The Val di Fiemme sprint track was buzzing at the Tour de Ski

Val di Fiemme

Skin Tour stage 5/7 was skied on Friday in Val di Fiemme. It was a traditional sprint, which also served as a test race for next winter’s Olympics.

Finland’s strongest name was surprisingly Jasmin Kähäräwho finished fourth at the best of his career.

The sprint track had been modified from before, but the bitter, bitter characteristic of the Lago di Tesero stadium had not been removed: the enormously long final descent decided the top positions in a merciless and partly unpredictable way.

Finnish sprint star Lauri Vuorinen skied to the podium in the previous Cup sprint, but now fell out of the game already in the heat. To top it all off, he boasted that he felt good and that the skis worked perfectly.

“The competition is indeed special, that’s all I can say. Downhill race. There, the location of the bill is what matters so much. This is better than the old track, but the last downhill is almost the same as before,” said Vuorinen.

“I’ve been thinking for a long time about how I could manage on this track. It’s hard to find a recipe for that that would be, so to speak, a safe place to continue. You can always be afraid that someone will pass you from behind. It’s a bit different at 70 kilos compared to 85 kilos,” Vuorinen continued.

Long the final descent led the skiers, sometimes even from long back distances, clearly past those ahead. For example, in the men’s final in Italy Federico Pellegrino started the descent with a clear lead, but eventually fell to fourth by a clear margin. In the women’s final Heidi Weng suddenly squatted from the rear onto the podium.

“It’s not very nice that on the final straight you only need to take a few pushes before the finish line. Maybe there could be a bit of a twist to it,” Vuorinen said.

Niilo Moilanen saw both sides of the final downhill. In the semifinals, after a stand-up show, the tall Finn jumped past the others and into the next round, but in the semifinals he was badly beaten.

Moilanen was ninth in the final results.

“The climbs had a really good profile and you could use your legs on them. However, that ending is so overwhelming that the ending is tactics. A two-part track,” he said.

“In qualifying races, it would be good if even the fitness experts could tell the difference and if it’s a good day, you could drive properly in the front. Now it seemed, at least in this weather, that tearing up the beginning would be completely wasted,” Moilanen continued.

Small format standoff was also seen in the women’s second semi-final, where the Finns skied Johanna Matintalo and Jasmi Joensuu. The activity didn’t go as wild as it did with the men, but Matintalo still thought about the trick.

“Other than that, it’s a good track, but I think there’s a little too much power in what kind of tactics you choose at the end. “I can’t think of many other World Cup tracks where the women start to stand,” she said.

In advance, it was expected that the women would tear enough differences in the Zorzi climb before the final descent that there was no need for tactics.

“The track has potential, but if it goes like this for the women, then that track will be a disaster for the men. It was a standstill for them. In my opinion, that track is not worthy of the Olympics,” Matintalo said.

Joensuu was one of the few skiers who liked the course – even though he was already eliminated in the semi-finals.

“Yes, I like this track. And now at least we know what not to do,” Joensuu said, referring to his standing on the last hill.

I sprint responsible coach Ville Oksanen was on the same lines as most of the skiers. The future Olympic track was not on his mind.

“It would be nice if more than half of the ski competition is done in the last half minute. It wasn’t like that now.”

Oksanen reminded that men have faster speeds in sprints than women, which accentuates the spinning effect of the final descent.

“It’s not part of the sport to stand on top of a hill. Downhills are part of the sport, but the fact that so much emphasis is placed on the last downhill on that track and placing on it, is not optimal in my opinion.”

It is not yet known whether changes to the sprint order will be made before next winter’s Olympics. According to Oksanen, it would be possible to modify the route so that the final straight goes downhill at high speed.

“We have to try to ski as well as possible on the tracks that are in the games. If it’s that track at the Olympics, then let’s go with it,” he said.