2024-01-22 15:10:11
The relay in Oberhof confirmed that Norwegian skiers are now a second-rate team.
The second season without the great Therese Johaug is clearly not going as expected for Norway.
After the personal success of Tiril Weng, who became the best in the overall World Cup last season, as well as the relay victory at the World Championships in Planica, the women’s national team found itself in a crisis. Everything is so bad that Norwegian athletes are breaking anti-records that were twenty years old.
The worst generation of skiers this century.
Traditions of victories
The German stage of the World Cup ended with classic relay races, of which there are very few in the international calendar. This is also why for all countries such moments become a serious test of the general state of affairs in skiing.
On the women’s side, the leaders this century are Norway’s girls, who have won 15 of the last 16 World Cup relays before this season. By the way, their only defeat was from our skiers in December 2021 – on the eve of the Olympics, which also ended with the triumph of the Russians.
In the absence of our team, the main competitors for the Norwegians were their neighbors from Sweden. But even at the World Championships in Planica 2023, despite all the preliminary plans, Tre Kronur unexpectedly lost to both their main rivals and the German national team.
The Norwegian women’s team following winning the relay in Planica 2023 / Photo: © Maja Hitij / Staff / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru
So even without Teresa Johaug, the team continued to accustom its fans to victories. It seemed that it would always be like this.
Nightmare Season
However, the new season turned out to be much less rich in medals than the previous one. The entire team is performing poorly, but the potential of the Norwegian girls is being especially strongly criticized now.
In Oberhof, the team once more, as in the second stage in Gällivare, finished outside the top three. Moreover, the girls in red overalls lost almost four minutes to the winners from Sweden. After the first stage, Lynn Swan was “lucky” for the 23-year-old Norwegian Fosnes for more than a minute.
As a result of this lag, the girls practically did not appear on television, so a large cross-country skiing audience from Norway had to watch two Swedish teams, Finns and Germans, for a significant part of the relay. An unpleasant sight for a ski-loving country.
Tiril Weng / Photo: © Millo Moravski / Agence Zoom / Stringer / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru
“First of all, I feel that I need to apologize to all of Norway, which was in front of the screens,” says the debutant of such races, Kristin Fosnes.
The composition of the team was not optimal. Of the four who took gold a year ago, only Tiril Weng ran, but this is hardly an excuse for a nation that considers itself trendsetters in skiing.
“We had the team that we have, and we knew that it would be difficult to keep up with the best teams,” general manager of the national team Svarstad lowers his head.
“We are not a top team”
This season there were two relay races. In both, Norway missed the podium. A fourth place finish in early December in Sweden broke a streak of 25 consecutive World Cup relay medals. Sunday’s fifth place finish marks the first time Norway has finished off the podium in two consecutive World Cup relays since the 2000/01 season.
For more than 20 years, fans have not experienced such unpleasant emotions from the performance of their compatriots. Tiril Weng, who completed the relay in Oberhof, agrees with the criticism of the team:
“It’s only been a year since we beat Sweden, but it’s quite possible to beat them once more. This motivates me to work towards closing the gap between us. We are not a top team. We are a broken Norwegian girl gang,” says the 27-year-old athlete.
However, our own experts doubt that the current generation has the potential:
“Currently in Norway there is no team at level B, compared to the Swedish level A. These are level E or F,” notes Tørgeir Bjorn from the authoritative Scandinavian publication NRK.
There will be no more relay races this year. And this is an encouraging fact for the Vikings. You won’t have to embarrass yourself anymore.
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