The Tour de Skin Davos competitions do not give a good picture of the tour considered the highlight of this cross-country skiing season, writes Urheilu’s Roope Visuri.
Roope Visuriruheluth reporter
DAVOS.
Bonus seconds, points competitions and different starting orders. For those who follow less skiing, the competition format of the Tour de Ski is definitely not the easiest.
A fresh example of that was given on Wednesday in Davos, when the starting order for the following day’s pursuit was sought in the evening sprint.
The starting order is the qualifying time minus the bonus seconds available from the sprint stage.
It sounds difficult. It’s no wonder that even in Urheilustudio’s chat, Thursday’s starting order was asked several times.
There will be some differences in the system, but the risk is that the differences will be nullified in the chase. At least that’s what the Finnish women’s coach suspected Ville Maunuksela In an interview with Urheilu, because snow is predicted for Thursday.
His own chapter is one of the topics of discussion on Wednesday in Davos. On Thursday, the pursuit will be raced so early that speculation arose as to whether it is even a good idea to get as far as possible in the evening sprint.
The longer the race, the less recovery time is left. This shouldn’t happen in such a way that in elite sports we even think about whether it’s worth fighting to the end for victory.
It mostly sounds like a caricature of top sports.
Competition manager of the International Ski Federation FIS Michal Lamplot explained the starting order pattern to Urheilu so that the arrangement is not new. The FIS wanted the starting order of one of the Tour’s two pursuit races to be formed in a different way than the overall situation of the Tour. He reminded that there was a similar situation in Val Müstair last season.
However, the arrangement was certainly not as complicated as it is now, because it was about the first and second stages. At that time, however, we talked about the overall situation of the Tour. This is not the case now.
Confusion will also be seen again this coming Sunday, when the Tour culminates in the legendary final climb to Alpe Cermis in Val di Fiemme. Now it’s the fifth time when the final ascent is painful as a joint start.
Over the years, there have been some special victory celebrations, when the first one up doesn’t win the entire tour. Year after year, the skiing community has criticized the joint start at Alpe Cermis.
In an interview with Urheilu, Lamplot promised that viewers will be helped to understand the situation on Thursday in Davos and Alpe Cermis, for example with graphics depicting the live situation.
Hopefully it helps.