Women’s and men’s 50 km freestyle competitions will be held at Holmenkollen in Oslo this weekend. The 50 km competition for women in the World Cup is the first in history.
Emma Hyuppa,
Riikka Smolander-Slotte
Men’s 50 kilometers at Holmenkollen on Saturday 10.3. and women’s 50 kilometers on Sunday 11.3. Live broadcast on channels on Saturday at 11:25 and Sunday at 11:10.
Head coach of the cross-country skiing team Teemu Pasanen Urheilu’s expert agrees Aino-Kaisa Saarinen to criticism about the bad timing of the Holmenkollen World Cup weekend.
The World Cup competitions in Planica ended just under a week ago with the long-distance competitions, and this weekend in Oslo’s traditional skiing sanctuary, the men’s and women’s 50 km competitions will be held on Saturday and for the first time on Sunday, the women’s 50-kilometer competitions will be held in freestyle skiing.
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According to Pasanen, Finland’s toughest male cross-country skiers have not recovered from last Sunday’s 50 km World Championship. Finland is only represented Juuso Tossavainen.
The recovery time has been found to be too short in other countries as well, which is reflected in the small number of participants. However, there are a few skiers participating in the race who were also involved in Planica’s fiftieth.
– It doesn’t make sense, Pasanen says about the tight start of the competition.
Saturday, men 50 km, V:
Juuso Tossavainen
Sunday, women 50 km, V:
Kerttu Niskanen, Eveliina Piippo, Vilma Ryytty, Rebecca Immonen, Emmi Lämsä
Pasanen says that he participated in a meeting of head coaches from different countries and the International Ski Federation FIS in Oslo on Thursday, where the problematic nature of the competition calendar was discussed. According to Pasanen, there would hardly have been any alternative times for the Holmenkollen race weekend, so it was forced to take place so soon after the World Championships. The tight competition calendar has also spoken among athletes throughout the season.
– This issue was reviewed there and we thought about what needs to be reconsidered from the FIS side in the future, so that the number of participants would be higher. This season, in many other competitions, especially on the women’s side, the number of participants has been quite small and has remained below forty. It’s certainly not good for this species.
Holmenkollen’s legendary men’s 50 km race has been skied since 1903 and has been part of the World Cup program since its inception.
According to the current start list, 39 skiers will participate in the men’s competition. All finishers get World Cup points.
Holmenkollen has among the top men on the sidelines, among others Sjur Röthe, William Poromaa, Calle Halfvarsson, Francesco De Fabiani and Finland Perttu Hyvärinen and Iivo Niskanen. Despite the absences, the Norwegian team is strong: 50 km World Championship gold medalist Paul Golberg and skied to silver Johannes Hösflot Kläbo are also involved in Holmenkollen.
In Finland, there are few top skiers who invest in long distances
The cross-country skiing world cup changed significantly for this season. The FIS not only standardized the lengths of women’s and men’s competition distances, but also renewed the scoring system. This season, World Cup points are awarded to 50 skiers instead of 30, and the number of points awarded for a win is lower than before. In other words, those athletes who are able to complete all the competitions of the season are strong.
– Of course, athletes aren’t machines either, and with this calendar they can’t race all the distances every weekend. This new scoring system means that if you want to fight for the top places in the overall competition, you practically have to be in the races every time. It is not an optimal situation for anyone, Pasanen states.
The loss of Finnish men from Holmenkollen’s royal tour saddens Pasas.
– It’s a real shame that there aren’t more of them here. We have quite a few international level skiers who commit to a long trip. I would also hope that some would dare to properly invest in longer trips. Of course, it’s difficult when you ski 50 kilometers exactly once in the World Cup, says Pasanen and continues:
– I would hope that in the World Cup there would be skiing a little more often for people in their thirties and fifties, so that there would be more places for athletes to ski them.
Fifty Finnish women who ski Kerttu Niskanen, Eveliina Piippo, Vilma Ryytty, Rebecca Immonen and Emmi Lämsä. The men’s joint start race starts on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. and the women’s race on Sunday at 11:15 a.m.
In Holmenkollen, in addition to cross-country skiing, ski jumping and the combined World Cup competitions are also held on the weekend. shows all the competitions on its channels.