dropping out.
“Yeah, that might happen, but I should probably calm down a little before I make such a decision,” he said.
(His teammate Emil Iversen assured reporters that Krogh wouldn’t quit this early. “It’s about inspiring each other regardless of good or bad performances,” he told VG. “It’ll work out, I’ll show him some nice pictures of women on Instagram and then we’ll get him back on track.”)
Norway’s Niklas Dyrhaug (28) and Canada’s Alex Harvey (r) racing toward the front of the pack in the men’s 10 k classic mass start at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski on Sunday in Val Mustair, Switzerland. Harvey went on to finish eighth while Dyrhaug placed 12th. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
During the race, which included nearly 80 starters on a 2.5 k course in Val Müstair, Switzerland, Harvey took note of Krogh’s off day. Same thing with Iversen, another all-around contender, who started the mass start in eighth and ended up 18th for fifth overall in the Tour, 9.6 seconds behind Harvey.
“When I started looking at the overall map after yesterday, I knew of course Dario [Cologna], Sundby, Ustiugov and then Finn and Emil were the main threats up there .. and [Sweden’s Marcus] Hellner, too,” Harvey recalled on the phone. “When I saw that Finn and Emil where having a tougher day, I knew it was going to be good for me in the overall standings. I was still able to finish hard and my skis were really fast so I could make up some ground on the downhill, but I was still seven seconds off the pace so I didn’t lose too too much time.”
Exactly seven seconds behind Ustiugov at the finish, he finished less than a hundredth of a second ahead of Finland’s Iivo Niskanen, who placed ninth. In addition to the first and second finishers, Harvey followed five others across the line: Norway’s Didrik Tønseth (who finished 2.3 seconds back in third) and Sjur Røthe (+3.3 in fourth), Switzerland’s Cologna in fifth (+5.5), Finland’s Matti Heikkinen in sixth (+5.6), and Hellner in seventh (+6.0). But he’s ahead of all of them in the Tour standings.
“The finish was real good. Actually, I didn’t think I was eighth at the line, I thought I was more like 12th or 13th, so I made up a lot of ground on the last kilometer,” Harvey said. “Once we hit the sprint hill I passed three guys there, and then two guys out of the last curve, so that’s five guys in the last 500 meters. I passed a few guys before that, too, so I just didn’t know… I was really happy with being in the top 10 again.”
For Harvey, that’s his third-straight top 10 on the World Cup circuit and seventh this season.
“Over Christmas, I was feeling really, like, really good,” he said. “… I was hoping to be in the top five [overall] from the beginning, so I would say the results are like what I was feeling over Christmas, but the feeling is not so. I don’t know if that is a good thing or bad thing, but I chose it’s a good thing.”
The race feeling Harvey was referring to was a lack of snap on Val Müstair’s climbs. The highest point on the course is 1,700 meters, he explained, compared to Davos, Switzerland, where he trained over the holiday break at 1,530 meters.
“It’s not a huge difference, but I didn’t have great feelings, same as yesterday,” Harvey said. “Even though we spent Christmas in Davos and we should be climatized, it was tough so it was kind of going the same as yesterday, trying to go tactical a bit and position myself well at the base of the hills and then kind of drift, lose position and then gain it back on the flats.”
Canada’s Len Valjas (in red) striding near Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (second from r, in blue) in Sunday’s 10 k classic mass start at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski in Val Mustair, Switzerland. According to Valjas’s teammate Alex Harvey, most of the top skiers chose to stride rather than double pole, but Great Britain’s Andrew Young (r) was among those double poling on skate skis. He ended up 50th, while his teammate Andrew Musgrave double poled to 17th. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
While Harvey seemed to be skiing within the top 10 for most of the race, he said he slipped outside it on the downhills.
“Some guys were really aggressive, the skaters especially, so I kind of drifted back a bit by the end of the first lap,” he recalled.
For the second and third lap, he anticipated that drift and positioned himself more competitively.
“I was wearing skiathlon boots so in the corners I could really corner well and my skis were really fast, so I could kind of gain some positions out of the corners there to position myself well for the third and fourth lap,” he said. “But then, when the pace really went in the fourth lap on the hill I just drifted. I could really feel the altitude.”
Like he said, he finished strong, and that’s what mattered. Heading into the Tour’s third and fourth stages in Oberstdorf, Germany, Harvey knows the 20 k skiathlon is an important race. But perhaps more so than the result, he’s mindful of the bonus sprints — for valuable bonus seconds in the overall standings.
“It’s at sea level in Oberstdorf, so hopefully the feeling is a bit better there and I can go for [those sprint bonuses], and now I am defending the third spot. I mean, the two guys out front are clearly ahead — already it’s a minute to Ustiugov and 40 seconds to Sundby, but it’s a lot of guys behind me so I am just going to try to defend my position.”
Are Ustiugov and Sundby untouchable? In a multi-stage series, Harvey didn’t rule anything out. He pointed out that last year Sundby lost nearly a minute in his overall lead after placing 23rd in the 15 k classic mass start in Oberstdorf (although he was still left with 45 seconds wiggle room to second place).
“You never know, but they have a huge advantage already,” Harvey said. “I think Finn Hågen lost the Tour; I don’t think he can win anymore. In my head he was one of the favorites to win this year, but I think it is going to be between those two guys, but it is not a guarantee. It’s still the tour and a lot of skiing to do.”
“We’re going to help Finn back on his feet,” Sundby told VG. “It’s the same thing that happened to me last year in Oberstdorf. I had a horrible day and lost a minute. Finn has that kind of day today, which is really boring in a Tour. We will pull back up from the mud so he can be in the fight again.”
Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov racing to the win in Sunday’s 10 k classic mass start, directly ahead of three Norwegians, including runner-up Martin Johnsrud Sundby (third from r), third-place finisher Didrik Tønseth (second from r), and Sjur Røthe in fourth at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski in Val Mustair, Switzerland. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
While Sundby was the first to set the pace in the mass start, Ustiugov closely shadowed him and took control around 7.5 k and then for good with less than 2 k to go.
“He’s an incredible skier,” Sundby told NRK after. “He’s got it in his head and I hear it during the race that he’s tired. He sounds like a locomotive when he’s skiing. And he’s got an incredible finish.”
“I had great skis,” the 24-year-old Russian said, according to an International Ski Federation (FIS) press release. “The service team did a great job. The pace was very high from the beginning. I did not expect I would be leaving Val Müstair with two wins and the lead in the Tour de Ski.”
After Harvey in third overall, Russia’s Andrey Larkov is less than 2 seconds behind him in fourth after two stages, with a seventh place on Saturday and 11th place on Sunday. Iversen is another 7.7 seconds back in fifth (+1:09.2) and Cologna is sixth (+1:10.4) after a ninth place followed by a fifth place on Sunday.
“I’m not yet at 100 percent, but I felt good and was able to keep up,” Cologna told Swiss TV broadcaster SRF after hanging in the top four and even leading at times during the race, along with Sweden’s Hellner. “On the climb when Sundby attacked, it was fast, but I was able to get in contact again, and then on the steep sprint climb my pole did not find grip twice, went into the void a bit, and then I lost contact. But I think it was fine, a small step ahead. And I could show and also show to myself, that everything is OK.”
Of note, Cologna grew up about 500 meters from the Val Müstair course.
“That’s very special. It’s always fun,” he said of the third-straight year of the Tour de Ski being held at the venue. “A good atmosphere and a lot of people, you know? It’s not always easy to meet all demands, but it’s quite fun…”
Kershaw, Killick and Bjornsen Move Up
Two Canadians made up considerable ground on Sunday, with Devon Kershaw racing to 27th (+42.9), putting him 32nd overall in the Tour (+2:22.5), and Graeme Killick finishing 33rd in the mass start (+49.3) for 36th overall (+2:29.5). In Saturday’s sprint, the two finished 51st and 57th, respectively.
That kind of starting position put Kershaw and Killick toward the back of the mass start, with only five tracks across and more than 50 men ahead of them.
Devon Kershaw (54), followed by Canadian teammate Graeme Killick (47), racing to 27th in Sunday’s 10 k classic mass start at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski in Val Mustair, Switzerland. Killick went on to place 33rd. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
“… Most of the race was rather hectic — but to be honest it was better than I thought,” Kershaw wrote in an email. “The conditions were perfect and the descents weren’t nearly as icy as the day before when I was skiing around testing out the course.”
He explained it was difficult to pass on a twisty 2.5 k loop, but he focused on being patient.
“It cost me a chance to get into the top 10-15 for sure, but by just biding my time and skiing smooth and relaxed without getting caught up in the mayhem allowed me to have decent energy the whole way,” he wrote. “I just kind of kept picking off a few guys were I could — which happened to be on the climbing section — which I felt decent on.”
In terms of his standalone result — 27th — Kershaw said it was closer to his goal of a top 20 in classic races.
“This year in the three classic races on the World Cup I’ve been 33rd, 23rd (time in Lillehammer where I moved up to 27th in the overall) and today 27th — so I guess I’m consistent — but I’d be lying if I said that’s where I want to live,” he wrote.
And while he might be in 32nd, he’s within 20 seconds of 22nd.
“There is a lot of skating this year — so perhaps not as good for me as years past which lean heavier on classic — it’s all good,” Kershaw wrote. “I will take it day by day and of course I am really looking forward to the classic race in Val di Femme (15km mass start). The [skiathlon] in two days will be fun too (the 20km) so I am looking forward to that as well since I’ve had some OK [skiathlons] in my day.”
Like Harvey, he was looking forward to racing at lower elevations.
Canada’s fourth finisher on Sunday, Len Valjas placed 38th (+54.3) after starting in bib 14. That puts him in 26th overall (+2:13.5).
The U.S. men were led by Erik Bjornsen in 42nd (+59.9), after placing 64th in Saturday’s sprint. He started in bib 59 and is up to 42nd overall (+2:41.2).
“Just out of the stadium they had cut it down to just 4 tracks. I just couldn’t move up with that many guys and such limited space,” Bjornsen wrote in an email. “I had to wait until the second lap and by that time it was so spread out. I definitely don’t have the snap I felt a couple weeks ago, but I put in a hard training block around Christmas and then took some easy days before traveling over to Switzerland.
“I’m hoping coming back down to lower altitude and a couple days of hard efforts will spark the body back into the form I know I have,” he continued.
Noah Hoffman finished 46th (+1:13) for the U.S. after starting in bib 48, and his teammate Simi Hamilton — who planned in advance to withdraw from the Tour after Stage 2 — slipped from 15th overall to 74th after placing 75th (+3:14.8) on Sunday.
Hoffman is currently 48th overall (+2:57.4), about 38 seconds out of the top 30.
The first of two rest days in the nine-day Tour is Monday, then Oberstdorf will host the women’s and men’s 10/20 k skiathlons on Tuesday and 10/15 k classic pursuits on Wednesday.
The men’s 10 k classic mass start podium at Stage 2 of the 2017 Tour de Ski in Val Müstair, Switzerland, with Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (c) in first, Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l) in second, and Norway’s Didrik Tønseth (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
FIS Cross-Country Tour de Ski Stage 2 (Val Müstair): 5/10 k classic mass starts
There was a lot of jostling between Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov and Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby, with the latter leading early and the Russian not letting him get too complacent up front, but ultimately, Ustiugov was the first across the line in the men’s 10-kilometer classic mass start, the second stage of the Tour de Ski in Val Müstair, Switzerland.
Ustiugov put himself back ahead of Sundby with fewer than 2 k to go and held a sizable lead to the finish, crossing in 24:50, while Sundby finished second, 1.9 seconds back.
Norway took second through fourth with Didrik Tønseth in third (+2.3) and Sjur Røthe in fourth (+3.3), while home-crowd favorite Dario Cologna of Switzerland settled for fifth (+5.5) after racing in the top three for much of the race.
The top 13 finishers all ended up within 10 seconds of Ustiugov at the finish, with Finland’s Matti Heikkinen in sixth (+5.6), Sweden’s Marcus Hellner in seventh (+6.0), and Canada’s Alex Harvey in eighth (+7.0).
With a six place on Saturday and eighth on Sunday, Harvey is currently third overall in the Tour, 59.6 seconds behind Ustiugov in first and 40.7 seconds behind Sundby in second (Sundby trails Ustiugov in the overall by 18.9 seconds.)
Finland’s Iivo Niskanen made it into the top 10 on Sunday in ninth (+7.0), as did the fourth Norwegian, Simen Hegstad Krüger in 10th (+7.3).
Devon Kershaw made big strides in moving up to 27th (+42.9) for 32nd overall in the Tour (+2:22.5), Graeme Killick placed 33rd (+49.3) and Len Valjas 38th (+54.3) for Canada. Valjas is currently 26th overall (+2:13.5) and Killick 36th (+2:29.5) in the Tour.
Erik Bjornsen led the U.S. men in 42nd (+59.9) for 42nd overall (+2:41.2). Noah Hoffman placed 46th (+1:13) and is currently 48th in the Tour (+2:57.4) and Simi Hamilton (+3:14.8) was 75th out of 78 finishers. A sprinter, Hamilton planned to withdraw from the Tour after this stage for a training block.
Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (top and bottom center) celebrates her win in Stage 2 of the 2017 Tour de Ski, the women’s 5 k classic mass start, which she won over teammate Heidi Weng (l) and Finland’s Krista Parmakoski (r). Østberg currently leads the overall Tour by more than 10 seconds over Weng with seven stages to go. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
[UPDATED] In the women’s 5 k classic mass start, Ingvild Flugstad Østberg rebounded from Saturday, in which she was eliminated in the semifinals for seventh place in the freestyle sprint, with a seven-second victory over Norwegian teammate Heidi Weng.
Østberg finished first in 13:21.2, Weng took second for her second-straight podium of the Tour, and Finland’s Krista Parmakoski finished third (+11.4).
American Jessie Diggins raced to eighth (+32.6) to maintain her position in sixth overall in the Tour. Østberg took the Tour lead after two stages by 10.3 seconds over Weng. Sweden’s Stina Nilsson, who won Saturday’s sprint, is third, 23.8 seconds back from Østberg, while Parmakoski improved to fourth (+42.0). Norway’s Kathrine Rolsted Harsem placed seventh on Sunday for fifth overall (+51.6), and Diggins 1:01 back in sixth.
The second American in the top 20, Kikkan Randall raced to 19th (+42.4). Also for the U.S., Sadie Bjornsen finished outside the points for the first time this season in 35th (+1:02.6), Sophie Caldwell was 38th (+1:09.4), Rosie Brennan 39th (+1:10.5), and Liz Stephen improved to 44th (+1:21.2).
Overall, Randall is currently 15th (+1:45.9), Caldwell 22nd (+2:03.3) — although Caldwell planned to withdraw from the Tour after Stage 2. Bjornsen is 25th (+2:05.4), Brennan 41st (+2:33.1) and Stephen 46th (+2:49.9).
Jessie Diggins (U.S. Ski Team) racing to ninth in Saturday’s 1.5 k freestyle sprint qualifier in Val Müstair, Switzerland. Diggins went on to place sixth in the final. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
As the women’s sprint finalists promenaded through the stadium toward the starting pen, the demeanors caught on camera varied, seemingly a reflection of their differing personalities or emotions at that moment.
On one hand, there was Stina Nilsson, Sweden’s sprint queen, walking through the athlete’s chute at the first stage of the Tour de Ski with the body language of a prizefighter.
Then there was Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla, more smiley and cheery than Nilsson, her fiercest sprint rival on the World Cup circuit. Heading into Saturday’s freestyle sprint, the last eight sprint wins had gone to either Nilsson or Falla. According to the International Ski Federation (FIS), that’s the longest streak ever between two athletes in a sprint.
Next came Switzerland’s Laurien van der Graaff, more reserved in front of her home crowd in Val Müstair, Switzerland, and Norway’s Kathrine Rolsted Harsem, who looked simply happy to be there in her first World Cup of the season.
And then there was Jessie Diggins, the well-known, fun-loving American, exuding the most energy of anyone heading to the start with her head held high as she looked out at the arena.
Finally, Norway’s Heidi Weng shuffled down the line, looking down and avoiding eye contact as she passed the TV camera. But she should get a pass on her body language; she suffered food poisoning before the race, according to Norwegian reports.
As all six women lined up at the start for their formal introductions, Diggins waved with bare hands. On an afternoon with temperatures hovering around freezing, she wasn’t trying to be tougher than everyone else, Diggins later explained.
“That was actually a mistake,” she said in a phone interview. “I was so excited and ready to go, and they were like, ‘All right, march in for the final,’ and I was like, ‘Great, I’m ready.’ ”
With her skis in hand, Diggins began her entrance before realizing she was still wearing her lobster mitts. It had been getting colder as the day entered the evening, and she had switched to the quasi-mitten before the final.
“I got over there, and realized I was still wearing my lobster gloves, and I was like, ‘Oh crap! I don’t want to race with these on!’ ” she said.
She decided she’d be better off racing with bare hands.
“I love my race gloves. I wish I had remembered them, but I didn’t,” Diggins said.
Two laps, 1.5 kilometers and nearly 3 1/2 minutes later, Diggins crossed the line in sixth, but it wasn’t so much an issue of no gloves as it was her positioning.
“I needed a better start to get in a good position from the gun, but that’s fine,” she reflected. “It’s a long tour, and I would just like to be in the final.”
Diggins finished 7.64 seconds behind Nilsson, who won in 3:26.27 to rebound from 31st place in the last skate sprint three weeks ago in Davos, Switzerland, for her second win of the season.
The women’s and men’s podiums at Stage 1 of the Tour de Ski, with (top) women’s winner Stina Nilsson (c) of Sweden, Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla (l) in second, and Norway’s Heidi Weng (r) in third. (Bottom) Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (c) won the men’s final, ahead of Italy’s Federico Pellegrino (l) in second and Norway’s Finn Hågen Krogh (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
“This was really important to me since Davos didn’t go so well,” the 23-year-old Nilsson said in a televised interview with TV2. “I am really happy. I felt strong through the entire day.”
“She was in a league of her own,” Swedish women’s coach Ole Morten Iversen told Expressen.
“I’m not surprised that she won, but I am a little surprised by how strong she was compared to the Norwegians. She was on a different level the entire day.”
Nilsson won the qualifier by 1.28 seconds (in 3:28.28) then proceeded to pull away from her competition in the quarterfinal and semifinal, which she won by roughly half a second and one second, respectively. (Diggins finished second behind her in the quarterfinal, after Diggins led the early in the heat. Nilsson passed her the course’s biggest climb on the first lap, while Diggins chased in second all the way to the finish.)
In the semifinal, Diggins and Nilsson met again, with Nilsson leading out of the start and Diggins following in second into the first climb. Falla eventually passed Diggins to move into second while Nilsson continued to lead, then the two built a small gap on Diggins in third. They finished in that order, with Nilsson holding off Falla by 1.04 seconds and Diggins by 1.36 seconds, in first, second and third, respectively.
In the final, Nilsson once again set the tone out of the start, leading Weng and Falla into the stadium at the end of the first lap. Diggins slipped to the back of the field on the first climb then fought to pass van der Graaff on the final descent.
Meanwhile, Nilsson and Falla distanced themselves from Weng in third place, who was just ahead of her Norwegian teammate Harsem in fourth.
Nilsson led into the finishing straight, several strides ahead of Falla, while Falla chased her across the line for second place, about 2 1/2 seconds back. Weng held off Harsem and van der Graaff by half a second for the third spot on the podium, 6.47 seconds out of first, Harsem placed fourth, and the Swiss skier outlasted Diggins by 0.68 seconds for fifth (+6.96).
“This is the worst thing I’ve ever been part of,” Weng said of racing after her food-poisoning episode in an interview with NRK. “… I just had to get it together. The prologue felt heavy, the quarter was heavy, the semi was heavy and the final was heavy. I had to try think positive, that everyone else was tired, but it was hard.”
For Harsem, 27, she was emotional about making it to the final after considering retiring before the start of this season.
“.. There were a lot of emotions in system and it was just so incredibly fun to be successful,” she told NRK. “I tried to wipe my tears and mobilize all that I had. I realized that I could. I had planned to go easy on the first lap, and then Heidi and I weren’t attentive enough to follow Stina and Maiken.”
Even Falla called it a long, hard race, and told FIS she had expected Weng to keep up with Nilsson.
“In the second lap of the final Heidi got little bit tired and I tried to close the gap on Stina myself,” Falla said. “I did not have enough power to do that. Stina was in a great shape.”
While Nilsson has a 10.7-second lead on Falla heading into the second stage of the Tour, it’s worth noting that this is the only sprint on the seven-stage schedule.
“I’m proud to say that I have the lead in the Tour de Ski, I’m going to enjoy this,” Nilsson told Expressen.
Diggins was also onboard with living in the moment.
“My goal for the Tour is have more fun than anyone else, because when I’m having fun that’s when I’m the most dangerous on the race course, and that’s when I’m going fast,” she said. “Yeah, it’s my job, and you always want to win, but it’s also my life, and I want to enjoy the Tour because it’s a really exciting and fun event.
“Going into the final already had my strategy worked out,” she added. “… I’m going to go out there and ski as hard as I can. I’m going to focus on what I need to do, but I’m going to enjoy myself. My game face is not an intimidating one.”
“My goal for the Tour is have more fun than anyone else, because when I’m having fun that’s when I’m the most dangerous on the race course, and that’s when I’m going fast.” — Jessie Diggins, U.S. Ski Team
Sunday’s race is a 5 k classic mass start, so the top women in the Tour so far will line up alongside one another at the front of the pack. That’s a good thing for someone like Diggins, who is currently sixth in the Tour and 23.7 seconds out of first. But she didn’t think it was necessarily fair and noted that it will be tough to pass on the Val Müstair course, just as it was on Saturday’s technical sprint course.
“I think it’s mildly hilarious that we’re doing a 5 k classic mass start,” Diggins said. “I think it’s so stupid that the women have to do exactly half the distance the men do all the time. I think that it’s silly. I think we can handle more.
“That said, I love 5 k’s, I just think a 5 k mass start isn’t entirely fair to the people who are starting in the back; that sucks for them,” she continued. “It will be a fun course tomorrow; it’s a grind of a climb up, and then there’s a lot of 90-degree corners and sharp downhills. There’s one that’s like an elevator shaft. It’s going to be really exciting.”
Sophie Caldwell (U.S. Ski Team) after winning the 1.2 k classic sprint final at Stage 4 of last year’s Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Marcel Hilger)
Diggins led four U.S. women in the top 30 on Saturday, more specifically in the top 23. Sophie Caldwell qualified fifth, 3.15 seconds behind Nilsson, for her best qualifier in nearly a year (since qualifying third in last year’s Tour de Ski classic sprint in Oberstdorf, Germany, which Caldwell went on to win).
Sadie Bjornsen qualified eighth (+5.08), and Diggins was the third U.S. woman qualifying in the top 10 in ninth (+5.64).
“We expected big things today, and I think we had certainly a good day to prove that that was in fact the case, and that the tour should go well for us,” U.S. Ski Team Women’s Coach Matt Whitcomb said on the phone.
Kikkan Randall also qualified in 29th (+10.77) on her 34th birthday for her first individual top 30 of the season.
“It was a very difficult course, aerobically as well as technically,” Whitcomb explained. “At 1,600 meters [above sea level], there’s a lot of climbing. To have our women do as well as they did, including Kikkan on her birthday getting into the heats, just said straight up that we’ve got fast women. They’re in good shape, they’re ready for big results, whether or not that happens individually today, or not, that’s just sprint racing.”
Caldwell went on to place 13th after finishing third in her quarterfinal, 0.72 seconds behind Finland’s Krista Parmakoski in first. Slovenia’s Vesna Fabjan automatically advanced to the semifinals in second, 0.71 seconds back, just one-hundredth of a second ahead of Caldwell.
“I was happy with the qualifier and feel so-so about the overall result,” Caldwell wrote in an email. “It was not my best race, but it was not my worst, it was solid.”
She plans to race the second stage on Sunday then withdraw from the Tour for a training block before the next set of regular-season World Cup sprints in Toblach, Italy.
“I got hit hard with the cold that was going around our team as soon as I started Christmas break, so I had to take some time off and do some walking pace training,” Caldwell explained. “I did a little threshold yesterday, but that was my first intensity since La Clusaz [two weeks ago], so I wasn’t sure what to expect going into today. I’m happy to be feeling healthy again, though.
“It’s a long season and while I haven’t had the races I want to have yet, I’m confident that with some consistent training and resting, I can keep getting faster,” she added.
Randall finished third in her quarterfinal, 1.42 seconds behind Falla in first and 0.46 seconds after Germany’s Hanna Kolb in second.
“Today definitely felt like another step forward toward getting my race sharpness back,” Randall wrote in an email to members of the press. “My qualifier was decent and I felt like I had more punch in my quarterfinal. Tough to just miss the lucky loser spot because I was feeling stronger as I went and actually felt competitive for the first time this season. Still lots of racing ahead though so I am satisfied with today as a good start and am feeling good about the races ahead.”
As for how she’d celebrate her birthday and the new year, Randall wrote that it would be a tame night.
“Pop some confetti for us this evening, we’ll probably be in bed early for tomorrow’s race,” she wrote.
Bjornsen explained in an email that she was also hit with the bug and hadn’t skied at sprint pace since Davos three weekends ago. Like Diggins, she did not race in La Clusaz.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” she said of the qualifier. “I felt like I paced it well, but I was an early starter, so I didn’t know what to expect. I was really pleased to see how it had gone.”
Like Caldwell, Bjornsen pushed to get in front early in her quarterfinal on Saturday, but while Caldwell came from behind for third place at the finish, Bjornsen managed to hold the lead into the finishing straight. But in the final meters, something happened. Bjornsen lost her momentum and slipped to fifth.
“I noticed that someone was skiing over my pole almost the entire race,” Bjornsen wrote of the possibility of someone stepping on her pole before the finish. “I don’t recall much from the finish zone other than the fact that I really wanted to get to that line. At one point I bobbled and lost my balance… not sure why… but that was real game changer.”
She ended up 0.78 seconds out of first, which went to van der Graaff.
“I have began to realize this fall that my strength is over the whole course,” Bjornsen explained. “I have made a mistake in the last couple sprint races to sit in the pack, and expect a sprint finish, but I haven’t had so much luck with that. The best I ski is when I am in control a bit. I had a plan to try to be in the front, and it worked out as I was hoping. Of course you run the risk of working harder, but I think that is ok for me. I wasn’t strong enough in the finish zone, and I bobbled, which really was a bummer.
“There are glimmers in today, and I think that I learned that I am strong enough to ski in command,” she added. “I just need to figure out that finish stretch … but fortunately I have seven more races rather quickly in a row to get some redemption with.”
“There were a number of thirds and fourths out there for us today in heats,” Whitcomb noted. “In stand-alone races, we can kind of just look at those and say, ah, I wish that lunge had gone a little better, but in a tour we really have to be glass half-full. We had three girls in the top 15, four people total in the top 20. It’s a really positive start to the team, it’s just a great, solid day.”
Also for the U.S., Rosie Brennan finished 35th, 2.66 seconds outside the top 30, and Liz Stephen placed 57th in the qualifier.
“Liz was sick for a couple days coming into the tour, and just today she was feeling better and she was actually our last person to kind of have this illness,” Whitcomb explained. “As long as today was accepted by her body, we are operating with a completely healthy team going into tomorrow.”
“The tour has always been a fun event for us,” Diggins said. “We see it as you have a chance today and a chance tomorrow, you have all these chances to go out and kick some butt, and I think people are really embracing that. If you had the race you wanted today; awesome, and if you didn’t, you’ll have it tomorrow.”
The women’s mass start, seen from above in Val di Fiemme, Italy, at last year’s 2015/2016 Tour de Ski with American Sadie Bjornsen and an Italian in the foreground and Jessie Diggins switching lanes. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
It’s time for the International Ski Federation’s (FIS) 11th Tour de Ski. The 2017 edition takes place in three countries and four different venues. Racers will compete in seven stages over the course of nine days. The grueling Alpe Cermis — a 9-kilometer freestyle hill climb in Val di Fiemme, Italy — will be featured again as the final race to determine the overall Tour de Ski (TdS) results.
Directly leading up to the multi-stage event, all four venues reported good snow conditions, even if it’s mostly manmade. In its third year of hosting the Tour, Val Müstair, Switzerland, is opening the TdS for the first time with the first two stages. Oberstdorf, Germany, reported good conditions for two stages on a 2.5 k loop, as did Toblach, Italy, which will hold the fifth stage. The perennial host of the Tour’s final stages, Val di Fiemme has coped with a lack of natural snow, but its course and final climb are ready, with the Alpe being open since Christmas.
Friday, Jan. 6 (Toblach): 5/10 k freestyle (4:45/7 a.m. ET)
Saturday, Jan. 7 (Val di Fiemme): 10/15 k classic mass start (8:30/9:30 a.m. ET)
Sunday, Jan. 8 (Val di Fiemme): 9 k freestyle pursuit (hill climb) (5:30/9:30 a.m. ET)
The Players:
The all-Norwegian 2016 Tour de Ski overall podium, (from left to right) with runner-up Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (l), winner Therese Johaug (c) and third-place finisher Heidi Weng (r) after the final climb in Val di Fiemme, Italy. Johaug is not competing while serving a provisional suspension. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Ingvild Flugstad Østberg continues to prove that she can compete for a win in any distance and after finishing second in last year’s Tour (to Norwegian teammate Therese Johaug, currently out with a provisional suspension), Østberg will be back this year to vie for her first TdS title. Her teammate Heidi Weng placed third last year but is already off to her strongest start yet, with three individual victories so far this World Cup season.
A victorious Martin Johnsrud Sundby at the top of Alpe Cermis after winning his third-consecutive Tour de Ski last season in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Fiemme World Cup)
Last year’s men’s champion, Martin Johnsrud Sundby of Norway returns to defend his title all the way to the finish in Val di Fiemme. Sundby is in good form, with two individual wins and four podiums so far this season. Also returning is Sundby’s teammate Finn Hågen Krogh, who raced to second last year and is coming off his first victory of the World Cup season in the 15 k freestyle in La Clusaz, France. Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov will be aiming to move up on the podium after taking third last year, and Norway’s Petter Northug continues to miss the World Cup action as he is looking to rekindle his usual level of energy, according to multiple reports.
Six Russian skiers have been provisionally suspended as of Dec. 22, after being tied to doping violations at the 2014 Sochi Olympics in the McLaren report, according to a FIS press release on Friday. Following the investigative actions of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the FIS Doping Panel “made the unanimous decision today [Friday]” to uphold those provisional suspensions of Evgeniy Belov, Julia Ivanova, Alexander Legkov, Evgenia Shapovalova, Alexey Petukhov, and Maxim Vylegzhanin. The athletes had originally appealed to FIS to compete in the Tour, expediting the FIS Doping Panel’s decision-making process, but ultimately, those six will not be able to compete in the Tour nor any competitions or national-team activities.
“The reasons for the Panel’s decision will be communicated directly to the athletes in due course,” the FIS press release stated.
So who does that leave for Russia, and which other athletes will be competing? Let’s take a look at some of the TdS rosters.
RUSSIA
Women: Yulia Tchekaleva, Polina Kalsina, Elena Soboleva, Alisa Zhambalova, Olga Tsarevets, Mariya Guschina, Anna Nechaevskaya (as leader of the Continental Cup)
Men: Sergey Ustiugov, Alexander Bessmertnykh, Andrey Larkov, Andrey Melnichenko, Petr Sedov, Ermil Vokuev, Alexey Chervotkin (as leader of the Continental Cup)
USA
Jessie Diggins realizing she won the 5 k freestyle at the sixth stage of the Tour de Ski on Jan. 8, 2016, in Toblach, Italy. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
* Caldwell and Hamilton intend to stop the Tour after Stage 2, according to U.S. Ski Team (USST) Head Coach Chris Grover.
** Randall may stop after Stage 5, according to Grover.
As for the rest of the team, Andy Newell and Ida Sargent are currently in the U.S. and plan to leave for Europe soon. They will join Caldwell and Hamilton at an OPA Cup in Planica, Slovenia, during the last week of the Tour (with all four planning to race the sprint on Jan. 6 and 5/10 k freestyle on Jan. 7).
The six U.S. skiers planning to complete the Tour will recover afterward at Seiser Alm, Italy, for a post-Tour camp Jan. 10-17. The team’s sprinters will race at the regular-season Toblach World Cup Jan. 14-15, and Period 1 Continental Cup leaders Matt Gelso and Liz Guiney will convene with the team the following week in Sweden, according to Grover.
As for how the USST picked its six women for the Tour, Grover wrote in an email that it weighed several factors, including:
“Results in Period 1 of World Cup
History of top performances in the TdS
Current trends in fitness; who is skiing faster each weekend
Who are our strongest distance skiers? There is only one sprint in this year’s TdS and it is the opening stage. Sprinters will stop after 2 stages.
Who needs the multi-day racing format of the TdS to help create top-end fitness for the second half of the season?”
“Ida was originally scheduled to start the TdS,” Grover wrote. “However, we had more women wanting to start than are possible in our quota of 6. … The hardest part of this decision was weighing the impact that a sprinter like Ida might have in the opening stage of the Tour versus the impact that an all-arounder might have in the complete Tour.”
CANADA
Canada’s Alex Harvey (l) on the podium in second place at the 2015 Tour de Ski two years ago, with Norway’s Petter Northug (c), who won the 15 k classic pursuit in Oberstdorf, Germany, and third-place finisher Calle Halfvarsson of Sweden (r). Northug is not competing this year. (Photo: Marcel Hilger)
Men: Alex Harvey, Devon Kershaw, Len Valjas, Graeme Killick
No women’s team, as most of its members are training in Canmore, Alberta, gearing up for U.S. nationals/U23 World Championships trials at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. According to Canadian World Cup coach Ivan Babikov, its veteran athlete, 27-year-old Emily Nishikawa, is also at her training base in Canmore for a training block.
All four men are planning to finish the Tour.
“It’s very good race program at the Tour this year and most of the races suit these guys very well,” Babikov wrote in an email. “But for Len sprint is #1 priority, but he is also very excited about short distance and mass starts, but like I said, even Len is focusing on finishing the Tour.”
SWITZERLAND
Men: Dario Cologna, Toni Livers, Curdin Perl, Jason Ruesch, Jonas Baumann, Erwan Käser, Jovian Hediger, Roman Furger, Roman Schaad, Philip Hälg
Women: Nathalie von Siebenthal, Nadine Fähndrich, Laurien van der Graaff, Heidi Widmer
GERMANY
Women: Nicole Fessel, Victoria Carl, Julia Belger, Steffi Böhler, Katharina Hennig, Sofie Krehl, Elisabeth Schicho, Sandra Ringwald, Hanna Kolb and Antonia Fräbel
Men: Thomas Bing, Lucas Bögl, Jonas Dobler, Sebastian Eisenlauer, Andy Kühne, Valentin Mättig, Florian Notz, Tim Tscharnke and Thomas Wick
FINLAND
Women: Anne Kyllönen, Laura Mononen, Kerttu Niskanen, Krista Pärmäkoski, Riitta-Liisa Roponen, Aino-Kaisa Saarinen
Men: Matti Heikkinen, Perttu Hyvärinen, Ristmatti Hakola, Martti Jylhä, Ari Luusua, Iivo Niskanen
SWEDEN
Women: Anna Haag, Charlotte Kalla, Stina Nilsson, Maria Nordström, Maria Rydqvist, Emma Wikén
Men: Jens Burman, Axel Ekström, Calle Halfvarsson, Marcus Hellner, Daniel Richardsson, Victor Thorn
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![Norway's Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l) well ahead of the field as he double poles toward the finish in Saturday's 15 k classic mass start, which he won by 2.2 seconds over Russia's Sergey Ustiugov (not shown) while Finland's Matti Heikkinen (second from r) placed third at the Tour de Ski Stage 6 in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Sundby7117fm0018.jpg")
![Norway's Martin Johnsrud Sundby glances back to make sure he's out of reach during the final kilometer of the men's 15 k classic mass start at Stage 6 of the Tour de Ski in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Sundby7117fm0011.jpg")
![Russia's Sergey Ustiugov leads his Russian teammates Alexander Bessmertnykh (23) and Alexey Larkov at the front of the pack during the men's 15 k classic mass start at Stage 6 of the Tour de Ski in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Ustiugov7117fm0022.jpg")
![Russia's Sergey Ustiugov (front, in Tour leader's bib) leading early in the men's 15 k classic mass start on Saturday, along with Canada's Alex Harvey (l) at Stage 6 of the Tour de Ski in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Ustiugov7117fm0024.jpg")
![Alex Harvey (Canadian World Cup Team) en route to 19th in the men's 15 k classic mass start on Saturday, which puts him sixth overall in the Tour de Ski with one stage remaining in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Salomon/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Group7117fm0004.jpg")
![Erik Bjornsen's crash caught on camera during the first lap of the men's 15 k classic mass start at Stage 6 of the Tour de Ski on Saturday in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: CCC)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/bjornsen-fall.jpg")
![The women's podium at the 5 k freestyle on Friday at Stage 5 of the 2017 Tour de Ski, with two Americans: Jessie Diggins (c) in first and Sadie Bjornsen (r) in third, and Finland's Krista Parmakoski in second. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Podium6117fm0050.jpg")
![Jessie Diggins (U.S. Ski Team) racing to first for her third-straight 5 k freestyle victory on Friday at Stage 5 of the Tour de Ski in Toblach, Italy. Diggins won her first World Cup race in the Toblach 5 k one year ago. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Diggins6117fm0066.jpg")
![Sadie Bjornsen (U.S. Ski Team) after placing third for her first career World Cup podium on Friday in the 5 k freestyle at Stage 5 of the Tour de Ski in Toblach, Italy. She is now ninth in the Tour standings. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Bjornsen6117fm0060.jpg")
![Jessie Diggins celebrating her third career win (in three-consecutive 5 k freestyle races) on Friday at Stage 5 of the Tour de Ski in Toblach, Italy. (Photo: Salomon/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Diggins6117fm0051.jpg")
![The women's podium at the 5 k freestyle on Friday at Stage 5 of the 2017 Tour de Ski, with two Americans: Jessie Diggins (c) in first and Sadie Bjornsen (r) in third, and Finland's Krista Parmakoski in second. (Photo: Salomon/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Podium6117fm0061.jpg")
![U.S. Ski Team member Rosie Brennan (c) racing to a season-best World Cup result of 22nd in the 10 k freestyle mass start on Dec. 17 in La Clusaz, France. (Photo: Toko/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/ab199561-87c3-4aa7-b3ab-47726af054b8.jpg")
![Liz Stephen (U.S. Ski Team) racing in a World Cup earlier this season. (Photo: Toko/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/e6fa9e0f-0777-4df2-842e-c929d0e95e62.jpg")
![Kikkan Randall finishing the women's 5 k freestyle at Stage 5 of the Tour de Ski in 40th, which put her 22nd overall. The night before, Randall planned to withdraw from the Tour after Friday's stage in Toblach, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Randall6117fm0150.jpg")
![The Tour de Ski Stage 5 women's 5 k freestyle podium on Friday in Toblach, Italy, with two Americans -- Jessie Diggins (c) in first and Sadie Bjornsen (r) in third -- and Finland's Krista Parmakoski (l) in second. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/ Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/C1fRHTGXEAAcyko.jpg")
![Sergey Ustiugov of Russia topped the podium for a fifth straight stage of the FIS Tour de Ski, winning Friday's 10 k skate by just 0.4 seconds over Maurice Manificat of France (left). Norway's Simen Hegstad Krueger was third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/C1e31jGWEAA_g3Z.jpg")
![Canada's Alex Harvey in his well-known guitar stance to celebrate third in the men's 15 k freestyle pursuit at Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Harvey4117fm487.jpg")
![Tour de Ski leader Sergey Ustiugov of Russia leads Canada's Alex Harvey (3) on Tuesday in the Stage 3 skiathlon in Oberstdorf, Germany. Ustiugov won the 20 k race to maintain his overall lead in the Tour. Harvey placed fourth to hold onto third overall, and Switzerland's Dario Cologna (6) finished third on the day for fourth overall. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Group3117fm213.jpg")
![High speeds and tight quarters led to some tension during the Tour de Ski Stage 3 men's 20 k skiathlon on Tuesday in Obertsdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Group3117fm187.jpg")
![Russia's Sergey Ustiugov (r) edging Norway's Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l) on Tuesday in Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski, the men's 20 k skiathlon, in Obertsdorf, Germany, with Switzerland's Dario Cologna (behind Ustiugov) racing to third and Canada's Alex Harvey (back left, in red) racing to fourth. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Group3117fm222.jpg")
![Canada's Alex Harvey en route to fourth in the men's 20 k skiathlon at Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski on Tuesday in Oberstdorf, Germany. With his season-best result of fourth place, he maintained his position of third in the Tour. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Harvey3117fm165.jpg")
![Canada's Devon Kershaw skied to a season-best 10th place on Tuesday's at the Tour de Ski's Stage 3 skiathlon in Obertsdorf, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Kershaw3117fm162.jpg")
![The women's 10 k skiathlon podium on Tuesday at Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany, with Sweden's Stina Nilsson (c) winning her first World Cup distance race, American Jessie Diggins (l) notching a career-best skiathlon result in second, and Norway's Heidi Weng (r) placing third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/ witter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/C1PoZK7XgAA2rjx.jpg")
![The men's 20 k skiathlon podium at Stage 3 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany, with Russian winner Sergey Ustiugov (c), Norway's runner-up Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l), and Switzerland's Dario Cologna (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/C1QXDZ9XAAAgNNm.jpg")
![The men's 10 k classic mass start heading out of the stadium on Sunday at the second stage of the Tour de Ski in Val Mustair, Switzerland. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/15826438_1367485639949259_3135011173852386828_n.jpg")
![Sophie Caldwell (U.S. Ski Team) skating to fifth in the women's freestyle sprint qualifier at Stage 1 of the Tour de Ski last Saturday in Val Mustair, Switzerland. She went on to place 13th overall. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Caldwell311216fm080.jpg")
![Canada's Alex Harvey (5) racing in the men's 10 k classic mass start at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski on Sunday, Jan. 1, in Val Mustair, Switzerland. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Group1117fm093.jpg")
![Sadie Bjornsen (U.S. Ski Team) racing to eighth in the Stage 1 freestyle sprint qualifier last Saturday in Val Mustair, Switzerland. She went on to place 23rd on the day. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Bjornsen311216fm057.jpg")
![Kikkan Randall (c) racing in the 5 k classic mass start on Sunday, Jan. 1, at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski in Val Mustair, Switzerland. She ended up 19th on the day. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Randall1117fm130.jpg")
![The men's 10 k classic mass start at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski in Val Mustair, Switzerland. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/15747803_1367486719949151_3155938054664890022_n.jpg")
![Norway's Martin Johnsrud Sundby (r) leading early in the men's 10 k classic mass start on at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski on Sunday, with Alex Harvey (second from r), Norway's Finn Hågen Krogh (3) and Russia's Sergey Ustiugov (second from front left, in light blue) among those matching his pace. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/15747697_1367485403282616_1800623931743402378_n.jpg")
![Norway's Niklas Dyrhaug (28) and Canada's Alex Harvey (r) racing toward the front of the pack in the men's 10 k classic mass start at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski on Sunday in Val Mustair, Switzerland. Harvey went on to finish eighth while Dyrhaug placed 12th. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/15826464_1367487903282366_7896262848797332903_n.jpg")
![Canada's Len Valjas (in red) striding near Russia's Sergey Ustiugov (second from r, in blue) in Sunday's 10 k classic mass start at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski in Val Mustair, Switzerland. According to Valjas's teammate Alex Harvey, most of the top skiers chose to stride rather than double pole, but Great Britain's Andrew Young (r) was among those double poling on skate skis. He ended up 50th, while his teammate Andrew Musgrave double poled to 17th. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/15871439_1367486003282556_530157773857849279_n.jpg")
![Russia's Sergey Ustiugov racing to the 10 k classic mass start win by 1.9 seconds over Norway's runner-up Martin Johnsrud Sundby (second from r) and 2.3 seconds over Norway's Didrik Tønseth (r) in third on Sunday at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski in Val Mustair, Switzerland. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Ustiugov1117fm011.jpg")
![Canada's Devon Kershaw racing to 27th in Sunday's 10 k classic mass start at Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski in Val Mustair, Switzerland. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/15871851_1367487003282456_6667921503182949319_n.jpg")
![The men's 10 k classic mass start podium at Stage 2 of the 2017 Tour de Ski in Val Müstair, Switzerland, with Russia's Sergey Ustiugov (c) in first, Norway's Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l) in second, and Norway's Didrik Tønseth (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/C1FfzChWIAApMAD-1.jpg")
![Norway's Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (top and bottom center) celebrates her win in Stage 2 of the 2017 Tour de Ski, the women's 5 k classic mass start, which she won over teammate Heidi Weng (l) and Finland's Krista Parmakoski (r). Østberg currently leads the overall Tour by more than 10 seconds over Weng with seven stages to go. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/C1GF7SRWgAATu2B.jpg")
![Jessie Diggins (U.S. Ski Team) racing to ninth in Saturday's 1.5 k freestyle sprint qualifier in Val Müstair, Switzerland. Diggins went on to place sixth in the final. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/Diggins311216fm075.jpg")
![The women's and men's podiums at Stage 1 of the Tour de Ski, with (top) women's winner Stina Nilsson (c) of Sweden, Norway's Maiken Caspersen Falla (l) in second, and Norway's Heidi Weng (r) in third. (Bottom) Russia's Sergey Ustiugov (c) won the men's final, ahead of Italy's Federico Pellegrino (l) in second and Norway's Finn Hågen Krogh (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/C1A9R05XAAAh8GW.jpg")
![Sophie Caldwell (U.S. Ski Team) after winning the 1.2 k classic sprint final at Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: Marcel Hilger)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/01/YSi4Fjo3o1Pfl8xWaaIjFys1qSVha7SoY_yQDLIWpQA-e1452034030336.jpg")
![The women's mass start seen from above in Val di Fiemme, Italy (ITA). (photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/01/Feature160109mf027.jpg")
![2016 Tour de Ski overall runner-up Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (l), champion Therese Johaug (c) and third-place finisher Heidi Weng (r) celebrate Norway's sweep of the podium at Sunday's Stage 8 final climb in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/01/Group160110mf032.jpg")
![A victorious Martin Johnsrud Sundby of Norway at the top of Alpe Cermis on Sunday after winning his third-consecutive Tour de Ski in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Fiemme World Cup)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/01/Sundby_Arrivo02.jpg")
![Jessie Diggins realizing she won the 5 k freestyle at the sixth stage of the Tour de Ski on Jan. 8 in Toblach, Italy. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/01/0000175476_1200px_0OTE8SG01LH8JL0I2R0N40AJ5K01.jpg")
![Norway's Petter Northug (center) won Sunday's Tour de Ski 15 k classic pursuit in Oberstdorf, Germany, over Alex Harvey of Canada (left) and Calle Halfvarsson of Sweden (right). (Photo: Marcel Hilger)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/TdS14OberstdorfII-30.jpg")