Skicross: How to beat the unbeatable Sandra Naeslund?

“She is better than everyone everywhere. At the start, in the race… And then physically, it’s a war machine… Tactically, it’s strong. Even if we can’t really know it these days, because she is so far ahead…” For Geneva’s Sixtine Cousin, 5th in the last World Championships at Bakuriani in Georgia, the Sandra Naeslund equation is difficult, if not impossible, to solve. The Swede has won the last 20 World Cup races (37 in all, only the Arosa sprint competition in December 2021, after contact with Fanny Smith, eluded her recently). She is also a reigning Olympic and world champion (three planetary gold medals are on her CV, adding those of 2017 and 2021). Just that.

It’s an interesting game to launch as an aperitif. What individual or what team in high-level sport could have pulled off such a mind-blowing streak? We can evoke the swimmer Michael Phelps, undefeated for 10 years in the 200 butterfly meters. There is Guillermo Vilas, 46 tennis wins in a row, but only on clay. Edwin Moses, too, who surveyed 122 winning races over 400 meters hurdles in athletics. Jahangir Khan in squash (555 successes) and Watanabe Osamu in freestyle wrestling (187) are incomparable. And what about Roger Federer’s 41 straight ATP Tour wins over 15 years ago? In short, to say that it is rare is a nice understatement.

Suffice to say that any other result than a big victory for the Scandinavian on Sunday on the Piste de l’Ours in Veysonnaz would be an earthquake on the scale of the Skicross World Cup. Because since his compatriot Ingemar Stenmark – who has just seen his record for the number of victories on the alpine ski circuit be beaten by Mikaela Shiffrin – no one has ever won more than 15 times in a row with two slats on their feet, according to statistics from the International Ski Federation. We would have liked to ask her how, why and what it was like, but Naeslund is known to be shy and contacting those around her is part of the 12 labors of Hercules, even the English box that takes care of her communication tried to charge us for any maintenance.

“It is a war machine, athletically, it is above the lot, paraphrased a few days ago the French Alizée Baron, double world medalist (bronze in 2017 and 2019), in the columns of The team. It has a weight/power ratio that is out of the ordinary and on skis, it shows. Ça allows him to go far ahead on starts. She has foot speed, too, which is above the rest. Technically on the skis, she is not impregnable, it just makes her a little human… But on the starts, she is really stratospheric.

However, the resistance is organized and the Swiss are looking. Because among men too, the brothers Erik and David Mobaerg are in the process of settling among the leaders. “Right now there are a lot of questions. What have the Swedes changed? Sandra Naeslund has been there for years, she has always been in good shape, but here she is in extreme confidence and another step has been taken. It’s not just the technique behind it, there’s also the equipment, the wax and other things, perhaps, in their preparation.

Fanny Smith no longer wants to fight just for runners-up and hopes that the management of Swiss-Ski will allow her to play again for the top step of the podium. “There is a questioning on my part, but I also expect coaches to do a more in-depth analysis than what they have given me so far in relation to this. I’m not here to finish second. Otherwise, I’m not interested. I don’t want to waste my time,” asserted the Vaudoise.

Among his coaches for a few months, precisely, there is in particular Jean-Frédéric Chapuis. And the Franco-Swiss, Olympic champion in 2014 in Sochi under the colors blue, white and red, necessarily has an informed opinion on the question: “it is clear that for the other girls, it is difficult … But me I am convinced, and I always tell my skiers, that today she is the one ahead, but we are working to catch up with her and maybe in two years it will be another and so on. following.”

“Technically, she has a small lead, but I’m sure our girls can beat her, continued the Savoyard. What makes the difference is that she has learned to cushion the jumps better, especially at the start, and to do what boys do and what women find it less easy to do. Fanny Smith did it better at one time and there, the Swede is still above. It’s up to the Vaudoise, and she works a lot, to catch up on this thing. Once she is next to or right behind her after the start, there will be more strategy. There, the Swede is so far ahead that we cannot know what would happen…”