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From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.

Tag: Elena Vyalbe

  • Cross-Country Skiing Mulls a Long Term Future Without Russia (Part 3)

    Cross-Country Skiing Mulls a Long Term Future Without Russia (Part 3)

    Click here to read part 1 and part 2 of this series, which takes a look at international news surrounding the Russian athlete ban through the spring. For how these bans have impacted a broader cross-section of the sporting world and analysis of the complex questions surrounding whether Russian athletes should be able to compete, check out this recent Sports Illustrated article by Michael Rosenberg.

    Historically, athlete bans meant to pressure a government have not been short. South Africa was banned by the IOC over its racial apartheid policies for 27 years from 1964 until 1991. In 1992 the U.N. sanctioned Serbia and Montenegro over the shelling of Sarajevo and urged their athletes to be banned from international competition. The IOC took up the ban, but reversed course and allowed Serbian athletes to compete under a neutral flag at the 1992 Olympics. 

    Stepanova has pointed out this example on her Instagram page as a precedent that should be followed, though it should be pointed out that Serbia was absent at the 1994 Lillehammer Games. All told, the Serbian state was largely exiled from international sport from 1992 – 1995. 

    Veronika Stepanova flexes with her Olympic relay gold medal during the 2022 Games in Zhangjiakou, CHN. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    Stepanova’s request to compete under a neutral flag rings a little hollow: the Russian ski team is already a little over two years into its four year WADA ban for state sponsored doping that requires it to compete under a neutral flag at championships. 

    A similar neutrality option was offered as a solution to the Russian national soccer team which was due to face Poland in a playoff match for qualification at the FIFA World Cup. Poland rejected the idea saying, “We are not interested in playing this game of appearances.” The Polish refusal to play Russia under any terms helped to force the IOC’s swift decision to recommend banning Russia from all sports. 

    “If doping wounds were quite successfully treated by time, then here the situation is different,” wrote an anonymous Russian blogger. “In fact, government policy has come into direct and insurmountable conflict with the ability to participate in the global sports movement. And now it seems that all this will last for years, if not decades.”

    ***

    Even if Russia were to return to the World Cup next season, it’s unclear that they would be able to operate at the same level as in the past, which has helped to fuel what US Ski Team Coach Matt Whitcomb refers to as a  “waxing arms race” on the World Cup circuit.

    According to Team Manager Elena Vyalbe, funding the Russian ski machine has been a challenge. She reported that the team’s budget in 2020 amounted to around 50 million rubles, roughly $600,000 at the time. According to Markus Cramer, who coached for Russia until this spring, the cost of supporting an athlete over the course of a year is more than $150,000—a figure that calls into question Vyalbe’s statement about the team’s budget.

    However, the Russian funding structure is murky, with much additional regional support to athletes provided by local extraction industries. Vyalbe complained in 2020 that sponsorships were scarce, saying, “No matter how well [Bolshunov] performed last year, we did not have a single new sponsor. God forbid that the current ones do not go away.” 

    In an April 5th interview with Championat, Vyalbe clarified the sources of the team’s funding: “We get most of the funds from the Ministry of Sports, the [Russian Olympic Committee] gives money for some things,” and that sponsorship amounted to “not even tears, but some kind of snot. We have a small budget.”

    The team’s primary sponsorship has come from Lukoil Oil Company since 1997. Whether or not Lukoil will be able to continue to fund Russian skiing remains to be seen. The company reported its highest annual profit in seven years at the same time that its shares plummeted on the London Stock Exchange after the invasion, losing 91% of their value before trading was halted March 3rd. 

    Though the ruble has recovered from its post invasion plummet, inflation in Russia is likely to reach at least 16% this year. That, coupled with uncertainty over the team’s competition status and the dismal prospects for the Russian economy, which is predicted by the IMF to contract 8.5% this year, has the potential to squeeze the team’s budget.

    Individual athletes also find themselves in a difficult position. Brav, the parent company of Swix and Toko, was quick to cancel sponsorship agreements with Russian  athletes, as did Kinetixx gloves. Expressen reported that Swedish ski company SkiGO was maintaining their partnership with Bolshunov, though SkiGO boss Christer Majbäck denied this, saying, “We don’t have any cooperation at all, it’s absolutely impossible. You don’t even have to ask me or SkiGO what we think about the war.”

    Alexander Bolshunov observes trailside during the 2021-2022 Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    Rossignol was standing by Bolshunov until an Instagram photo proved to be too much: not long after Russia was banned, Bolshunov visited a museum and posed for a photo in an old-timey Soviet race suit, captioning the photo “USSR 1980” —which happened to be the year that Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, though it may also have been a  reference to the 1980 boycott of the Moscow Olympics. In any case, Rossignol demanded Bolshunov remove the photo, which he did, but by the following day Rossignol said it was no longer supporting Russian athletes and removed them from its website. 

    Bolshunov could keep his skis, Rossignol said, but no new skis would be sent to Russia. 

    Similarly Fischer removed Russian athletes from its site. Fischer Communications Director Franz Fottinger wrote in an email, “All our contracts with athletes are based on their participation in World Cup races. If racers are excluded from the World Cup, there is no more basis to fulfill the contract.” 

    ***

    The Russian athletes have not exactly lost their ski partnerships, rather they are suspended until their return to the international circuit. Nevertheless, this has provoked a strong reaction in Russia, with calls to revamp ski production in the country.

    The only significant ski production facility in Russia is the STC factory in Balabovo, around 100 km southwest of Moscow. It employs 350 workers making mostly recreational and kids skis. Whether the factory can be retooled to the demands of making race stock skis is questionable.

    Alexander Pechersky, the head of service for the Russian ski team said that “No matter how optimistic I am, I understand that the process is not fast and it can take at least 4 to 6 years to produce skis of an acceptable competitive level.”

    Pechersky continued, “Miracles do not happen, but I want to try … I still look at this idea with optimism, it is very interesting to deal with it. If things move forward, then the Russian sports market can get a model that, for relatively little money, will cover the needs of at least youth sports.”

    The Russian Olympic Committee takes gold in the men’s 4 x 10 k relay in Zhangjiakou. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    Despite the public separation between sponsors and Russian athletes, some critical items are still quietly being made available to the team, according to Viktor Golovin, the deputy head of ski service for the Russian national team. “I will not name the companies, Golovin said, “but the Russian team at the start of the summer season is provided with new rollers in full, despite all the restrictions.

    The conflict in Ukraine also threatens to continue to squeeze the international supply of skis. Europe’s largest ski factory is located in Mukachevo, Ukraine and has traditionally produced some 800,000 pairs of cross country skis annually, primarily for Fischer. After a fire destroyed the facility in October of 2020, the factory remained offline for all of 2021 and was rebuilt into a state of the art ski production center. Just as final certification for the factory arrived in early February, the war broke out. 

    The factory’s director, Andriy Ryabich, wrote on his Facebook page on February 26th that “The work of the Fisher-Mukachevo enterprise has been suspended and the majority of the people went to the army in different directions and will defend our city, region and all [of] Ukraine.” 

    With much of the ski factories workforce at war during the critical spring months of ski production, ski shortages could once again factor in next season.

    ***

    For their part, the Russian Ski Federation has ordered the team to prepare with the expectation that they will compete on the World Cup, though their draft schedule indicates the team is planning to stay in Russia through next spring. 

    Curiously, in the face of unprecedented challenges the national team has expanded–to a historically large 46 skier strong team, divided into five training groups. 

    The team was dealt a blow with the departure of Markus Cramer this spring. He will join the Italian national team, though he will continue to coach Ustiugov from afar. 

    Former Russian ski coach Markus Cramer joins the Italian National Team for the 2022-23 season. (Photo: Nat Herz / ADN)

    Cramer’s tenure was instrumental in revamping the team’s training methods. Of the five training groups, three are closely tied to his methodologies. Two groups are led by Cramer protégés Egor Sorin and Petr Sedov, and a third by Sorin’s former assistant—Andrey Nutrikhin.

    The group led by Yuri Borodavko—who subscribes to a more Soviet era training philosophy and who was once suspended for doping activities—will add big names such as Yulia Stupak and Ivan Yakimushkin to an already impressive roster that includes Bolshunov and Neprayeva. Unmoved by the political climate, Borodavko’s group will begin the training year on May 15th with a controversial camp in Russian occupied Crimea.

    Yulia Stupak (RUS) races a freestyle sprint qualifier in Lahti, FIN in February 2022. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    A Russian return to the World Cup is complicated by the unusually acidic edge the team has brought to the circuit, with acrimony spilling over into social media trolling and confrontations on the ski course.

    Russian sport media has reacted strongly to the FIS ban by portraying the decision as a Norwegian power move and athletes such as Johannes Høsflot Klæbo who have supported the ban have been subjected to vitriol from Russian officials. Even before the invasion, Russian media has, in the post Sochi era, covered skiing in an increasingly strident and conspiratorial manner, dominated by a narrative of sporting victimhood and Russophobia. 

    Should Russia remain banned next season, or even longer, their absence may help FIS enact one of the most challenging maneuvers they have undertaken—the transition to fluoro-free racing, which FIS has now committed to enforcing next season. 

    Chris Grover downplayed the idea that Russia’s absence will make the transition easier, writing, “It doesn’t matter so much which nations are present at a given World Cup weekend. We need a testing system that all of the athletes, coaches, technicians and fans can trust.” 

    Fears of an imperfect test for fluoros have been punctuated with not so subtle hints of suspicion aimed at the Russian team. Golovin addressed these concerns, saying, “The Finns told us directly that the Russians are closed, no one knows what they do with skis. I suggested that they come to our wax truck and have a look…Come and see, and there is no need to make unfounded accusations.” 

    Nevertheless, Russia’s absence may lessen unstated distrust on the circuit, and perhaps improve cooperation and tolerance as the ban is enforced.

    To that end, it may be a mistake for FIS to end the ban before next season regardless of whether or not the war in Ukraine ends in the interim. All of the justifications for the ban are likely to continue into next season: security threats to Russian athletes, the Kremlin’s use of skiers for pro-war propaganda, and the inability of Ukrainian skiers engaged in the country’s defense to prepare for next season. Finally, there has been no attempt at reconciliation by Russian skiing toward the wider ski world, with intransigent blaming of Norway for the present situation. In short, Russian skiing has rejected the rest of the ski world and has found itself in the cold. 

    Alexander Bolshunov takes Olympic gold in the men’s mass start 30 k, shortened from 50 k due to temperatures and extreme wind. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    As Ulvang pointed out, skiing cannot be separated from society. 

    “It’s very important that we split [distinctions] between the sanction against a nation and the sanction against the Putin regime,” Ulvang told FasterSkier reporter Nat Herz in March. “I hope I’m still friends with the athletes and that we’re able to split between a reaction against the regime. It’s nothing personal. In the big picture we are all repping our nations and our regimes. We need legitimacy from society to exist. We need public money [for] our training facilities and to make tracks and courses and we need support.” 

  • Cross-Country Skiing Mulls a Long Term Future Without Russia (Part 2)

    Cross-Country Skiing Mulls a Long Term Future Without Russia (Part 2)

    Click here to read part 1 of this series, which takes a look at international news surrounding the Russian athlete ban through the spring. For how these bans have impacted a broader cross-section of the sporting world and analysis of the complex questions surrounding whether Russian athletes should be able to compete, check out this recent Sports Illustrated article by Michael Rosenberg.

     

    Concerns over both fair play and propaganda have been tied to the necessity of the ban on Russian athletes. Yet ultimately the reason given by FIS for the ban was to “ensure the safety and security of all athletes”. This wording removed any political connotations, and was criticized for its weak stance that failed to condemn the war in Ukraine. 

    Natalia Nepryaeva slides for the heat win during a sprint stage of the 2021-2022 Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, GER. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    Still, there were real concerns over the safety of the Russian athletes at European races. On March 1st, due to threats, the organizer of the World Junior Championships for jumping moved the Russian contingent out of their hotel in downtown Zakopane, Poland with the aid of 200 police officers. In Norway, Neprayeva reported being threatened in the team’s hotel in Oslo, and the Norwegian Ski Association was flooded with messages insinuating that if the Russian athletes started a race they would not finish.

    “[The] FIS followed the IOC decision and based [the ban] on security,” Ulvang said in a call in March with FasterSkier reporter Nat Herz. “This has also become a legal case because Russia has taken this to CAS [The Court of Arbitration for Sport].”

    While the FIS cited athlete security for the ban, the Federation took their cue from the IOC which recommended banning Russia due to the violation of the Olympic truce. This historical agreement, presented at the UN prior to the start of the Games, calls for the “cessation of hostilities” surrounding the Games, incorporating the Olympic values of sportsmanship and unity “with a view to protecting, as far as possible, the interests of the athletes and sport in general, and to harness the power of sport to promote peace, dialogue and reconciliation more broadly.” 

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022 violated the agreement, co-sponsored by the Russian Olympic Federation, to abide by the truce from February 4th through March 20th, surrounding both the Olympic and Paralympic Games in China.

    “We will see,” continued Ulvang, “whether this is within the overall statutes of sport or FIS actually, because our rules are not made for such special things. This is a very, very special circumstance. I have spoken to many lawyers who think this is an interesting question.”

    Waving the flag for the Russian Olympic Committee, Sergey Ustiugov brings home a win in the men’s 4 x 10 k Olympic relay. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    Russia has pursued aggressive appeals of bans in a variety of sports, though with exception of Luge, largely without success. On May 21st, Vyalbe conceded that after consultations with lawyers, the Russian Ski Federation would not appeal the ban in CAS, saying, “We won’t win.”

    An anonymous Russian blogger examined the legal considerations of banning Russia, and found that while the IOC had operated outside of its normal boundaries to call for a blanket ban, it had done so out of the special circumstances. Previously, it was the UN that called for athletic exclusions, such as that of Serbia during the siege of Sarajevo.

    In this case, with Russia being a permanent member of the UN Security Council, any resolution could be unilaterally vetoed by the country, so in turn the burden fell to the 

    IOC to take an action that was theoretically beyond its scope—though roughly in keeping with previous cases.  

    For Russia, there is no easy recourse for dealing with sporting sanctions. Unlike economic ones, they do not inflict mutual pain and any victories achieved in the sport courts could easily be undermined by canceled visas or boycotts. 

    Yet a sustained ban on Russian athletes is likely to reshape skiing in a number of ways, beginning with the sport’s media position. Russia now comprises the largest audience for cross country skiing, averaging 1.5 million per World Cup race and accounting for at least a third of the sport’s total audience. 

    After Russia was banned this spring, Match!TV—a large Russian public broadcaster— pulled coverage of all international ski races and redirected its energies toward covering domestic competitions where it is likely to remain focused until Russian athletes return to the World Cup. 

    Compounding the difficulties of that loss will be the continued transfer of ski racing from public TV in Norway, Sweden, and Finland to streaming service Viaplay, which charges a hefty subscription fee—as much as €40/month in Finland. 

    Traditionally, public broadcasts in the Nordic countries accounted for half of skiing’s total audience. In 2020/21 that share fell to a third, in part because of Covid restrictions that kept their teams at home. Norway especially tuned out, with a 55% reduction in viewers, and numbers in Sweden, Finland, and Germany also declined. 

    Offsetting this loss has been Russia, whose star skiers have propelled coverage of the World Cup from subscription channels to public TV in their country, boosting domestic viewership in 2020/21 by 600%.

    The men’s 4 x 10 k Olympic relay podium: the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) came out on top ahead of Norway in second and France in third. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    While last season’s viewership numbers have not yet been published by FIS, during Period 1 of the World Cup last season, VG found that the races shown on Viaplay averaged far fewer viewers than would be typical for an NRK broadcast. 

    Should broadcasting continue to sustain a loss of 40% of its audience in the Nordic countries while also losing the majority of Russian viewers, the sport may find itself in crisis, as sponsors balk at paying for low return advertising. Still, it may be too soon to write Viaplay off completely—the service recorded more than a million Swedish viewers tuning in to the World Cup weekend in Lillehammer. 

    As a whole, FIS cross country skiing has struggled to hold its audience, and losses in some regions have been more than offset by the recent tide of Russian viewers.

    While Russian viewership is huge, most sponsors of the FIS World Cup are not particularly oriented toward Russia. Coop—the title sponsor of the Cross Country World Cup—is a Norwegian grocery chain. Coop early on sided with the Norwegian Ski Association in calling for the exclusion of Russian skiers. Many other sponsors have no business in Russia, and some, like Audi, have halted operations there. 

    Despite the €29 million that Russian viewership is estimated to be worth to sponsors, the audience may hold little allure, perhaps because of the average Russian’s low purchasing power. In 2021 the average Russian made around 40,000 rubles annually, or about $6,400. Now, with many western businesses pulling out of Russia, there is even less value placed on reaching Russian fans. 

    The women’s overall podium of the 2021-2022 Tour de Ski: Natalia Nepryaeva (RUS) was the overall champion ahead of Ebba Andersson (SWE) in second and Heidi Weng (NOR) in third. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    For sponsors, the Russian exclusion may ultimately be beneficial. Germany, and Central Europe in general, are a core market for skiing—a market which has been drying up in an era of poor performances by the region’s skiers. 

    With the German women winning gold at the Olympics and the retirement of the dominant force in distance racing, Norway’s Therese Johaug, the opportunities for success of sidelined countries could become plentiful on the women’s side with the additional absence of Russia.

    On the men’s side of skiing, though Norway remains poised to dominate, a potential lack of a Russian team would create significant podium opportunities for up-and-coming American, Canadian, French, German, and Czech athletes. In recent seasons the rivalry between Norway and Russia has consumed almost three quarters of the World Cup podiums. The long term absence of Russia could allow the podium of men’s skiing to once again take on a broader flavor. 

    Chris Grover, U.S. Ski & Snowboard Cross Country Program Director, clarified that a continued ban on Russian athletes wouldn’t change the quota system, writing, “We’ll have the same number of athletes starting each race. Obviously, Russia has a lot of the top performers, so there will be more opportunities for many other nations to secure podiums, gather World Cup prize money and points, and improve Red Group standing.”

    Julia Kern leads the way in the first leg of the 4 x 5 k mixed relay in Falun, SWE in Mar. 2022. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    All told, the changes that skiing will endure if Russia remains banned through next season may not be as dire as Russian sporting officials have suggested. 

    “The tired rhetoric that world sport will not be able to fully develop without Russia does not seem to inspire the speakers themselves anymore,” wrote the anonymous blogger. “It is no coincidence that you can already hear talk about alternative tournaments, leagues, and other ways of self-reliant development.” 

    The alternative for Russian skiing is to try to create its own circuit among friendly nations. To date, Russian skiing has only managed to solidify a sporting partnership with Belarus, via a cooperative agreement signed in May.

    Stay tuned for Part 3, which considers historic athlete bans, and barriers the Russian program face to keep their program operating in the interim.

  • Cross-Country Skiing Mulls a Long Term Future Without Russia (Part 1)

    Cross-Country Skiing Mulls a Long Term Future Without Russia (Part 1)

    Alexander Bolshunov takes fifth in his final World Cup race of the 2021/2022 season, a 15 k classic in Lahti, FIN. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    With Russian athletes banned from all FIS competitions, and no end in sight for the war in Ukraine, there is a growing belief that Russian skiers are unlikely to rejoin the World Cup next season. 

    Some commentators have gone further, proclaiming that we have seen the last of Bolshunov, Neprayeva, and the rest of the Russian team on the international stage. The pessimism is rooted in the history of similar bans—which tend to be long lived—and the uncertainty over what circumstances would allow for the Russians to rejoin. 

    Will the ban end when Ukrainian athletes can return fully to competition? That may not be possible until long after the end of the conflict. Perhaps a negotiated peace settlement? That possibility could still create discontent with athletes such as Bolshunov being used to fuel propaganda at home. Does the ban require the Putin regime to end? That could be a distant future. 

    “I expect that this situation will last as long as the conflict is unsolved,” said Vegard  Ulvang, the outgoing chairman of the FIS Cross Country Committee, “but that’s of course up to the FIS Council or IOC.” 

    Ulvang was outspoken in calling for the Russian exclusion from the Norwegian hosted World Cup events this spring. Ulvang said in a call, “We have a fairness rule in FIS that there should be equal opportunities. When one nation cannot compete because they have to go home to defend their country, and the attacking country is racing, that’s not nice.”

    Ukrainian biathlete Dmytro Pidruchnyi competes in an Olympic sprint during the 2022 Games, shortly before being called into military service to protect his country amidst Russian invasion. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    Ulvang’s point is underscored by the Ukrainian athletes now fighting on the front lines, with many called up just days after returning from the Beijing Olympics. Among the Olympians taking up arms was Dmytro Pidruchnyi, a biathlete who has won gold in the World Championships. The danger faced by the athletes defending their country was made clear early on in the conflict with the tragic loss of nineteen year old biathlete Yevhen Malyshev, who was killed defending Kharkiv on February 26th. 

    Another explanation for the ban was that it would help send a message to everyday Russians and deprive the state of a propaganda tool. 

    The charge that athletes were being used for propaganda purposes was confirmed during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s March 16th pro-war rally in Moscow. The event, titled “For a World Without Nazism” was MC’d by longtime biathlon TV commentator Dmitry Guberniev. Stars of the Beijing Olympics—including Alexander Bolshunov—were trotted out in front of the (reportedly) 100,000 strong audience in the Luzhniki stadium. 

    Questions remain about whether the athletes attended of their own accord, and there has been speculation about whether Bolshunov’s decision not to wear a letter Z pin on the stage—a pro-war symbol—reflected an ambivalent attitude to the conflict now raging near his home. 

    The women representing the Russian Olympic Committee strike gold in the 4 x 5 k relay. From left to right, Yulia Stupak, Natalia Nepryaeva, Tatiana Sorina, and Veronika Stepanova. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    On April 26th, a host of Olympic heroes were called to receive state awards by Vladimir Putin in a ceremony that required the athletes to quarantine prior to the visit. Putin congratulated the skiers, saying “First of all, I would like to note the long-awaited victories in the relay race…We have not had a simultaneous victory of both the women’s and men’s teams for exactly half a century. This is a big result.”

    A few notable Russian stars missed the Kremlin occasion: Bolshunov for dental surgery, Neprayeva because she arrived to quarantine sick, and Ustiugov because his wife had recently given birth. 

    Bolshunov’s absence at the event stirred further speculation that he had intentionally scheduled the surgery to avoid the ceremony, and with it the possibility of a personal ban set against him by FIS, much as FINA – the International Swimming Federation – did by banning Yevgeny Rylov for nine months after he stood next to Bolshunov at the March 16th rally.

    Elena Vyalbe, who heads the Russian Ski Federation, manages the national team, and sits on the FIS council, dismissed this speculation, saying, “Who wrote that Alexander [Bolshunov] refused? I already spoke about this…He was scheduled for surgery on the 24th [of April].”

    However, during the Olympics Bolshunov made it clear he dreaded the idea of the quarantine required to meet Putin, saying, “If they put me in jail forcibly, I’ll run away in two hours. I can’t just take it and throw 10-14 days out of my life. It’s unrealistic.”

    During the Kremlin ceremony, Putin singled out the missing Bolshunov for special praise: “I note that Alexander Bolshunov has collected a solid collection of awards in Beijing,” Putin said. “Everyone knows this well. He has three gold, silver and bronze medals. And the absolutely well-deserved symbolic title of king of skis.”

    Alexander Bolshunov displays four of the five Olympic medals he collected in Beijing, bringing his career total to nine medals earned over two Olympic Games. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    The political significance of the event, which was delayed due to the war in Ukraine, was not lost on anyone. Veronika Stepanova, the upcoming ski star from Kamchatka seized the moment to make a splash.

    Addressing Putin and the Kremlin audience, Stepanova said, “I am the same age as the century—I was born in January, 2001. Before my very eyes, Russia has again become strong, proud, and successful. Not everyone in the world likes it. It is obvious. But we are on the right track. And we will definitely win, as we won at the Olympics.”

    The overt statement of support from Stepanova far exceeded expectations of decorum that called for perfunctory public speaking at most. That Stepanova would jeopardize a burgeoning ski career for a soundbite even shocked Russian commentators who speculated that the 21 year old was positioning herself for a transition to politics. For her part, Stepanova responded saying, “Negative consequences for my international career? They don’t scare [me].”

    Far from distancing herself from the comments, Stepanova has brashly doubled down, saying, “Was I nervous when I spoke at the meeting with Putin? You have to believe in what you say. The presence of the president does not confuse or frighten, on the contrary, it energizes. You feel tremendous confidence next to him, you feel a special energy.”

    Stepanova’s words have reverberated as she has gained a following in the west: outgoing and fluent in English, as well as adept at social media, many fans as well as fellow competitors felt they could relate easily to her. 

    Helene Marie Fossesholm of Norway was one such skier that enjoyed a friendly rapport with Stepanova off the ski trails. In the wake of her Kremlin speech, Fossesholm told NRK she was uncertain of how the friendship would continue, saying, “I can not answer that until I have experienced it. But it is clear that it will not be forgotten, at all.”

    Flooded with foreign media requests to explain herself, Stepanova responded via her Instagram page, writing “I have an answer to [Western journalists]: Did you expect anything else from me? Just because I smile, speak a little English and am almost always ready for some nonsense, does that make me ‘another type of Russian?’ The peak of naivety!”

    21-year-old Veronika Stepanova anchored the Russian gold medal winning women’s 4 x 5 k Olympic relay team during the 2022 Beijing Winter Games. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    Vyalbe has been among Stepanova’s detractors this spring, criticizing her by saying that she may be suffering from “star disease” and that “now she is not an athlete, but a patriotic blogger.” For the head of Russian skiing, Stepanova has become irksome. “My senior leaders ask me questions about her,” Vyalbe told Championat, “and I feel ashamed and unpleasant.”

    For her part, Vyalbe faced pressure in her bid to remain on the FIS council, after the Ski Federations of Poland, Finland, and Sweden moved to bar her from running for reelection at the FIS Congress on May 26th. FIS, however, allowed Vyalbe’s candidacy.

    In allowing Vyalbe to run, FIS may have looked at the difficulties endured by the International Luge Federation (FIL). In early March FIL had voted to ban Russia in much the same manner as FIS, though Luge went a step further—voting in favor of expelling elected officials from Russia. 

    In April, Russia won their appeal in the FIL’s own Court of Arbitration, and saw the ban removed on the grounds that they were—according to the Russian Luge Federation—”dictated solely by political motives and had no legal grounds for adoption”.

    For FIS, the Luge ruling was likely a reminder that barring Vyalbe from running could run afoul of their own laws against politically motivated rulings. 

    Apart from from the symbolism of being Russia’s representative to FIS, Vyalbe had escalated tensions in the ski world by laying the blame for the ban squarely on the shoulders of Norway’s FIS representatives—Erik Røste, the head of the Norwegian Ski Federation and FIS councilor, and Vegard Ulvang, the outgoing chairman of the FIS cross country skiing committee. 

    In response, Røste said, “Norway will not vote for Russia because of the terrible things happening in Ukraine.”

    The Vyalbe election saga has proven to be a tender subject for Russian commentators. When Swedish skier Markus Grate commented that “There is no possibility that Vyalbe will remain on the council,” biathlon TV commentator Guberniev declared that if Grate was suggesting that Vyalbe be excluded on the basis of her nationality, then “he is a Nazi, these are the words of a Nazi.”

    Marcus Grate (SWE) races a freestyle sprint qualifier in in February 2022 in Lahti. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    In any case, Vyalbe lost the election on May 26th at the FIS Congress—finishing last. “In this situation, it was expected,” Vyalbe said. “There was a letter from the Ukrainian Federation, which says that everything should be politicized.” 

    With Vyalbe out of the FIS council, Russian skiing will likely recede further into seclusion. 

    Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3 of this series, which will be released over the next week. 

  • FIS Suspends Six Skiers over Russian Doping, World Cup Finals Moved from Tyumen (Updated)

    FIS Suspends Six Skiers over Russian Doping, World Cup Finals Moved from Tyumen (Updated)

    Alexander Legkov (center) and Maxim Vylegzhanin (left) are among the skiers served provisional suspensions for doping violations at the 2014 Olympics. Along with Ilia Chernousov (right, not suspended), they swept the 50 k mass start in Sochi.
    Alexander Legkov (center) and Maxim Vylegzhanin (left) are among the skiers served provisional suspensions for doping violations at the 2014 Olympics. Along with Ilia Chernousov (right, not suspended), they swept the 50 k mass start in Sochi.

    The International Ski Federation (FIS) has provisionally suspended six Russian cross-country skiers implicated in doping violations at the 2014 Olympics. Two dozen more cases are proceeding without any suspensions to date. Meanwhile, Russia has given back the right to host FIS Cross-Country World Cup Finals in Tyumen.

    Six Suspensions

    The skiers are among 28 athletes being investigated by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The cases were brought to light in the McLaren report, an investigation on behalf of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

    “As a result of the current circumstances whereby the FIS competition season is in full swing and the competitions and sporting accomplishments of the athletes are being undermined by the shadow of the McLaren Investigation Report, the IOC has empowered FIS to undertake follow-up actions in its own competence with the alleged anti-doping rule violations that took place during the period of the Sochi 2014 Games,” FIS noted in their press release.

    The IOC has jurisdiction over all anti-doping activity at Olympic Games. That means that any samples collected between Jan. 31 and Feb. 22, 2014 which tested positive for banned substances or showed signs of tampering are the responsibility of the IOC rather than a relevant international sports federation like FIS.

    FIS cannot release the names of the athletes until disciplinary proceedings – in this case handled by the IOC – are complete.

    If the names are to be released, FIS “leaves it to the athletes and the Russian Ski Association to do so.”

    Update: multiple sources, including Russian website championat.com, are reporting that the six athletes are Alexander Legkov, Maxim Vylegzhanin, Evgeny Belov, Alexei Petukhov, Julia Ivanova, and Evgnenia Shapovalova. 

    The 28 cases apparently involve sample bottles which were tampered with.

    “Prof. McLaren had investigated 95 samples of Russian athletes provided to him by the IOC,” the IOC wrote in their press release. “They led to the 28 athletes with evidence of sample manipulation. They have now been repatriated back to the Lausanne Anti-Doping Laboratory, and re-analysis has already begun on these samples looking for any Adverse Analytical Findings (AAFs). At this point in time, these 28 new cases are not AAFs, like a positive doping test. However, the manipulation of the samples themselves could lead to an Anti-Doping Rule Violation and sanctions.”

    Elena Vyalbe, President of the Cross-Country Ski Federation of Russia, does not believe that athletes were doping. Instead, she blames the suspicious marks on sample bottles on Grigory Rodchenkov, the former Moscow anti-doping laboratory director. Rodchenkov fled Russia and became a whistleblower to the New York Times and WADA.

    “I’m sure, I know that my athletes did not take anything,” Vyalbe told R-Sport, according to a translation. “We will insist on this fact… Athletes have no access to the samples after delivery. How could they have inflicted damage on [the bottles]? The athletes themselves have not done this, and the federation also has nothing to do with this. It’s more likely just to dirty tricks by Rodchenkov… we very much hope for a fair conclusion of the investigation.”

    28 Outstanding Cases

    The McLaren report listed at least 34 skiers who were involved in doping violations. However, the majority of the cases did not occur at the Olympics.

    The non-Olympic cases include:

    • a female skier tested positive to EPO and was apparently “quarantined”;
    • a nordic combined skier tested positive for the banned heart medication trimetazidine, but the test was reported as negative to WADA;
    • a female skier used exogenous testosterone and was “quarantined”;
    • another female skier had high testosterone, but the test was nevertheless reported to WADA as being negative;
    • and a male skier tested positive for phthalates, plasticizers used to soften blood bags, but the test was reported as negative to WADA.

    There is no word so far on how FIS is investigating the non-Olympic cases, or a timeline of when provisional suspensions for those athletes may arrive, if appropriate.

    World Cup Finals Out of Russia

    Meanwhile, the Russian Ski Association has given back the World Cup Finals series set for Tyumen, Russia, in March. FIS will now have to decide where to relocate the races.

    “The findings in the McLaren Report have seriously damaged the integrity of sport and we are determined to ensure the necessary measures are undertaken to punish the offences,” FIS President Gian Franco Kasper said in the FIS press release. “We will work together with the Russian Ski Association to rehabilitate the Russian cross-country skiing community and we sincerely count on their commitment to clean sport.”

  • Physio’s Unusual Move to Russia Takes Her Inside Legkov’s Renegade Ski Team

    Alexander Legkov racing in the 2012 Tour de Ski.

    In the summer of 2010, Isabelle Knaute found herself in an unusual position. Originally from Germany and a veteran of the Swiss national team staff, the physical therapist was hired by the Russians to work with a small group of skiers.

    “I don’t think there’s ever been a foreign staff member for the Russian team,” star athlete Alexander Legkov told Russian website skirun.ru at the time.

    Knaute, who took five years of Russian in school, had originally met Legkov when a friend of his was injured in France, and Knaute rode to the hospital in an ambulance with him. After the 2010 Olympics, her contract with the Swiss was up, and she “saw the opportunity.”

    Since then, Knaute has taken the position and run with it. Despite repeatedly insisting that she is “not a coach”, she helped Legkov and Ilia Chernousov break away from the rest of the national team and form their own training group. In 2011, former Swiss racer Reto Burgermeister joined the squad as a head coach, and the group is now its own entity.

    The development of an entirely separate team within any national team would be unusual, but it’s particularly surprising in the Russian federation, where the program heads have almost total control over athletes’ day-to-day lives.

    Has it been hard?

    “I don’t stop when I feel that it’s difficult, that’s not me,” Knaute told FasterSkier in an interview at the 2012 Tour de Ski.

    “It Was All on His Back”

    Legkov and Knaute at the finish of the 35 k stage of the Tour de Ski.

    Knaute said that it didn’t take long for Legkov to realize her value in the notoriously closed-in Russian system.

    “In the end of July, 2010 I spoke a little bit with Alexander and Ilia about the system from the Russian coaches,” she explained. “I had worked for ten years with the Swiss guys, and when I saw the philosophy of training in Russia I remembered the philosophy of the Swiss or the Norwegians, which I know because some of my old coaches came from Norway. I thought [laughs] ‘you guys, I think you need to change your system of training a little bit.’”

    At that point, both men had two World Cup podiums to their names, and Legkov had also collected a fourth-place Olympic finish. But based on brilliant junior careers, they were expecting more.

    “Alexander thought that he worked nine years with [the old] training system, and he hadn’t taken a step higher,” Knaute said. “He was at a good level, but he was there, not worse, not better. When I came to the team and spoke a little bit about the philosophy of training, they understood very fast that maybe this is a philosophy they want to explore more.”

    She explained that Legkov approached the federation and discussed whether it would be possible to train on his own. After much hemming and hawing, he received approval, and Legkov and Knaute worked out a training plan. He also asked Chernousov, who he knew only through training camps and racing trips, to come aboard; a couple of second-tier Russians have joined, as well.

    What changed?

    “I come from East Germany, so I know how the system was in the 1980’s,” Knaute said. “I was young, but I know it – and [the Russian system] is not a new system. It is twenty years old, or older. And they had no idea about the gym. Or about fast work, and I think you need that because cross-country is changing.”

    In that first year, Knaute was not technically a coach, and Legkov knew that the brunt of the federation’s criticism would fall on him if the endeavor failed.

    “He thought, okay, I’ll take all the [flack]… It’s all on his back. When I make mistakes, it’s his problem,” Knaute said.

    And there were problems. Legkov caught swine flu and had to drop out of the 2011 Tour de Ski. He then tried to make up for lost time and overtrained in the second part of the season, leading to a disastrous World Championships in Oslo.

    “I knew Alexander, but I didn’t understand that he wanted more than was possible,” Knaute said. “I didn’t know how to tell him stop. I’m not a trainer, and I’m not a sports scientist at this level, so for me it was a difficult situation.”

    Despite the challenges, however, there were also successes. Chernousov won the Rybinsk 20 k pursuit, podiumed in the pursuit at World Championships, and won the prologue stage of World Cup finals. And before the swine flu debacle, Legkov had won the Kuusamo World Cup mini-tour. On the strength of those performances, the team – because it now was one – got the green light for a second season.

    Splinter Team

    Chernousov in the Tour de Ski.

    In some ways, though, the approval made Knaute’s life harder. The team was okayed by the ministry of sports, not the ski federation (FLGR), and the other coaches weren’t pleased that several star athletes had slipped from their control to be trained by a German therapist. Elena Vyalbe, who was at that time the head of the FLGR, publicly stated that she didn’t want Knaute to have anything to do with the team, which reportedly blindsided the Swiss therapist.

    “The federation doesn’t like it, but they accept it,” Knaute said. “The Russian system, it is maybe not an easy system to understand, but they like control. Control of the athletes. Of everything. So Elena does not like [us].”

    With a season’s-worth of certainty in her pockt, Knaute asked the ministry to hire a head coach.

    “When the minister decided, okay, you will have a team, I understood very quickly that it was impossible for me to do everything,” she explained. “I can’t do the training, the organization, the therapy, and the medical things. It’s impossible.”

    After casting about for ideas, they settled on Burgermeister, a Swiss three-time Olympian. After retiring, Burgermeister had begun coaching the Swiss juniors, but decided to accept the position with the new Russian group.

    Knaute and Burgermeister live in Davos, and the team does most of its training camps in Switzerland – “we know everything there and we have good infrastructure, so it’s easy for us,” Knaute said – although they’ve also worked in Oberhof, Germany, and in the Italian Alps. Training camps last 20 days, after which the athletes have ten days to spend at home in Russia.

    The small group is completely separate from the Russian national team, and shares only race support on the World Cup. They have their own budget, which Knaute must organize.

    “It’s difficult, because I’m not a secretary or an accountant,” she said.

    The group seemed to have an easygoing, friendly dynamic. Knaute described Legkov’s personality as strong, saying he could have a lot of energy, and be high and then low. He loves ice hockey and hunting, and BMW’s.

    “He is crazy about cars,” Knaute said. “I don’t understand it, but he likes speed.”

    Chernousov is “a more relaxed guy,” and Knaute thought that the two were good friends and perfect teammates. Burgermeister, she thought, was a good match for the pair.

    “Reto is quiet – he doesn’t speak too much,” she said. “He is a very thoughtful guy. He is calm, which I think is good for Alexander. I think it helps him a little bit more when he can see, okay, Reto is not nervous, so I don’t have to be nervous. And Reto has a lot of experience because he raced also.”

    The best thing about Burgermeister’s involvement, she said, was that the Swiss veteran could actually train with Legkov and Chernousov, at least during slower workouts.

    “Sometimes in the summer, he tells Alexander, ‘go behind me, you are too fast, do my tempo.’ And Alexander doesn’t like it, of course, but, okay, he went with that.”

    “The Pressure Is Much Higher”

    Legkov and Chernousov behind Dario Cologna at the 20 k mass start in the Tour de Ski.

    Neither Legkov nor Chernousov had a fast start to the 2012 season, and their results at the Sjusjoen and Kuusamo World Cup races didn’t impress either the FLGR or the public. And that, says Knaute, is typical. Now that they have left the fold of the Russian ski system, the standards to which the two men are held have grown much higher.

    As an example, Knaute compared her athletes’ treatment to that of Maxim Vylegzhanin, another Russian star.

    “It seems like Alexander and Ilya are interesting, not popular, but interesting to the other Russians,” she explained. “When Alexander started the season with 11th place, all the newspapers and the internet were saying, oh, Alexander had a bad start. Max was maybe 18th or 19th, and nobody wrote that; what he did was not so interesting. But if Alexander maybe started with a first or second place, 100 percent of the media would have written, oh, Alexander is in good shape too early.”

    The pressure, she said, was enormous. Here’s an exchange from the interview:

    FasterSkier: So the pressure that is on him and Ilya –

    Isabelle Knaute: It is much higher.

    FS: Do they feel that?

    IK: Every day, and in every competition. No joke.

    FS: But there’s no Russian media here right now.

    IK: There’s pressure from the federation.

    In the spring, the team chose – and was partly given – goals for the year, and they have been held to these goals. Every competition, Knaute said, was a test, and if the FLGR did not feel that the athletes had passed, they would be demoted to a lower level. Knaute and Burgermeister were given no say in the federation’s decisions.

    Luckily for Legkov, his season improved after the opening World Cups. He finished seventh in the Kuusamo mini-tour and fifth in the Davos 30 k; then, in the Tour de Ski, he won a 5 k stage, was on the podium in the 35 k point-to-point, and had the fastest time up the final climb.

    Chernousov, however, has faced obstacles from the FLGR, thanks to his early-season results.

    “After Davos, the federation decided, without asking Reto, that Ilia will not go and start in [World Cups in] Slovenia, because he was too bad…He had to go to the Continental Cup,” Knaute said. “The federation made it a very big question for the Tour de Ski. They told us that if he wanted to go in the Tour de Ski, he has to go to the Continental Cup, and he had to win there.”

    So Chernousov went to Austria, and won both a freestyle sprint and a 10 k classic race at a lower-level race.

    “He won, and the Russian behind him also started in the Tour de Ski,” Knaute said. “But if he hadn’t won, he wouldn’t have started.”

    He seemed to have deserved the start, as he ended up tenth overall in the 110 k series. But even performances like these, Knaute said, give the team no more leeway.

    “This is the pressure we have all day, and in all the competitions,” she said. “It’s difficult.”

    He’s No Dope

    Legkov winning the 5 k classic stage of the Tour de Ski.

    And then, of course, there’s the external pressure. For one thing, she said, her racers face extra scrutiny simply because they are Russian.

    “They had a lot of problems, the Russians, with doping,” she said. “We know it. And it’s already – it’s a stereotype.”

    But it’s a stereotype, she said, that shouldn’t be too heavily applied to her athletes.

    “Right now, people can catch him,” she said of Legkov. “When he’s always fast, when nobody can catch him, when he is all the time on the podium, then it’s a legitimate question. But right now he is fifth, he is eleventh. Do you understand what I’m saying? We have a lot of tests, every camp.”

    When Legkov was sick with swine flu and sleeping in her apartment in Davos, she said, doping control arrived to test him.

    But despite her frustration at the attention her athletes get from anti-doping administrators, Knaute understood the reasons for it. She related a joke that Germans tell about Russian skiers, saying that they have two strengths – one being medical.

    “You don’t have this joke in English?” she said.

    Jests aside, Knaute said she was sure that her athlete was clean, and that whatever the rest of the Russian program – or any other program – was doing didn’t concern them.

    “Alexander tells me all the time, I train very hard, and what the other guys are doing is not my problem,” she said. “In his mind, he knows that he is strong. And for him it’s not a question. It’s not interesting, you don’t think about it.”

    Maybe one day, she hoped Legkov and Chernousov would be treated like the other stars of the circuit, and their nationality wouldn’t be an issue.

    “[Northug and Cologna] are much better,” she said. “But on Alexander’s back is written, ‘Russia.’ And for the athletes it’s not fair because they’ve had no positive tests, always negative.”

    Sochi-Bound?

    Despite the difficulties, Knaute hopes to stay with the fledgling team through the Sochi Olympics in 2014. Whether she can do so, she said, depends on how fast the men ski.

    “Results, we need results,” she said.

    She didn’t anticipate the political situation getting any better with the FLGR, but didn’t find the squabbles prohibitive, either.

    “I think that at the moment we are not in a bad way,” she reflected. “Of course, I see that the federation does not want this team, because it’s not comfortable, to have another team besides the national team. I understand this a little bit.”

    Did she know what she was getting herself into when she signed up for the job?

    “If I knew before I started that it would be like this, then maybe [I wouldn’t have come],” Knaute said. “But now I have decided, and I’m going to keep going. [At this point] I’m doing it for myself, too.”

  • Team 3: Russia

    Russia

    2009-2010 Nations Cup Ranking: 3rd (7701 pts)

    2010-2011 Nations Cup Ranking: 3rd (6199 pts)

    Men: 2nd (4422 pts)

    Women: 7th (1777 pts)

    2011/2012 World Cup Team (Best Estimate)

    Men

    Stanislav Volzhentsev

    Maxim Vylegzhanin

    Petr Sedov

    Evgeniy Belov

    Konstantin Glavatsikh

    Ilia Chernousov

    Alexey Petukhov

    Nikolay Morilov

    Dmitriy Japarov

    Nikita Kruikov

    Sergey Shiryaev

    Alexander Panzhinsky

    Sergey Novikov

    Women

    Yulia Tchekaleva

    Anastasia Dotsenko

    Natalia Korosteleva

    Julia Ivanova

    Olga Mikhailova

    Natalja Iljina

    Valentina Novikova

    Svetlana Nikolaeva

    Olga Savialova

    Elena Soboleva

     

    What You May Have Missed Last Season

    It was impressive just how good the Russian distance skiing men were in 2010-2011 – especially in the last kilometer of racing.

    Maxim Vylegzhanin (L) during World Championships, Oslo 2011

    Alexander Legkov, Maxim Vylegzhanin, Ilia Chernousov, and Petr Sedov were all brilliant last season at various points, and all four finished in the top 20 in the World Cup Overall standings.

    In particular, for the first few weeks of the season it looked like Legkov was going to run away with the Crystal Globe. He finished in the top 10 six times in the first three weekends of racing, including a devastating attack a long way from home in the final day of racing during the mini-tour in Kuusamo, Finland, where he left Marcus Hellner and Dario Cologna standing still.

    And Legkov wasn’t alone in impressing the crowd with his finishing skills – Vylegzhanin did what most possible consider to be impossible, beating Petter Northug to the line at the end of the 30 k skate in La Clusaz, France.

    Joining his more highly-decorated and recognized teammates in the elite group this season was Chernousov, who had his best World Cup season to date. The highlight of Chernousov’s season was his big win on home turf, where he did a fantastic job of reeling in and then dispatching Frenchman Jean-Marc Gaillaird in the 20 k pursuit in Rybinsk, Russia.

    But despite having possibly the strongest team on paper, the Russians had the most devastating relay experience at World Championships in Oslo. After taking the tag in third place, just 20 seconds out of the lead, Legkov exploded spectacularly while skiing the third leg, giving up almost two minutes to the fastest leg time, and dropping the Russians back to seventh.

    On the flip side, while the men were solid except for the World Championships blunder, the Russian women did not impress. For the size of the Russian program, and considering the fact that it’s headed by Elena Vlyabe, who is second on the all-time World Cup wins list (45, or one less than Marit Bjoergen), the Russian women were nothing to write home about.

    Yulia Tchekaleva led the team with her best year on the World Cup to date, while Anastasia Dotsenko was a surprisingly effective sprinter, but just four women scored over one hundered points. The rest were mostly enthusiastic pack filler during the World Cup weekend in Rybinsk, Russia.

    But the Russian women failed to win a World Cup outright all season – even in Rybinsk, where the odds are usually pretty good (just look at all those RUS nation tags on the results list).

    Legkov leading Lukas Bauer during the 50 k classic at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics

    Notably, the Russians had significant quantity – they had 29 men and 29 women score at least one World Cup point. While a lot of those were collected during one three-race weekend in Rybinsk, Russia, it’s still an impressive number.

    What You Need To Know for This Season

    Several strong Russian women are back on the circuit, ready to bang heads with the best in the world.

    Irina Khazova has returned from a year-long break, where she had a baby, and has already put up an impressive second place result in the FIS race last weekend in a 10 k freesytle.

    Natalia Matveeva has returned from a doping ban, and while the formerly speedy sprinter has her eyes set on the home Olympics in Sochi 2014, there is no guarantee she’ll get to go.

    And it’s a good thing the Russian women are receiving reinforcements, as according to her FIS profile, Yulia Tchekaleva, the top female point producer from last season is injured and is currently not active.

    As for the men, Yevgeny Dementiev, also fresh off a two-year doping ban will be allowed to compete for a spot on the national team. The 2006 Olympic gold and silver medalist will be competing against a deep men’s team, and is now 28 years old, but could conceivably be a factor.

    The Russians are also strength training machines, cranking out all kinds of intense weight workouts, while wearing bullet-proof vests. And the lack of snow in Scandinavian isn’t a problem, as they have been working hard on synthetic skiing options.

    Evgeniy Belov (RUS) leading Alex Harvey (CAN) during the Under-23 World Championship pursuit.

    Who You Should Watch

    Holy smokes, the list could be endless, as Elena Soboleva, Konstantin Kuleev, Sergei Ustygov, and Gleb Retivykh all had top 10 finishes at World Junior Championships in Otepaa, Estonia last winter. The Russians always seem to have a home-run prospect in the pipeline, and last season FasterSkier picked break-out star Petr Sedov, who stormed to 20th in the World Cup Overall rankings.

    However, this year FasterSkier is tipping Evgeniy Belov, which is a bit of a no-brainer.

    The strong Russian was the only athlete to stay anywhere close to Canadian Alex Harvey in the Under-23 World Championship pursuit, scored 244 of his own World Cup points in just ten individual World Cup starts, was a member of three World Cup medal-winning 4×10 k relay teams, and to top it all off, is just 21 years old.

  • Russian Sprint Coach Poised to Take Leadership Position

    Russian Sprint Coach Poised to Take Leadership Position

    Yury Kaminsky
    Russian senior sprint coach Yuri Kaminsky. Photo: skisport.ru.

    Earlier this month, the Russian Ski Federation made public that current men’s sprint team coach, Yuri Kaminsky, was poised to become the next head coach of the entire Russian National Team. With the Sochi Olympics coming up in 2014, the depth of Russia’s 100-plus athlete program, and the team’s fight to clean up its skiers and its image, much depends on the appointment.

    If Kaminsky and the Federation can come to an agreement on the nature of their working relationship at a final meeting in the next few weeks, he is ready to accept the position. Speaking through Alexei Sotskov as a translator, Kaminsky told FasterSkier in a phone interview that he must be able to operate with a certain level of autonomy in the head coaching position, which despite its name is more administrator than coach.

    Kaminsky became the front-runner for the job after Mati Alaver’s candidacy became tarnished by his involvement in the Andrus Veerpalu doping scandal. Russian Ski Federation President Elena Vyalbe offered Kaminsky the position while he was in New Zealand with the sprint team at the end of August. After thinking on the offer for two weeks, Kaminsky gave Vyalbe a conditional ‘yes.’

    In an interview with Moscow News, Vyalbe laid out what she was looking for in a head coach. The position requires someone who is respected by the team coaches he oversees, can be objective and take responsibility for his decisions, and will to listen to and understand where the athletes are coming from, she said. With Alaver out of the picture, the only legitimate candidates in her mind were Kaminsky and Yuri Charkovsky, who held the position prior to Vancouver.

    According to Sotskov, a former Nordic Combined coach for Russia and a longtime friend of Kaminsky’s, the sprint coach was hesitant in accepting the offer.

    “At first he was all excited,” said Sotskov, who was at the Snow Farm with Kaminsky and his team in August. “But then he said, ‘In a way, I’m betraying my team. There’s no way I’ll be able to continue working with all these great guys who trust me, and who I’ve been working with for so long.’” If he accepts the promotion, the helm of the sprint team will likely be taken by current assistant coach Mikhail Deviatiarov, Sr., whose son, Mikhail Jr., is on the Russian team.

    Kaminsky ascended to the senior sprint team coach in 2008, after building a strong reputation as one of the most successful junior coaches in Russia. According to Sotskov, Kaminsky consulted his team on whether he should accept the promotion, which would remove him from any position of working directly with athletes. The team, too, was split—half were supportive, half wanted him to stay.

    “I felt bad for him,” said Sotskov. “He was torn.”

    With the pressure to perform well on home turf in 2014 mounting, the decision to take the head coaching job is all the more daunting. The Russian government directly funds the National Team, so expectations for results come all the way from the president of the country, explained Sotskov.

    While the head coach feels that pressure more acutely, there is no doubt that it filters down to the individual athletes. In the past, this has perhaps manifested itself in attempts to get ahead with performance enhancers. In the last five years alone, 20 Russian skiers received bans from competition for doping violations.

    With Vyalbe’s ascent to President of the Russian Ski Federation in June of 2010, however, the Federation cracked down on doping—after being fined for past violations and strongly encouraged to clean up its act by the International Ski Federation (FIS), eight tainted coaches were banned from working with athletes on the national team. When FasterSkier interviewed Vyalbe in February, she expressed confidence that no skiers under her jurisdiction were cheating.

    When asked about his level of faith in the federation’s anti-doping policy, Kaminsky said that coaches and athletes are clear that there will be no mercy if they are caught, and was convinced that the testing policy is in place to catch anyone cheating on the national team.

    If Kaminsky accepts the position as head coach, he will be offering guidance to all senior and development teams to ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals, and will be responsible for administrative decisions regarding which athletes get to compete in certain races. Because Russia has such an enormous pool of athletes, Sotskov explained, it’s often very difficult to select teams for specific races.

    Beyond regular administrative duties, Kaminsky is waiting until he decides to take the job to start thinking about what initiatives he will tackle first.

    Before the end of his interview, Kaminsky took a moment to express part of his inspiration as he moves forward in whatever capacity in the development of Russian skiing.

    “I want you to know that I am totally impressed with the American Nordic Combined performance in Vancouver,” he said. “It is motivating me to work harder. I’m puzzled as to how such a small field of athletes could have performed so well. If you can do it with your resources, how on earth can [Russia] not achieve that success with the resources we have? I honestly want to wish the Americans even more luck; they inspire me and my work.”

    Regardless of the decision he comes to in the next few weeks, Kaminsky says he is only sure of his continued involvement at the national level through the Olympics in 2014. After Sochi, he said he would reevaluate his relationship with the sport.

  • Russ. Ski Fed. Pres. Interview: National Team “Absolutely Clean”

    Russ. Ski Fed. Pres. Interview: National Team “Absolutely Clean”

    The Russian Ski Federation has been the black sheep of the cross-country ski world over the past five years, with no fewer than 20 of its athletes receiving bans for doping rules violations between 2007 and 2010.

    In June, former world champion and Olympic medalist Elena Vyalbe became the new president of the federation, as some firm rhetoric came down from on high in the country’s sport structure – one official said that Russia’s culture of doping must be eradicated with “scorching steel.”

    Since Vyalbe took over, the ski federation’s record hasn’t been perfect – Nikolai Pankratov, a Russian cross-country

    Russian Ski Federation President Elena Vyalbe in 2004. Photo, Ivan Isaev, Russian Ski Magazine.

    skier, was sanctioned in December for possession of intravenous equipment. But Pankratov wasn’t a part of the Russian squad, and under Vyalbe’s leadership, the federation has barred eight tarnished coaches from working with its national team.

    We sat down with Vyalbe at the Russian hotel in Oslo to discuss her anti-doping work at the federation, and the other challenges she’s facing.

    FasterSkier: First, how did you come to be the president of the Russian Ski Federation? What were you up to after your retirement?

    Elena Vyalbe: I was elected by our delegates. I was one of the candidates for the elections. In the period after the sport, I was assistant of the governor of the Moscow region, and I had a daughter—nothing more to add.

    FS: It seems like the Russian team’s performance were not the best—what do you think are the biggest challenges for your team going into Sochi?

    EV: Of course, first of all, there were quite a lot of organizational problems. Maybe we have already solved part of these questions. And, how to solve the problem of making the athletes faster—we now have a very big team. We have different age groups—older, and middle, and juniors. And, of course, we are working the whole year, and we will select, from these groups, the best for the Olympic Games.

    FS: In addition to these groups—it sounds like there were also some athletes that were working with the national team, but because they were working with some specific coaches, they had to make a choice to be off the national team? Can you talk about that?

    EV: We have [flexibility] sometimes—it’s not obligatory that the athlete is preparing with the national team. We have, in some competitions, good results from the athletes, and then we invite the best from different regions, to try them during the World Cup competitions, and international events.

    FS: We were also wondering, specifically, about Vasily Rochev and Sergey Shiriaev—because they wanted to keep training with Anatoly Chepalov, they had to make a decision to step away from the national team?
    EV: Rochev was not qualified for the World Championships, according to his results—that’s why he’s not here. And concerning, Shiriaev, he is qualified, but he is not here now—he will arrive during the next few days.

    FS: And Mr. Chepalov is not coming?
    EV: He will not be here. And Shiriaev is only qualified for the 50 k distance, so that means he’ll arrive only a little before the competition.

    FS: Some of the organizational problems you were referring to—I’m guessing that you were talking about doping? In this respect, we’re wondering if you feel that the changes you have made are sufficient, or if you’ll have to make more into the future?

    EV: Of course, besides doping, we have quite a lot of work with our regions, where we have regional national teams, and then we have our national team of Russia. Of course, we pay the most attention to this team.

    FS: We have also heard that there may be a race next year in the Red Square. Can you tell us about that?

    EV: Now, it’s our dream, together with the race director of the International Ski Federation, Jurg Capol. This year, we were on the Red Square, in Moscow, and he saw the layout. If we have an understanding from the government of Moscow to get the permission to carry out the competitions, it will work out.

    FS: We were talking with Capol, and he said that Vladimir Putin might be part of this effort—and that he would be coming here, to Oslo. Can you tell us how he’s involved?

    EV: We heard the same information, about three weeks ago, but now, I don’t know, because I don’t have any direct contact to Mr. Putin, to call him and to ask him. But one of his vice prime ministers will be here tomorrow (Sunday).

    FS: So, Mr. Putin might still be coming, but you don’t know?
    EV: We are very small people to know such big questions.

    FS: And is it true that he is working with you to help make this Red Square race happen?

    EV: I think that it’s only this special service, bodyguard service, that will decide—because it’s a special place, connected to the president.

    FS: With Mr. Putin obviously paying attention to the sport, and the Russian people following it very closely, it seems like there must be a lot of pressure, for you, in your job. Is that true?

    EV: Of course, you are right that he pays lots of attention to sports. And, especially to winter sport, because we are preparing for the Sochi Games. He makes frequent conferences with presidents of the winter sports federations in Russia. For example, we had recently, in Krasna Polyana in Sochi, the first test event for alpine skiing, and both Mr. [Russian President Dmitry] Medvedev and Mr. Putin were at these competitions.

    FS: And lastly—we feel like we touched on the subject of doping in our prior questions, but perhaps not directly enough. We’re wondering: Do you feel like currently, do you feel like the team you have competing is clean? And do you feel like that’s a problem that is finished, or whether it’s something you’ll need to keep working on?
    EV: I can be sure that the [athletes] that train inside of the national team is absolutely clean. But Russia is a very, very big country, and I can not make the same [guarantee] for everybody.

    FS: So the skiers who are competing outside of the national team—the system where you have not given them any support, and forced them to qualify for international events based on their results—that seems like a big change. Is that the way you think will best combat this problem?

    EV: In principle, we have a qualification system to the national team, and it has been almost the same for 10 years, and is valid all the time. We are working on this program—we are not intending to change this system in a very big way. We would like to have fewer changes in the team composition. It’s not good when they’re coming and going out—it’s good when they’re more or less stable in the team, and then competing in the team for a few years, then they can retire, or something, but not changing every year. That’s not good.

    FS: And you feel like the athletes on the national team—you’re able to watch them very closely, and ensure that they’re clean?

    EV: Yes, of course, we are now following all the athletes and controlling [testing] them, and coaches and athletes understand our situation now. I think that nobody is willing, now, to get into a bad situation.

  • Shiriaev To Contest 50 K in Oslo, But Without Coach, Tchepalov

    Shiriaev To Contest 50 K in Oslo, But Without Coach, Tchepalov

    When the world’s best cross-country skiers stand on the start line for the men’s 50-kilometer freestyle, the final race of the 2011 World Ski Championships in Oslo, they will do so alongside Sergey Shiriaev, a Russian athlete who served a two-year doping ban between 2007 and 2009 and continues to work with controversial coach Anatoly Tchepalov.

    Sergey Shiriaev racing in the 2010 Tour de Ski in Germany. Photo, user Iso76, Wikipedia.

    Tchepalov is currently serving a ban of his own for connections with athletes involved with doping: a four-year sanction handed down by the Russian Ski Federation (FLGR), which prohibits him from working with members of the country’s national ski team.

    The ban, though, doesn’t prevent him from working with Shiriaev, who gave up a spot on the Russian squad in order to work with Tchepalov, according to the Russian newspaper Kommersant.

    Shiriaev’s start at the championships seems incongruous with the recent anti-doping rhetoric and action from FLGR. But as it turns out, his road to the championships wasn’t easy. Thus far this season, he has yet to start in an individual World Cup competition, and he had to earn his bib as the winner of Russia’s 50-kilometer qualifying race.

    And, in an interview Saturday, FLGR President Elena Vyalbe told FasterSkier that Shiriaev’s coach, Tchepalov, would not make an appearance at the championships.

    “He will not be here,” she said.

    The news that Tchepalov will not be in attendance, combined with the fact that Shiriaev’s ticket to Oslo was based on objective criteria, suggested to at least one North American skier that FLGR was taking its anti-doping work seriously.

    “[Shiriaev] made the team the hardest way possible, without a single chance on the World Cup. I think that sends a strong message,” said Canada’s Devon Kershaw.

    FLGR has been under close scrutiny over the past two ski seasons, after eight of its athletes were sanctioned for doping during that period.

    Most notably, in the summer of 2009, three Russians—including two former Olympic champions—received bans for positive tests for the blood-boosting drug EPO during the previous year, and three more were suspended for rules violations during the 2010 season.

    In response, last spring, FLGR was fined more than $180,000 by the International Ski Federation (FIS), but after banning Tchepalov and seven other tarnished coaches in the fall, the organization escaped a second round of fines and penalties.

    They have made things especially difficult for Tchepalov, the father and former coach of Julia Tchepalova, the triple

    Russian ski coach Anatoly Tchepalov. Photo, Ivan Isaev, Russian Ski Magazine.

    Olympic gold medalist who is among the group of three that tested positive for EPO in 2009.

    Athletes choosing to work with Tchepalov, including Shiriaev and Olympic medalist Vasily Rochev, have had to give up spots on the Russian national team.

    And according to Andrey Kondrashov, a Russian Eurosport commentator, Tchepalov was originally planning on attending the championships in Oslo, but cancelled his trip when FLGR refused to provide him with accreditation.

    Shiriaev does continue to work with Tchepalov. But neither Kershaw nor the Canadian team’s head coach, Justin Wadsworth, said that they saw any problems with the arrangement.

    “I think it’s probably all they can do,” Wadsworth said. “They can’t ban that athlete just for association, until he’s caught for actually doping.”

    Policing any kind of a ban on working with a specific coach would be impractical, Wadsworth added—technology like e-mail would make relationships with athletes very difficult to regulate.

    “I think they could just never follow through with how to enforce that,” he said. “It’s a free world who they work with—they haven’t let the skiers that do work with [Tchepalov] be part of the true Russian team, but obviously, that doesn’t…make sure those skiers don’t go to a championship.”

    For its part, officials at FIS responded to an interview request on the subject of Tchepalov, and his work with Shiriaev, with an e-mailed statement.

    “According to the information received by the Russian Ski Association, Mr. Tchepalov has been removed from any coaching function within the Russian Ski Association,” said FIS Anti-Doping Administrator Sarah Fussek. “Athletes that are not part of the National Team (and in some nations, even those that are part of the team structure), can chose the coach(es) they want to train with.”

  • Sedov Prognosis Good; Petukhov Blames Filing Failure on Tour de Ski

    Sedov Prognosis Good; Petukhov Blames Filing Failure on Tour de Ski

    Petr Sedov (second from left) racing with one of his teammates at last year's World Junior Championships in Germany.

    One day after a sports website reported that budding Russian cross-country ski star Petr Sedov was suffering from a potentially serious heart problem, the president of the Russian Ski Association, Elena Vyalbe, said that Sedov had been to see specialists in Davos, and that “cause for concern was not found.”

    “The final conclusion is not ready yet, but according to preliminary data, Peter’s heart is all right,” his father Nikolai Sedov told the website AllSportInfo.ru.

    Sedov will still miss next week’s U-23 World Championships in Estonia, because he does not yet have permission to race from Russia’s Federal Medical-Biological Agency (FMBA), according to AllSportInfo.

    But there’s still a chance for him to make the Russian team for the World Ski Championships in Norway in February, if he gets the okay from the FMBA – though according to Vyalbe, he will have to qualify through races at the country’s national championships in Rybinsk, in late January.

    The Swiss doctors in Davos have ruled out a number of serious conditions, Nikolai Sedov told AllSportInfo, and despite a ban placed on Petr Sedov by the FMBA, he has continued to train.

    News has also emerged about one of the Russian athletes who missed a deadline to submit his whereabouts to anti-doping authorities, a minor rules violation that can result in a suspension if repeated.

    Alexei Petukhov, a sprinter and Olympic medalist, told the website SkiRun.ru that he failed to file his whereabouts during the Tour de Ski, when he was traveling every day, making the forms “not possible to fill out.” Then, he said, he got sick, the room where he was quarantined did not have internet access, and a Russian Ski Association worker he asked for help was too busy.

    Three filing failures within an 18-month period are treated as an anti-doping rules violation, with the potential for a suspension, but Russian Anti-Doping Agency Deputy Director Igor Zagorskiy told FasterSkier in an e-mail that Petukhov has never had one before. Neither has his teammate Nikolay Morilov, another star sprinter who also missed a deadline around the same time, while Vassily Rotchev and Dmitri Vassiliev “already had one filing failure each,” Zagorskiy said.

    Olga Tiagay, the fifth skier reported to have missed a deadline, has a clean slate, but she has not been racing this winter,according to her profile on the International Ski Federation’s website.

  • Team 2: Russia

    Russia

    Nations Cup Ranking: 2nd (7701 pts)

    Men: 2nd (4180 pts)

    Women: 2nd (3521 pts)

    2010/2011 A Team

    Men

    Evgeny Belov

    Michael Devyatyarov

    Maxim Vylegzhanin

    Nikita Kriukov

    Alexander Legkov

    Alexander Panzhinsky

    Andrey Parfenov

    Alexey Petukhov

    Petr Sedov

    Sergey Shiriaev

    Ilia Chernousov

    Vasily Rochev

    Nikolay Morilov

    Alexey Moriakov

    Alexey Slepov

    Women

    Natalia Korosteleva

    Olga Savialova

    Evgenia Medvedeva

    Yulia Tchekaleva

    Svetlana Nikolaeva

    Julia Tikhonova

    What You May Have Missed Last Season

    Perhaps the biggest news about the Russians in the last year was how few of their athletes were busted for doping. The country takes a whole lot of flack for their less-than-stellar record with performance-enhancing drug use, but let’s take a step back and consider: Between 2007 and 2009, no fewer than 13 of Russia’s cross-country skiers were sanctioned for doping violations. That’s not even including seven other cases involving competitors in nordic combined, alpine skiing, and freestyle—although, to be fair, six of those were for marijuana metabolites. (Yeah, alpine skiers dope with the wacky tobacky. Really guys?)

    Considering the number of cases in previous years, the winter of 2010 was a surprisingly clean one for the Russians. Alena Sidko was busted for EPO (although the head coach of the Russian Olympic team originally said that she had been left off the squad because she was too fat), and Elena Vedeneeva refused a drug test, but that was about it—nobody was caught at the Olympics, or even at World Cups. Nikolai Pankratov was stopped early this fall with some suspicious drugs on the Swiss border and likely faces a two-year ban, but he’s not on the national team, and was said to have been planning on competing for Belarus this coming year.

    All the controversy surrounding the Russian doping problems is impossible to ignore, but it does overshadow an impressively deep program. Between their men and women, no fewer than 52 Russian athletes scored World Cup points last year—the most of any country. And their second place in the Nation’s Cup is especially impressive when you consider that they only had one athlete of each gender in the top 10 of the World Cup rankings—Maxim Vylegzhanin was the best-placed in eighth, with 532 total points.

    At the 2010 Olympics, the team ended up with four medals: gold and silver out of a sensational performance in the men’s sprint by Nikita Kriukov and Alexander Panzhinskiy, and two bronzes from the men’s and women’s team sprint. That tally would have pleased most nations, but it wasn’t nearly enough for Russia. After an angry letter sent by the country’s ski team to Russian president Dmitry Medvedev in the spring, the president of the country’s ski association ended up resigning, and a new one, Elena Vyalbe, took over. Vyalbe, a former Olympic gold medalist, was a certifiably nasty skier in her own right in the 1990s—she started in a national program at age 11, ultimately won dozens of World Cup races, and took five out of five gold medals at the 1997 World Championships in Trondheim, surely crushing the hopes of every Norwegian citizen alive. Vyalbe wasted no time turning things around once appointed president, ridding the association of a number of coaches tied to the doping scandals of the past.

    What You Should Know For This Season

    On the women’s side, the team has lost Irina Khazova, arguably the team’s third-best athlete, to pregnancy. But the rest of the team’s top five are all coming back. Yulia Tchekaleva appears to be on-form, judging from her seventh place in last weekend’s 10 k skate in Beitostolen (and no, banned former Olympic champion Yuliya Chepalova didn’t shanghai the International Ski Federation just by switching a few letters around—Tchekaleva is actually a different person), and Natalia Korosteleva will definitely be a force to be reckoned with in the sprints—she’s the one who almost knocked Kikkan Randall down to third place in Oslo last March.

    On the men’s side, Sergey Shiriaev started his season strong in Finland, while the trio of Alexander Legkov, Petr Sedov, and Evgeniy Belov locked the Norwegians out of their own podium in the tune-up races in Beitostolen. Legkov surely has an axe to grind after his fourth place in last year’s Olympic pursuit—he could be a threat to pull World Cup points by the bundle, but to do so, he’ll have to race more often. Last year, his season was over after Vancouver.

    One potential hurdle for the Russians to overcome if they want to contend for the Nation’s Cup is an issue with their visas, reported yesterday by the website SkiRun.ru. According to Vasili Parnyakov, a commentator for the site, the Russian visas for the Schengen-area countries—among them the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, and Sweden—are valid for only 90 days for the six-month period between October 1 and April 1. That could limit the amount of time each athlete spends in western Europe, which in turn could put a damper on individual World Cup point totals, but that’s only if the problem is not resolved before the end of the season.

    One thing that the Russians have going for them is their sweet title system. As far as this reporter can gather, the country still bestows titles on its athletes and coaches based on a system developed in the Soviet era that has carried through to the present times. For example, Elena Vyalbe is an “honored trainer of Russia,” and an “honored master of sport.” Alexey Batalov, a member of the Russian Ski Association’s presidium, is the “head of the theory and methodology of skiing” at the Russian State University of Physical Education, Sports and Tourism. Natalia Korosteleva is a “master of sport, international class.” Such a classification system is likely the only thing standing between North America and cross-country skiing dominance. Just think: Beckie Scott could be the “supreme viceroy of Canadian skiing, mounted division,” John Caldwell could be “honored mogul of the old school,” and, well, you get the drift.

    Who You Should Watch

    Petr Sedov is more than one to watch. He’s one to whom you should keep your eyes glued at all times. (The International Ski Federation thinks so, too—they tested him six times in seven days in Vancouver. The young man has started nine races at Junior World Championships, won five of them, and missed the podium in just one. He’s only 20, can barely grow a moustache, and is 6’1” and a mere 165 pounds. He’s already got Olympic experience, and in his two individual World Cup starts, he placed eighth and tenth. With ten more pounds and a bit more international experience, it’s scary to contemplate just how fast Sedov will be. He is coached by his father, Nikolai, who runs a squad of promising young Russian athletes. Nikolai also coached Irina Khazova, who won a bronze medal for her third place in the team sprint in Vancouver—and who also was caught using a masking agent in 2007 and banned for two years.