Eight out of ten national team skaters are gone.
Only Heidi Weng is fighting at the top of the Tour de ski.
The Norwegian women’s team is described as a “total collapse” by Petter Northug – and receives criticism from Therese Johaug.
Svahn’s tribute(?): “She sticks her tongue out and drives”
Petter Northug.
Photo: PIERRE TEYSSOT/ACTION PLUS/SHUTT / SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL/IBL
Therese Johaug.
Photo: PETTER ARVIDSON / BILDBYRÅN
A sprained Norwegian women’s team went to the Tour de ski.
This season neither Ingvild Flugstad Östberg, Helene Marie Fossesholm, Tiril Udnes Weng, Marte Skaanes nor Julie Myhre have competed in the World Cup due to illness or other health problems.
And during the course of the tour, the Norwegian ladies have fallen like furor.
✓ Before the second stage: Lotta Udnes Weng wakes up with a sore throat and goes home.
✓ Before the fourth stage: Silje Theodorsen has problems with the airways and goes home.
✓ Before the sixth stage: Anne Kjersti Kalvå’s body “doesn’t respond as expected”. She goes home.
✓ Before the sixth stage: Astri Öyre Slind gets a sore throat and goes home.
When the Tour de ski is to be decided on Sunday with the climb up Alpe Cermis, the results list is gloomy reading for the Norwegians.
Kristine Stavås Skistad’s second place in the sprint in Davos is the only podium place the Norwegian ladies manage to manage in the tour.
Out of ten national team skiers, only two remain in the Tour de ski.
Heidi Weng is the best Norwegian in sixth place. Among the top 14 overall, she is the only Norwegian lady.
The criticism from the icons: “Must go to the bottom”
Petter Northug claims that the Norwegian women’s team stood for one “collective collapse”.
– It is not about coincidences when the whole team underperforms. There are many who don’t even make it to the start and nobody here has a good feeling in their body, says the former great skier to TV2.
Already during the pre-World Cup in Trondheim before Christmas, Therese Johaug directed criticism at her former national team colleagues. The results at home were “too bad” according to the icon.
– You have to get to the bottom of this. How did you train? What have you done? Then you have to build stone by stone and each practitioner has to look in the mirror and think about how they trained, said Johaug in NRK’s broadcast.
After Saturday’s mass start, the situation is still precarious for the Norwegian riders. Heidi Weng finished ninth and is sixth overall, 1.03 behind leader Jessie Diggins.
– It was hard and brutal today, but it went okay, she says afterwards.
Weng is a skilled climber and in previous years has been responsible for many good results on the final stage of the Tour de Ski. She is actually the last remaining Norwegian hope, but does not say she feels any pressure.
– It will be exciting tomorrow – and much is possible. The climbing will be fun, my tactic is to just give everything I have.
The answer from Norway: “I smile”
Niklas Dyrhaug sits in the press room and dries after the wet snowfall. Just like Johaug and Northug, he is concerned about the situation in the Norwegian women’s team.
– It has been a poor team effort throughout the season. That we only have Heidi fighting at the top is a huge disappointment, says Dyrhaug.
Norwegian women’s coach Stig Rune Kveen says he sleeps well at night, despite Johaug’s criticism and the weak results.
– I smile at her comments. What we have done this year, compared to two years ago, is really good, says Kveen and continues:
– She gets paid to say that. That’s her job. She does her job and we get to do ours.
Does it hurt extra because it is Therese who is criticizing you?
– I just smile even wider, says Stig Rune Kveen.
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2024-01-06 19:43:17
#Dilapidated #total #collapse
