In December, the small number of participants in the Davos World Cup sprint attracted attention. At that time, only 39 athletes participated in the women’s freestyle sprint qualifying. The same number participated in the women’s 10 km freestyle race in Les Rousses on Friday. This is also significant because World Cup points are awarded to 50 athletes.
The Swedish team already received towels in Davos, when only two Swedes participated in the qualification. Norwegian colleagues called the situation embarrassing at the time. Sweden also made headlines in Les Rousses, because although the Swedes had seven places in the competition and eight female skiers have traveled to the resort, only three of them participated in Friday’s competition.
Swedish radio expert and skiing icon Torgny Mogren considered today’s situation a disaster.
– Of course, all positions should be filled. Why else would they have traveled there? If we have this few skiers who want to participate, then it’s a disaster, Mogren stated In an interview with Expressen (you switch to another service) and recalled his own active time.
– It used to be a hellish battle to get to the World Cup. If you didn’t make it, you were really disappointed.
Mogren said that he very well understands the Norwegians’ criticism, for example, because Sweden is a big skiing country, which is now taking places from small skiing countries.
“If we had done the same…”
Norway came fourth in the competition Ingvild Flugstad Östberg stated For Expressen (you switch to another service)that he shouldn’t comment on the whole thing, especially when the winner was found in Sweden.
– But I really jumped up when I saw the start list last night. There are certainly young girls in Sweden who would have liked to have a chance at the World Cup. It’s a big deal, especially when you’re young, Östberg said.
Östberg believed that both Norwegian and international media would have hit hard if the Norwegian team had entered the competition with only three athletes.
– If we had done the same, we would have been barked at and there would have been a big ruckus.
Too many overlaps
Among the Swedes, the leader of the Skandinavia Cup arrived at the starting line and thus got an extra place Moa Lundgren, Elina Rönnlund and won the competition Ebba Andersson. Andersson himself was confused by the low participation of the Swedes.
– This is the situation. Everyone does what’s best for themselves, Andersson stated to Aftonbladet (you will switch to another service).
Women’s coach by Stefan Thomson according to many skiers currently prioritize the competitions. Sweden has championships next weekend, sprinters, like Jonna Sundling and Maja Dahlqvistare betting on Saturday’s sprint race, some of the skiers are currently in the World Junior Championships and, among other things Moa Ilar and Frida Karlsson decided to focus on training.
Dahlqvist says he understands the criticism, and he thinks it’s a shame that so many things happen at the same time.
– Here, the sprint is on the second day. If it had been on Friday, many would probably have raced on two days and chosen a little differently. Many have prioritized the sprint, so I’m not surprised that this has happened here, Dahlqvist said to Expressen (you switch to another service).
“If only FIS would start to see”
Finnish skiers Krista Pärmäkoski, Kerttu Niskanen and Jasmi Joensuu were surprised by the low turnout. In their opinion, the reason is clear, because for this season the International Ski Federation (FIS) increased the number of competitions and several competition weekends now last three days.
– Now is the weekend of three races and next weekend is the weekend of three races (Toblach). It’s only necessary to qualify for something if you want to be in good shape at the World Championships, Pärmäkoski said, and Niskanen also agreed:
– It would probably be a different story if there were no value competitions. After the tour, there have been a few illnesses, so a few big names have been left out.
In Joensuu’s opinion, there are simply too many competitions.
– If only FIS would start to see it. You can’t compete in every race if you want to do well in value races. You have to make choices and then something like this happens.