Today, we're finally on the verge of the real start of the nordic skiing World Cup seasons: the first ski jumping and nordic combined competitions will take place in ten days at Kuusamo, Finland, and the cross-country racing gets underway in earnest with individual distance races and a relay at Gällivare, Sweden. Those XC events follow on the sprint events at staged at Düsseldorf, Germany, over the last weekend in October - a sort of prologue to the season.
For Americans, the most notable Düsseldorf result was Andy Newell's eighth place in the men's individual sprint, staged in the skating style. The podium places were dominated by the usual Swedish and Norwegian suspects. In the women's final, Natalia Mateeva (Russia) stormed into the early lead, with favorite Marit Bjorgen (Norway) looking typically clumsy on the outside. By the halfway point of the race, the Russian had a ten-meter lead on the rest of the field. But almost immediately after establishing that gap, she began fading. Though she's at best an awkward skater, Bjorgen has immense upper-body power, which she used to catch Mateeva on the course's only "hill" (a tiny bump about five strides long), then push past on the finish-line straightaway to take the win by 2/10ths of a second. Ella Gjømle (Norway) used her own light, flowing technique to take third. The men's individual final was even more Norsky:four Norwegians made the final, and shared the lead for virtually the entire race. Just before the last straightaway, a stumble sent one to the back, leaving Eldar Rønning, Øystein Pettersen, and Tor Arne Hetland to take the podium spots, just ahead of last year's World Cup overall winner, Tobias Angerer (Germany). Pettersen, a relative unknown, celebrated his 80 World Cup points by streaking the finishing straightaway after the racing ended the next day.
Sunday's team relay sprints were, as usual, rough-and-tumble affairs which featured plenty of jostling. The American men did not race, but the Sweden-Norway rivalry was in full force. The race was tightly bunched until midway through the penultimate leg, when Bjørn Lind, on Sweden I, pushed off the front. The field accordioned back together at the exchange for the anchor leg, at which point Tor Arne Hetland, racing for Norway I, took the lead. He held it for the first of the two final trips around the course, but just as the bell lap began, Peter Larsson - who had won the individual sprint at Dusseldorf for four consecutive years, until this one - blasted past, opening up a sizable gap into which Eldar Rønning, for Norway II, surged. From there, thogh, Larsson only extended his lead, taking the win by 2.6 seconds over Norway II. Italy I, anchored by Cristian Zorzi, won a three-way sprint for the show spot on the podium; a burned-up Hetland brought Norway I over in fourth. With Marit Bjorgen and Ella Gjømle paired in the women's sprint, Norway I correctly seemed to be the team to beat. The race was anyone's through the first few laps, but then Bjorgen put in an incredible surge over the hill on her penultimate lap to create some room. Gjømle held off the rest of the field and handed the lead back to Bjorgen for the anchor leg. Racing from the front, she only extended her lead, finishing 3.7 seconds ahead of Sweden I and ten seconds up on Finland II, which edged three other teams in a photo finish. Except for last year's Olympics, the Bjorgen-Gjømle team has won every team sprint in which they've competed, a streak they hope will hold up through the World Championship race in late February.
In the three weeks between the Düsseldorf and Gällivare, the cross-country racers have completed some further training and competing, most notably over the weekend of November 10-12. The opening of the Norwegian elite racing circuit with the "Beitosprinten" events at Beitostølen featured some excellent racing. Ella Gjømle edged Marit Bjorgen to win the women's individual sprint (held in the classic style), but then Bjorgen showed her form by winning the 5k freestyle and 10km classic races on Saturday and Sunday, in both cases just ahead of the ageless Hilde Pedersen, who, though technically retired, is still beating the times of women 20 years younger than she. (Pedersen will un-retire to race at Gällivare). Jens Arne Svartedal won both the mens' sprint (in a photo finish with Eldar Rønning) and Sunday's 15km classical race, demonstrating a Bjorgen-like ability to win both long and short races. (After the sprints, both winners criticized the course as being too easy in that it permitted some racers to forego the diagonal stride for straight double-poling, a sort of privileging of raw power over skillful technique.) On Saturday, the field in the men's 10km freestyle race was utterly detroyed by Ole Einar Bjørndalen, the world's best biathlete, who took first by more than thirty seconds. Finishing there was another Norwegian biathete, Lars Berger; the best national-team cross-country racer was Tore Ruud Hofstad in fourth - behind the biathletes and a former national team member. For good measure, Bjørndalen won Sunday's biathlon event as well. Berger and Bjørndalen are racing cross-country to try and qualify for the Sapporo Worlds, where both men could stand a good chance of winning medals in any individual skating event and in the relay. Already, the Norwegian XC coach is considering having the two biathletes race at Gällivare. Having two superlatively fast skaters ready to race at Worlds would go a long way toward preventing an embarrassment like the the collapse suffered by the Norwegians at Torino. Of course, both men will also want to be sharp for the biathlon World Cup, so Gällivare will be crucial to demonstrating form that might not get tested on a cross-country course again for months. And of course, the regular cross-country racers will want to not get shown up by the two interlopers.