By Teemu Virtanen

The first two events of the Pro Tour, Season X, are now behind us, and a week from today the third event La Venosta, 40 km classic, in Italy takes place. Two Lager 157 Ski Team members, Britta Johansson Norgren and Emil Persson, shone in Livigno and took the victory trophies to Sweden. Well, not quite all the way to Sweden as the team stayed in Livigno and prepared themselves for the next fight.

As there were many surprises last weekend, let’s take a look at the current SC Ranking and see who’s climbing up and who’s going down. Naturally, Britta’s win secured her number one spot, and Tord Asle Gjerdalen, Team Radge Eiendom, whose return to form helped him to stay as the second best Pro Skier in the list. His teammate Andreas Nygaard, last season’s Champion, stays as the third best at the moment.

The SC Ranking is open for all participants in any Visma Ski Classics race, either Pro Tour or Challengers event, including all age groups, gender and performance levels. The points are calculated based on the percentual time a skier is behind the winning time in his or her respective gender with an exponential drop of points. At a Pro Tour event, the winning man and woman both receive 2.000.000 points, and at a Challenger event, the winners collect 500.000 points.

Each skier can include the results from his or her best 20 races within 24 months, and the best skier, regardless of gender, with the most collected points takes the number one spot in SC Ranking. There are also podium bonus points awarded to the top three skiers in each gender; a Pro Tour event winner gets 200.000 points, 2^nd place brings 100.000 points and 3^rd place awards 40.000 points.  

In the top 10, there are now three women of whom Britta is in the lead followed by Katerina Smutná, ED System Bauer Team, 5^th, and Lina Korsgren, Team Ramudden, 9^th. In the top 20, there are 13 Norwegian Pro Skiers, five Swedish ones, Oskar Kardin as the best in 13^th place, one athlete from Finland, Heli Heiskanen, Vltava Fund Ski Team, 19^th, and one from the Czech Republic, the aforementioned Kateriná. Heli has climbed up four positions, and she is among the athletes who have improved since the start of the new season.

The other notable climbers are Andreas Holmberg, Lager 157 Ski Team, who performed strongly in Livigno with his 7^th position, and he goes up from his previous 19^th place to 16^th, Anders Høst, Team Serneke, from 18^th to 17^th, Øystein Pettersen, Team Kaffebryggeriet, from 20^th to 18^th, even if he is not going to race much this season, and Marcus Johansson, Lager 157 Ski Team, who finished 4^th in Livigno, and he is now 20^th, one spot higher than before.

What about the male winner of the Livigno Prologue? Emil is also going up, but he is still quite far down with his 43^rd place. However, his victory gave him good points and he climbed nine positions, the second highest climber among the top skiers. In the top 50, there are several Pro Skiers going upwards, and Roxane Lacroix, ED System Bauer Team, Petter Eliassen, Team Ragde Eiendom, Pontus Nyström, Team Serneke, Runar Skaug Mathisen and Sofie Elebro, both from Team ParkettPartner Sjusjøen, are the best climbers overall. They have all climbed more than six positions, and Runar even ten. Of course for Petter, currently 35^th, it takes a while to climb up as he was on hiatus for a year and thus missed a lot of valuable points.

Naturally, not everyone is going up as there are some Pro Skier who see themselves on a downward spiral. Anton Karlsson, Lager 157 Ski Team, injured himself and can’t race yet, and Simen Østensen, Jörgen Brink and Rikard Tynell retired, and they will not get any more points this season. Bob Impola, Team Serneke, Jan Srail, ED System Bauer Team, and Stanislav Rezac are still actively racing but they all dropped a bit, now 26^th, 27^th and 30^th respectively.

There are more Pro Skiers going downwards, and you can personally check the SC Ranking list here. By joining the Visma Ski Classics family on MyPages, you can also be ranked among these top skiers and start collecting personal points, pins and many other perks that are offered to the members of the club.