The expert’s brutal sawing of Norway – says exactly what everyone is thinking after the Swedish crush: “Right now it’s…”

Sweden won its second consecutive World Cup relay – with qualifying numbers ahead of Norway.
Then Norwegian experts did not hold back.
– It’s not even B-level right now, it’s F-level…, says Torgeir Björn in NRK.

Before this season, it had been a full 14 years since Sweden last won a World Cup relay on the women’s side in cross-country skiing. But before Christmas, the national team broke the extremely gloomy trend by winning a relay – and this weekend they took the second straight victory just by speed.

The Swedish outclassing

Sweden won the relay in Oberhof by quite a margin, after a super round by Frida Karlsson, who blew up the field and created a big gap for Sweden. However, it was worse for Norway, which was only fifth, a full 3.40 behind Sweden. In addition, Sweden’s second team(!) came before our neighboring country, and it was actually a historically bad day for the Norwegian national skiing team.

Never before in World Cup history has Norway fallen so far behind a winner in a relay as they did now against Sweden. It is also the worst placement in a World Cup relay since 2006(!). It is also the first time since 2008/2009 that one does not win one of the two relays during a winter – and a whole 23 years since one went a season without podium places in any of the relays. And the verdict against the Norwegians was harsh in the Norwegian media over the weekend.

Brutal sawing

The worst was for Mathilde Myrvold, who had the same distance as Frida Karlsson – and lost over two(!) minutes there. In NRK, the expert Torgeir Björn sat and gave the harshest verdict.

– It is an extremely big loss, I must say. Right now it’s not even b-level in Norway, it’s f-level…, he says.

Norway was certainly missing a couple of big-name skaters, not least Heidi Weng, who was forced to withdraw due to illness. But these are still worrying numbers, with only a year left until the World Cup, which will be held in Norway.

– We will then see how things really are with the Norwegian national team, but until then, a thorough evaluation is needed, says NRK’s ​​distance expert Fredrik Aukland.