Val di Fiemme
Tour de Ski the legendary final ascent will be skied again on Sunday as a joint start. In the early days of the tour, Alpe Cermis was tormented by a chase, when the winner of the overall race crossed the finish line first.
The current state is not to everyone's liking. For example, the head coach of Finland Teemu Pasanen is of the opinion that the last stage of the tour should be skied in the old fashion as a chase.
According to Pasanen, the Fis officials have not given a reasonable explanation about the matter.
“Almost all the coaches are of the opinion that starting together is not good. The transition route to Alpe Cermis has such a narrow groove that it is only suitable to go with one hose. If you stay behind, getting up the ski slope from there is an impossible task,” says Pasanen.
Perttu Hyvärinen has experienced the horrors of a few kilometers long transition track many times.
“The start is really rough. On the 2.5 kilometer run that goes around the stadium at first, only places are sought, and by moving to Alpe Cermis you can't pass at all. If someone passes, feedback comes pretty quickly. You just have to keep the skis and poles intact,” says Hyvärinen.
Perttu Hyvärinen does not enjoy the section of the track before the final climb.
In the modern form there is another fundamental problem with the decision stage.
In previous years, it was clear to the spectators throughout the final ascent what the battle for victory looked like at any time. Now we ski primarily for the victory of one stage, at least in the eyes of the spectators.
The “virtual overall situation” is shown on the television screen, and the skiers on the piste are in a completely different order.
“It can be confusing for the viewer to follow”, sums up Norjan Martin Löwström Nyenget.
According to Pasanen, the winner of the Tour should cross the Alpe Cermis finish line first.
“Then the winner would be clear to everyone right away”, he says,
Hyvärinen agrees.
“It would be a great tribute to the winner.”
However, the final race in the form of a mass start does not only attract barkers. Both Hyvärinen and Nyengeti think that the ascent itself is more meaningful when skiing in a group.
“If the tour goes awry, as it has happened to me many times, it's damn terrible in the pursuit climb when you have a minute to the skier ahead. You can see where it's going, but there's no way to catch it. Now there is a group and you can ski man against man”, says Hyvärinen.
“And if it snows, the chase can be unfair for the athletes,” Ny
enget adds.
Martin Löwström Nyenget (right) finished third in the race on Thursday.
Tour de Ski has been skied since 2006. The tour has experienced quite a lot of upheavals over the years, although the basic idea is still the same.
According to head coach Pasanen, the rules should be simpler.
“In order to stay on top of all the bonus seconds and pinnacles, you have to have quite a bit of skill. A normal viewer can't keep abreast of the situation at all,” he says.
Yes, the rules.
They were not followed at this year's Tour. According to the rules, those skiers who are more than 15 percent behind the time of the winner of an individual event in men are disqualified.
French sprint cannon Lucas Chanavat and eleven other skiers lost the allowed limit to Hyvärinelle in Toblach's ten, but the jury decided to stretch the rules and let them continue the Tour.
“I've already dropped a few skiers on my butt, so it would be nice if the rules were adhered to,” says Hyvärinen.
The number of passengers also attracts criticism. On this year's tour, the race locations were in a special order: First, we skied in Toblach, northern Italy, and then we went to Davos, Switzerland. From there we raced back to Italy to Val di Fiemme, which is not too far from the opening location Toblach.
The athletes and support staff had to sit in the car for more than ten hours.
“There should be less travel. Transfers should be shorter or at least such that transfers are made in the “correct order” without unnecessary runs,” says Pasanen.
Teemu Pasanen criticizes Tour's travel rumba.
Although there is clearly something to note, the Tour de Ski is still very popular among skiers. Especially in a season without value competition like now.
“I like the Tour in the sense that this is hard, damn hard. This is the most brutal Tour in a long time. There is a lot of traveling, and the competitions are very long. The current competition formats do work, and the best one is guaranteed to win. You have to be versatile here,” says Hyvärinen.
According to Nyengeti and Pasanen, the Tour could have more races that differ from the normal program of the World Cup.
Monday's pursuit in Toblach was originally supposed to be skied in great special conditions, but the race had to be moved to the vitos of the Toblach race center due to a lack of snow.
“Even if the 40 kilometer race would be cool for us as well as for the spectators. On Thursday in Davos, skiing was on a different track than usual, but there could be something else new,' says Nyenget.
“The sprint in Davos was damn great, flamethrower and all. More like that! It would be important to get more viewers”, Hyvärinen thinks.
The Davos evening sprint had a carnival-like atmosphere.
Both Pasanen and Nyenget miss one of the classic races of the past years, a few kilometers long prologue.
“It would be a really great start to the Tour de Skill like in the days at Oberhof. It would be interesting to know which would be better in the prologue, the sprinters or the cross-country skiers,” Nyenget says.
“Returning the prologue to the program would be a really good thing. There could be a few different races here, when on a normal World Cup weekend we always follow the same formula: sprints and sprints,” Pasanen says.
The final climb of the Tour de Ski: The men's race at 3:25 p.m. and the women's race at 4:40 p.m. Yle TV2 will show the races live.
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