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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: Jochen Behle

Team 6: Germany

Germany

2009-2010 Nations Cup Ranking: 6^th (4308 pts)

2010-2011 Nations Cup Ranking: 6^th (3017 pts)

Men: 9^th (1468 pts)

Women: 8^th (1549 pts)

2011/2012 World Cup Team

Men

Franz Goering

Jens Filbrich

Axel Teichmann

Tobias Angerer

Tom Reichelt

Tim Tscharnke

Women

Stefanie Boehler

Nicole Fessel

Denise Herrmann

Hanna Kolb

Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle

Katrin Zeller

What You May Have Missed Last Season

We’re just going to come right out and say it; the German team sucked last season – a lot. The Germans secured just one individual World Cup medal last season, and that came from Nicole Fessel, who secured a silver in the 10 k freestyle handicap start during the mini-tour in Kuusamo, Finland.

The highest ranked German male in the Crystal Globe chase? Jens Filbrich was 26^th, and now that ‘Fibser’, as he is affectionately known, is 33 and now entering his 12^th World Cup season, don’t expect much more. Perennial German powerhouses Tobias Angerer and Axel Teichmann had abysmal years, finishing 41^st and 49^th respectively.

Axel Teichmann racing in Otepaa, Estonia last winter.

A lot of that can be attributed to the German abandonment en masse of the Tour de Ski due to illness, as Zeller was the only one of eight women to make it, and Filbrich and Reichelt were the only two of the 12 men who started to see the finish line.

Fine, so the Germans got really sick during the Tour. But a closer look reveals that the Germans weren’t exactly lighting the trails on fire pre- or post-Tour either.

Angerer failed to crack the top 20 before the Tour de Ski, and managed one top 10 all season, not including World Championships. His only win came in the 15 classic at his own National Championships!

We can only imagine that joining Angerer in Head Coach Jochen Behle’s doghouse is the goatee’d wonder Axel Teichmann. He had his worst points total in ten seasons on the World Cup, finishing in the top five just once before the bronze medal in the relay at World Championships, and ending his season after Oslo.

So if the Germans were that bad, how did they finish sixth? It was scoring World Cup points by committee for the red, yellow, and black suits, as 13 men and seven women chipped in.

Tim Tscharnke and Tom Reichelt are the only two German men who met or exceeded expectations last season. Somewhat frustratingly, Tscharnke turned himself from a pure sprint specialist into a middling all-around skier – probably good for his long-term prospects, but doing nothing for the Germans in the sprint arena right now, where they are desperately lacking a heavyweight male presence.

What You Need To Know for This Season

German men are in a hard place – the old guard is under-performing, and the young guns are still just a touch too young.

At 34 and 32 years of age respectively, it’s not that Angerer and Teichmann are done, and there is no way they can be as bad as last season, but they are just no longer in the elite on the World Cup, and Germany is in deep trouble because of it.

There is also a split in the team, as Filbrich, Angerer and Teichmann have created their own self-directed training group. All three have signed on to ski until 2014, which if they ski like they did last season, is not necessarily good thing.

Lucia Anger on her way to winning the World Junior Championship classic sprint in Otepaa, Estonia

If you’re a German woman, you’re also in the hot seat. While Katrin Zeller and Nicole Fessel were both pleasant surprises, the depth dropped off precipitously in 2010-2011.

Sachenbacher-Stehle is on the downswing of her career, as is Stefanie Boehler, and neither should be expected to produce much – although after a summer of off-road rollerskiing, maybe Sachenbacher-Stehle will be a powerhouse.

But the exciting young talent is coming, but it might still be a few years away. Specifically Hanna Kolb and Lucia Anger (the 2011 Otepaa World Junior Sprint Champion) are exciting young talent, but the sprint specialists are both are just 20 years old and lacking experience – they have just 11 World Cup starts between them.

The Germans are jealous of their Scandinavian competitors and their waxing trucks, and hope to pick one up for the 2011-2012 season.

Speaking of vehicles, the Germans may have the best sponsorship deal on the circuit, as Audi has apparently delivered over 100 vehicles to the team for the season.

The Germans also should be careful – in a recent interview Jurg Capol expressed his dissatisfaction with the atmosphere during the Oberhof Tour de Ski stop, and seeing as their southern neighbors the Swiss have designs on Tour de Ski stages and finished just 200 points behind the Germans in the Nation’s Cup…

Markus Weeger (GER) on his way to gold in the men's 20 k pursuit, 2011 World Junior Championships

Who You Should Watch

Markus Weeger seems to be well on his way to stardom, winning the 20 k pursuit and finishing second in the 10 k freestyle at World Junior Championships in Otepaa, as well as being a crucial part of the fourth place finishing relay team.

And he must know it – he’s already put together a slick website.

November 13, 2011
What Was He Thinking?! World Cup Athletes and Coaches on D-Dorf Team Sprint

Stupid, nonsensical, and “completely in the wrong.”

Those were the descriptions by elite cross-country skiers and coaches of German sprinter Josef Wenzl’s actions in the Dusseldorf team sprint on Sunday.

Wenzl’s aggressive attempt at passing Norwegian John Kristian Dahl in the race’s final corner ended with both athletes sprawled in the snow, watching a clear podium finish pass them by in the form of Anders Gloersen (NOR), Emil Joensson (SWE), and David Hofer (ITA).

“Everyone knows that it makes no sense to pass on those final corners; it is simply too dangerous. I can’t understand what

Oystein Pettersen (R) gestures at German sprinter Josef Wenzl.

Wenzl was thinking,” wrote U.S. Ski Team Head Coach Chris Grover in an e-mail. “I feel bad for [Dahl’s team]. They deserved to be on the podium and receiving their prize money.”

Wenzl did not show any contrition afterwards—indeed, video from the finish pen showed him jawing with Dahl’s teammate Oystein Pettersen, even exchanging a few grabs and light pushes. But later in the day, Wenzl did apologize, according to Vidar Lofshus, the sports director for the Norwegian ski team.

“Wenzl showed great sportsmanship by taking all the blame for the incident, and has excused his behavior to Dahl,” Lofshus wrote in an e-mail to FasterSkier.

By Monday, tempers had cooled. Pettersen even told Norwegian media that he had lunch with Wenzl after the incident. But that didn’t change the result sheet—nor the fact that Dahl and Pettersen had missed out at a shot at the $12,000 check for the winning team.

The Norwegians saw the collision as a clear case of obstruction by Wenzl, Lofshus said. And indeed, International Ski Federation (FIS) rules state that it is the responsibility of a passing skier to avoid interference.

But according to the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, the race jury ruled that Dahl was equally at fault as Wenzl, because he took a step to the outside of the corner, towards the German. While the Norwegians disagreed, Lofshus said that “there will be no appeal or protest.”

Pierre Mignerey, a jury member and the assistant cross-country race director for FIS, declined to comment. The jury, though—which included two Germans out of five total members—was the only group willing to take any blame from Wenzl’s shoulders. In interviews and e-mails with four North American athletes and coaches, all took Wenzl’s actions to task.

“I don’t know what [Wenzl] was thinking. They had pulled away from the pack,” said U.S. sprinter Andy Newell in an interview

John Kristian Dahl (L) and Josef Wenzl collide in the final corner of Sunday's Dusseldorf team sprint.

Sunday. “They went two wide into that corner—you don’t ever want to do that at any time in a race, not to mention if you have the podium already wrapped up.”

Canadian sprinter Devon Kershaw also placed responsibility squarely on Wenzl, saying that Dahl had the best line heading into the final turn. But he also said that he recognized it can be tough for sprinters to think clearly at the end of a race. Instead, they’re “completely blasted, stressed out, and amped knowing they have a chance to win the whole thing.”

Kershaw is no stranger to full-contact racing himself—in a Tour de Ski city sprint in Prague in 2008, he made his own Wenzl-esque kamikaze attack against Swedish skier Marcus Hellner.

“I moved in on him, when there was absolutely no reason to—and we both went down,” Kershaw wrote in an e-mail on Monday. “I had qualified first, and was poised to perhaps slot into the top three in the overall tour had I moved through my quarterfinal. Instead, even though Hellner and I had a gap, I took him out fighting for the best line for no reason, and it was a disaster.”

As his own actions demonstrated, “stupid things happen in sprint racing,” Kershaw said.

“With so many dudes, so little space and really only one ‘direct line,’ it’s not really a surprise when things like this happen,” he added.

Especially on the tight and technical Dusseldorf course, where, according to U.S. sprinter Kikkan Randall, “it’s a tricky course to stay on your own feet anyway, let alone with a bunch of people around.”

Dahl and Wenzl in the snow as the podium finishers go by.

Add a home crowd and put thousands of dollars on the line, and you’ve got a potent mix for a 25-year-old German. Dusseldorf is Wenzl’s stomping grounds—it’s where he had his first and only victory, in 2007. But after he finished 46^th in Saturday’s sprint and didn’t even make the heats, German Head Coach Jochen Behle ripped Wenzl publicly, telling the press that he “expected much more.”

So if there was any rational explanation for Wenzl’s actions on Sunday, it was that they were born out of desperation: over the last two seasons, he had only once finished on the podium in an individual sprint—and that was at a race in Whistler with a weak field.

And the crash notwithstanding, Wenzl still seemed to impress Behle with his performance in the team sprint, which left the Germans just one clean corner away from the podium. After the race, Behle told Die Welt newspaper that his men had skied well, “even if the results are not exactly what I wanted to see.”

December 7, 2010
Kowalczyk Crushes Canmore Classic Sprint; Canada’s Renner Takes Third

In the men’s classic sprint in Canmore on Saturday, there were all kinds of tactics in play. In the women’s version, there was just one: go like hell, and leave everyone else in the dust.

That was Justyna Kowalczyk’s M.O. today. Using the massive engine she’s developed by racing every event in her path, the Polish dynamo crushed her competition in every single heat she skied on Saturday. In the final, she had more than seven seconds on her nearest challenger even after an easy cruise over the last hundred meters—enough time, in the words of the announcers here, to eat a sandwich before crossing the finish line.

“There is only one tactic, and that is Kowalczyk going,” said Jochen Behle, the head coach of the German team.

Ida Ingemarsdotter of Sweden was second, edging hometown hero Sara Renner (CAN), who took the final podium position. But the big story today was Kowalczyk—or, more specifically, the degree of domination she demonstrated.

Her first two heats unfolded identically: get off the start first to stay out of trouble, build a big lead over the first two hills, and then continue to open the gap before cruising easily into the finish. The closest anyone came in either of those heats was three and a half seconds.

Canada’s Dasha Gaiazova had the misfortune of drawing Kowalczyk in her semi.

“She’s been crazy fast this year, and just shows no sign of fatigue,” Gaiazova said. “Just superhuman powers.”

The Canadian ended up thirteen seconds down in that heat for a twelfth-place finish—and that was on a good day.

In the final, Kowalczyk had just one small hitch—she was slow off the start. After trailing going up out of the stadium, she quickly passed the leaders on the outside going over the top of the first hill, then put it into overdrive on the course’s main climb. She came into the finish with a gap of what looked to be thirty meters—made all the more impressive by the fact that it only took her half a lap to build it.

Canadian Sara Renner captures the final step on the podium. Photo: Philip Bowen

Renner, who lives in Canmore, took advantage of a little home course knowledge to help garner her first World Cup podium in four years. There was a tricky righthand corner on the final descent into the stadium—which claimed favorite Petra Majdic (SLO)—and each time through it, Renner found the perfect line around the ice patch in the middle.

In the final, she moved into third on the last big climb and stayed there until the finish. On the home stretch, it looked like she might be able to claw her way back to Ingemarsdotter, but she couldn’t quite do it, even buoyed by the boisterous crowd here.

Those fans got to cheer on a grand total of four Canadian women in the heats—Perianne Jones and Chandra Crawford qualified in addition to Renner and Gaiazova, though neither advanced out of the quarters.

Out in droves on another crystal-clear Canmore day, the Canadian spectators packed the stadium and lined the switchbacking sprint course, clearly giving their women a boost. Renner acknowledged them by skiing back out into the middle of the stadium for a bow after the finals.

While the Canadians were able to mix it up with the Euros here, the gap to the Americans was a little wider. After a sub-par qualifying heat left her in 22^nd, Kikkan Randall struggled through two heats, advancing to the semifinals as a lucky loser. Though she ended up with a respectable tenth place, she still seemed to be missing the top gear she had at U.S. Nationals in early January.

Alaskans Kikkan Randall (10th place) and Holly Brooks (28th place) enjoy the sun in Canmore. Photo Philip Bowen.

While it’s a tough place to be psychologically—Randall looked very disappointed after her qualifier—her club coach, Erik Flora, said that the Alaskan is still not quite at her peak. According to Flora, these races are still just preparation for the Games for Randall, after a block of altitude training here in Canmore.

“A little bit of the training camp is still in her,” Flora said.

The rest of the U.S. women were further back. Holly Brooks was the only other to make the heats, and she finished fifteen seconds behind Kowalczyk in her quarterfinal—a stern reminder of the distance between even the strongest American women and the rest of the world, and one that Flora said he’d be taking home with him.

“Every time we come here, we leave with a lot of good ideas,” he said. “To be here and to look and watch and feel it—it’s great.”

As the circuit moves from Canmore to the Olympics, the question that must be on the minds of the top international women is whether Kowalczyk can be stopped.

She was untouchable Saturday, but there were a few women missing who could challenge Kowalczyk in Whistler. The Finns and the Norwegians took a pass on the Canmore races, and though Majdic was M.I.A. in the finals today, she will be a force to be reckoned with in the Olympic sprint. And Kowalczyk said that the Canmore course is one of her favorites.

But after today, the Pole looks like she will be tough to beat. Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that she’s racing more and training harder than everyone else, according to Behle, the German coach.

“She’s doing more than the rest,” he said.

—With reporting by Topher Sabot

February 6, 2010
Where Were the Norwegians?

Justyna Kowalczyk (POL) has been training five to six hours a day for the past few weeks

For the last few weeks, Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland has been training five to six hours a day.

Seriously. We asked her four times, just to be sure. Granted, she said that only three to four of those hours were skiing—the rest were in the gym. But it’s still a lot of volume in advance of a World Cup.

Kowalczyk’s approach to her training underscores athletes’ varying strategies during this final period leading up to the 2010 Olympics in Whistler. Some see the World Cup races in Canmore as a throwaway—just a small stepping stone on the path to a medal—but for others, it’s the last opportunity to test out the motor in a competitive field, and to make some final adjustments.

A good chunk of the World Cup field is racing in Canmore, but of those, very few are shooting to have their best results here. And others, like the Norwegian Olympic team, decided to skip the races altogether, opting instead for an altitude camp in Sun Valley, Idaho.

“Less distraction, less traveling—we just want to make sure that we have all the power for the Olympics,” said Vidar Lofshus, one of the coaches of the Norwegian B-team competing in Canmore.

Lofshus said the elevation in Sun Valley was significantly greater than that in Canmore, and that the Norwegian athletes want to stay at that higher altitude for as long as possible. And avoiding the additional travel, too, puts the team at a lower risk of getting sick.

In addition to the Norwegians, the other conspicuous absences include the Estonians, the Czechs, the French men, and the Finnish women.
Of those athletes that have chosen to race here, most are still at the tail end of some big training blocks.

Their plans are tailored towards a peak at the Olympic events that take place in a couple of weeks, and the athletes won’t put too much stock in their results here.

“”I’m pretty wasted….It beat me up badly,” said Canadian Devon Kershaw, referring to his last three weeks of training. He said before Friday’s race that he expected very little to show for his efforts, and that indeed was the case, as he struggled to 37^th in the 15k skate.

But according to coaches, the Canmore races are close enough to the Olympic venue that it’s still worth the trip for a chance to test the legs, especially given the reliable conditions with the man-made snow here.

“It’s the last chance before the Olympics to have a competition on a high level…and to get in the normal rhythm,” said Jochen Behle, the coach of the German national team. “Therefore we do the races.”

For some countries with large Olympic teams, like Germany’s, coaches will be parsing the results from Canmore to guide their selection of starters for the first races in Whistler.

René Sommerfeldt's (GER) 11th place finish today could impact his plans for the 2010 Olympics

Behle said that he will be looking at them carefully—especially since Friday’s distance skate races will be replicated at the Games in just ten days.

The two efforts should also provide a good gauge for coaches to judge how the last month of training has affected each skier.

“After this race, then we know if we must go a little bit harder with some training, or if we have to be a little bit softer—exactly where are the athletes standing?” said Joakim Abrahamsson, the Swedish head coach. “From now on until the Olympics, you can only make little small changes, but it can be very important.”

Abrahamsson said that his staff would be shooting video out on course this weekend, which will be used to help athletes make some last refinements with their technique.

February 6, 2010