PHOTO: Bildbyrån
Linn Svahn missed out on making history this weekend.
Instead, it was Jessie Diggins who won the overall World Cup.
Now the Swedish national ski team is acting by sending in a demand that the rules be changed.
Over the weekend, the World Cup season in cross-country skiing ended, but it wasn’t as exciting as many had thought. Lynn Svahn chased the American Jessie Diggins in the fight for the overall World Cup and the Swede had a good starting position after Friday’s sprint race.
Svahn snot
But it didn’t go his way at all for Svahn during the weekend’s two distance races and Diggins was able to hold off and win the overall victory with 175 points to the Swedish sprint specialist in second place. Third in the overall standings was Frida Karlsson.
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Remarkably, it is Linn Svahn who has accumulated the most podium places during the season, with a total of thirteen at the World Cup. But due to the new rules that the International Ski Federation, Fis, launched two years ago, it is not enough to take home the overall victory.
Swedish criticism
The big differences are that in the past the 30 best riders got points, nowadays it is as much as the 50 best riders in each race that are rewarded. In addition, there is less difference between the positions, which means that a winning run is not as decisive as it should be.
– I think that winning a World Cup should sound much louder compared to being second or third. Because so much bigger is a victory, criticized Ebba Andersson the new rules already two years ago.
– And it should be worth much, much more than being fourth, fifth, sixth.
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In the past, the five best riders received 100, 80, 60, 50 and 45 points, while nowadays it is 100, 95, 90, 85 and 80 points that apply to the World Cup. Now Sweden wants to change the rules after Linn Svahn missed out on the opportunity to become the first Swedish woman ever to take home the overall victory.
The requirement for Fis
Swedish national team manager Anders Byström now admits that it has submitted a request for change to Fi’s competition director Michal Lamplot.
– Yes, he has replied that we will talk about it further this spring. But also that he thinks you have to give the new system a little more time than the two years we had it running, says Byström to Expressen.
– So we’ll see if anything happens. But I don’t think so.
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Extra strange are the new rules with the 50 best riders getting points, when sometimes there weren’t even 50 riders who competed on the women’s side in some races.
– It feels wrong. And it was something similar in Holmenkollen last weekend when there were only 37 starters – and everyone got points, says the national team manager to the evening newspaper.
– When you get points just for participating, the value goes down, as it were. There will be inflation in points.
Former skiing hero Johan Olsson is also strongly critical of the scoring at the World Cup.
– I can think that the victories should weigh more heavily. It should render in something more than it does today. And also that fewer riders should get points, says the Viaplay expert in a statement.
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