Live broadcast on TV2 and Areena from the men’s combined race at Tour de Ski at 12:00 and the women’s combined race from 16:30! You can find everything about the Tour de Ski in the highly recommended Urheilustudio’s live tracking here!
At the Tour de Ski, there was a lot of criticism on Friday of the sprint track that is looming at next year’s Olympics. Experts, athletes and coaches described it as, among other things, sad, the worst in history and absurd.
Finland’s number one star Kerttu Neck does not give a rosy picture of the route of Saturday’s combined race either.
– There will be a rally track. Traditional and free go the same route. Steep climbs, bends and rapid descents. The men ski less than the race, so do we have any slopes left, Niskanen thought to Urheilu.
About Finnish coaches Ville Oksanen acknowledges Niskanen’s comment that a rally track means different things to different people.
Oksanen believes that, based on the past, we will see differences in Val di Fiemme on Saturday. The coach illustrates that the track has steep hills and tight turns compared to, say, Ruka or Lahti. The hills are not that long, though.
However, Oksanen thinks that problems can come from tight tracks. A total of 20 kilometers of competition is held in both types of skiing (10 km + 10 km) on the same 3.3 kilometer run.
– It is not planned to pull both styles. It is cramped in certain places. Hopefully the poles or skis or others won’t break terribly, Oksanen said.
According to Oksanen, in general, the first taste of next year’s Olympic tracks has been a feeling of versatility. There are good climbs, but you also have to know how to go down.
Of course, as the example of the Tour’s combined competitions shows, there are many tracks in the area that are not yet skied. They don’t even have snow. Now, from normal trips, only that 3.3 kilometer run is ready.
In Saturday’s combined race, after the changes, the descent is now higher than before to the corner of the stadium, from where we start the second-to-last ascent.
– The pace is really fast and the turn is quite tight. If something happens to someone, there can be ugly consequences, says Oksanen.
Of course, the Finnish coach says that there have been much more dangerous places on the competition calendar.
– But, if something happens, it’s bad, Oksanen describes.
About the sprint track, Oksanen was already worried in advance that the races would be a standstill on the uphill, when the peesi advantage is so huge on the long downhill at the end.
This also happened in the heats, when most of the competitors did not want to go downhill first and be overtaken on the short final straight.
According to Oksanen, the current situation of the sprint track does not correspond to the discussions held with the representatives of the international skiing association FIS a couple of years ago.
– The goal line should have been longer. On the last descent, we would have turned to the left and taken the speed off. The last hill would have been reached by skiing, when now we descend quite far over it to the finish line, Oksanen stated.
The race boss doesn’t want any changes
Sports boss of the organizing committee of the Val di Fiemme cross-country skiing competitions Enzo Macro says that the tracks have been changed a lot with the Olympics in mind. They haven’t been locked yet either.
According to the race boss, homologation, i.e. the official approval of the tracks, has not been done, because it has to be done anyway only after the test races, i.e. this weekend’s Tour races.
According to Macori, even before the race weekend, the feedback about the tracks had been positive. They will listen to more feedback after the weekend from FIS and the teams.
– If there is something to change, we have time for it. I hope we don’t have to change anything about the tracks, Macor said Thursday.
In Val di Fiemme, the plan is to compete in the Tour de Ski a month before the Olympics.
According to the race boss, they have now focused a lot of their preparations on the final part of the freestyle skiing run, where the combination races, relay races and also the traditional race of up to 50 kilometers will be decided at the Olympics.
The most visible changes are related to the fact that spectators will be able to see more racing events than before at the traditional racing venue in Val di Fiemme.
Of course, it’s a big deal in the sense that in the two previous Winter Olympics in Beijing and Pyoengchang, you didn’t get to the side of the track at all.
The main auditorium is still not ready yet. The Tesero stadium should be able to accommodate 5,000 people An attractive main grandstand.
Logistics problems?
According to the race boss of Val di Fiemme, improvements have also been made to the athletes’ and guardians’ facilities, among other things. In addition, they have focused on centralizing different spaces, such as VIP spaces and competition jury spaces, in the same places. Before, they were scattered, according to Enzo Ricori.
The race boss hasn’t revealed all the changes yet either. He promises surprises, and does not specify them in any more detail.
also asked the race boss about possible logistical problems at the Olympics, because there are only one or two ways to get to the ski stadium in Tesero by car, and they are also along narrow roads.
– We don’t have many roads in the valley. The organizing committee is studying a plan that would have one-way roads on one side of the valley and one-way roads on the other side of the valley in the other direction, Ricor describes.
According to Ricor, the race organizers hope that the public would arrive at the race site by bus. However, he is not sure whether the teams or the media will be able to use the buses.
– Based on my experience, it is not the right way, but of course we try our best to solve these challenges, Ricor reflects.