Johannes Høsflot Klæbo doesn’t like the idea that ski lubrication should be equalized, but he proposes a fixed maximum budget as a solution.
I ski Olympic champion and world champion Johannes Høsflot Klæbo is of the opinion that it is high time for people working in elite skiing, including athletes, to think about the future of the sport and present development ideas.
The Norwegian superstar says In an interview with VGthat things won’t move forward if you don’t even try.
“I have no idea what is right. But we should do something and we can. I definitely believe in that,” Klæbo tells VG.
Klæbon the statement derives from the fact that TV viewing figures for skiing in Norway have fallen, according to VG, and many smaller skiing countries have financial difficulties. One example is Britain, which, according to reports, will not be able to send athletes to all major competitions next winter.
Klæbo throws the idea himself, which is related to professional cycling. His personal sponsors include the gas station chain Uno-X operating in Norway and Denmark, which finances a professional cycling team as the title sponsor.
Through this, Klæbo has been able to get to know the world of professional cycling up close.
Klæbo thinks that in skiing it would at least be worth thinking about whether there could be teams made up of athletes from different countries, like in cycling.
In cycling, the world’s best riders represent their teams, i.e. their employers, on international competition tours. In the Olympic and World Championships, they belong to the national teams.
In skiing, the national teams compete in the World Cup in addition to prestigious competitions.
“Our must be open to new suggestions. If a country like Britain doesn’t have the money to compete, it should ring alarm bells. I don’t have an answer as to whether we should go with the cycling model, but I think we should play with the idea,” says Klæbo.
The system of sponsored stables is nothing new in skiing, as it has been working for years in the long-distance Ski Classics series.
Klæbo says that the idea of bringing a cycling-like stable system to skiing has been running around in his head more and more.
Last week, a Norwegian skiing influencer Guri Knotten suggested that ski maintenance in top-level international competitions could be equalized with lubrication restrictions, as it were.
Read more: Finland’s head of lubrication knocks down the bold Norwegian idea: “Even in Formula 1, not everyone drives with the same engine”
According to Klæbo, it is “tremendously good” that new ideas and thoughts are brought to the fore.
“However, I have a critical attitude towards the harmonization of lubrication, because lubrication is one part of ski maintenance. I would rather see that lubrication could have a fixed budget, in which case it would be more evenly taxed. Competence and competence should be rewarded. It has been seen in other sports that a maximum budget can be a good idea,” Klæbo tells VG.
#Skiing #Norwegian #superstar #model #professional #cycling #develop #top #skiing