Sweden is doing everything to psych Norwegian Kristine Stavå’s Skistad – who won the sprint this weekend.
But now she’s fighting back.
– It’s not even worth the Swedes trying, she says.
Sweden has a completely superb national sprint team, and when it comes to the distance during the World Cup weekends, it is more the rule than the exception that a Swede is at the top of the podium. But this weekend, the Norwegian star Kristine Stavås beat Skistad for a great performance – when she won her first World Cup competition in her career.
The Swedish psyches
Stavås Skistad was for a long time one of Norway’s most promising skiers, but her big breakthrough has taken longer than the nation had hoped for. But now she seems to have found her form – and that just in time for the WC, which starts in a week or so. But the question is how good it really is to win the last competition before the WC.
Linn Svahn has done it once, and she believes that this can be a very bad sign. The whole thing can of course be interpreted as psyching up the Norwegian.
– I have tried to win the last classic sprint before a WC. It went very badly for me then, so I’m trying a different tactic now, says Svahn to NRK.
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Strikes back
Svahn believes that this could cost Stavås Skistad.
– I hope this is dangerous for her. I feel that I have a lot to save, but there are many others who do, I think. We’ll see, it’s going to happen in a month. But she was strongest today, she should have that, says Svahn.
But she speaks to deaf ears. Kristien Stavås Skistad strikes back against the Swedish words – and believes that it is pointless.
– I can’t be psyched. I can say right away that it’s not even worth trying. It’s not possible to psych me out like that, she says.
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