Blowing & Drifting

Forecast: Significant blowing and drifting, with the possibility of heavy accumulation in rural areas.

Boys Against Girls

Save for my other-day post about that race here in Northfield in March, I haven't written much about skiing lately, for the obvious reason that there isn't much skiing to write about. Thankfully, the Norwegians were, at least a few weeks ago, still doing a bit of racing, holding one giant race way up north and, even later, a big hillclimb. This latter competition, the Horgi Oppmore or less "Up Horgi," as near as I can tell), was a 10km freestyle race, of which nearly three-quarters was a 7300-meter climb up a pretty substantial ski hill (vertical distance: 853 meters - just over a half mile).

The most interesting thing about the race is that Therese Johaug, a young Norwegian racer who won a shock bronze in the 30km marathon at the world championships in March, not only dominated the women's field (besting the second-place female racer by nearly seven minutes) but skied with many of the world's best male racers to finish seventh overall - five minutes down to the winner, former World Cup racer Kristen Skjeldal, but just a minute down on ironman Anders Aukland and more than three minutes up on Tor Arne Hetland, who has won numerous world cup races, a world championships or two, and an Olympic gold. Not bad company to keep!

Johaug, if she can avoid overtraining, should have an exceptional future: to be winning the marathon as a teenager indicates that she has a ridiculously good endurance base. She also has an idiosyncratic ski technique that's kinda funny to see - her head bobs and her arms jerk, but she goes fast. Horgi Opp, like the killer hillclimb that ended the inaugural Tour de Ski last January, suggests that maybe cross-country skiing is ready for some new racing formats, such as a modified pursuit race which pits men and women against each other directly, perhaps through a handicapped start, and the first racer over the line wins.