Discussion: where? jealous......

we are heading to highlands sat pm & sun am, but not sure there will be much snow left for us. fingers crossed!

Hardwood. Surprisingly good and just in time...seemed like they have received a bit more snow there than around Collingwood.
We are heading up as usual Saturday but it doesn't look too good.

What are your thoughts on Modern Classic Skiing? My double poling certainly isn't very strong...

Mine is ;)
(but it takes relatively easy and well groomed tracks)

Classic skiing will exist as long as Vasaloppet does but on an international stage it has become pretty messy with lots of discussions about skiers skating in corners, changing lanes frequently, etc. Jurys have had more to do the last two years than two decades combined (a bit exaggerated). The only advantage if classic disappears is that it will be cheaper for esp growing youth and juniors who then wouldn't need to buy as much equipment.

Maybe they should add a panel of judges and a points system for artistic merit.

The Norwegians would clean-up in Classic Artistic Merit all the time.

Sundby, Dyrhaug, Tonseth - yes but stiff competition from Richardsson and Heikkinen. Northug and Johaug - definitely no.

If they want classic skiing to survive (which isn´t obviously clear) they should definitely be even tougher in their DSQ´s for skating.

I mean that if a false jump in long jump is always false even if it´s just 5mm over - then one false skate step should be enough to DSQ a skier!

The problem is to know when it is a false skate step and when it isn't. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if they had dsq MJS after his few false(?) skate steps over the bump just before the finish line.

Well backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly have survived in swimming but only in swimming proper. All other swim related sports use freestyle. I think.

Is that the same for XC skiing? ie., ski-O, biathlon, nordic combined,..others don't they all just skate ski now.

What if I high jump had two medal events for straddle and Fosbury flop?

...or orienteering with regular and thumb compass...?

or without

So about Johaug's victory this weekend... Hmmm...

She´s a beast - maybe not in physical stature though - and since she wins even shorter races by sometimes close to a minute - why not 3+ minutes on her favorite course design?
Of course the pack behind her had no chance of catching up and didn´t do a thing to try harder which was part of the reason for such a big gap too.
At least the reason was not false skating ;)

There is something strange with the extra Norwegian dominance of this year...

Johaug is phenomenal but when it comes to Classic Artistic Merit - no. Sweden's men are totally off the chart and will probably be so for another few years. Top 5 skiers from last year are doing other things than WC this year although Hellner is trying to come back. Finland has been in that situation for years. Cologna, Harvey, Manificat, Pellegrino and Ustiugov are giving the Norwegians a fight once in a while but it is pretty thin. Sweden (esp Stina Nilsson), Finland and US are a bit closer on the women's side I'd say but still far back. Lack of snow in Sweden, southern Finland, the Alps are not making it easier either. World Cup tends to be a different affair however compared with the Worlds and Olympics. The only male distance skier who has won a gold since 2009 (or even 2007) is Northug. My guess is that many countries have started to pool their resources to the championships knowing that Norwegians in the long run simply are too good.

Actually, Pellegrino is giving the Norwegians more than a fight. He is really good. The French have some interesting sprint skiers coming up as well.

@Nev-Monster >> As on every discussion forum on the Internet there are also those full of "conspiration theories"... I don´t want to believe that the Norwegian dominance is because of (blood) doping as some prefer to say.

XC skiing is almost a religion in Norway (just like hockey in Canada) and just the sheer numbers of skiers in a "minor" Norwegian event surpasses even the biggest in Sweden. At the Swedish Junior Cup in January there were just over 250 juniors starting. At the Norwegian equivalent the same weekend they had close to 900! They have 45 ski clubs in Oslo - naturally one of the most populated areas and with good snow conditions most of the time. In Stockholm there are 9 clubs and no snow. The northern parts of Sweden may have snow but noone lives there...

Bad winters hit hard in most countries but with a smaller base you lose quite a lot more of the available talent if the young skiers quit early for that reason.

Yes, the Norwegians have a large pool of athletes certainly, but the Kenyans are often beaten by the Ethiopians and Moroccans. Have the Norwegians also mastered waxing in a way beyond all the other countries?

Well, if there is anything dodgy, the World Nordic Champs are in Lahti again next year. There is some history there...

FIS has talked about limiting wax budgets for countries but the only thing that has come out of that is a limited number of wax people you can have testing equipment. Norway circumvented that though by teaming up with GBR since the latter didn't reach their quota of allowed waxers. That caused a fair bit of discussions and the Swedish media was pretty vocal but I think that Sweden and Denmark have joined forces since then.
But...Norway had huge problems in Sotji and Falun, to a large extent explaining the relatively poor results there (I recall only 2 medals for the men in Sotji for example) so it is not all about the money.

Waxing isn´t the whole truth. You have to have someone to put on top of the skis too...

When one country dominates a sport the conspiracy theories erupt. It is easy to point fingers at certain countries and certain sports but when they point to your own country or the country you cheer for it is easy to say no way. I would never have expected Finland to dope and I refuse to accept Norway does because I lived in Norway as a kid and that is where I got really excited about XC skiing and it awesome that a small country can win so many medals (and beat Sweden). it really becomes a 'faith thing' though doesn't it (cue the George Michael).

Then again I've always found it odd the Bjorn Daehli retired on the verge of being the greatest Olympian of all time.

Now the Italians and Russians on the other hand.... ;-)

I heard today from a friend that the Russians have two huge waxing trucks in Falun right now. I wonder if it is one for the men and one for the women ;)

At least whatever waxing they have to offer doesn´t help the women right now. Like in many other countries there´s a generation gap right now - and hopefully poor results show that there´s less doping involved?

one for skis and one for IVs