By Teemu Virtanen
Last weekend we boarded a time machine and traveled back to the end of the Season VII and spent some time with Øystein Pettersen as he was fishing with his family. We learned about then active Team BN Bank and their hopes and dreams for the future. Well, that future is behind us now as two years has passed since the time of the interview, but many things that Øystein talked about actually happened.
And Øystein was not the only one having high hopes and hefty goals for the upcoming years. Once again, let’s pull out an archive piece and go back to the spring of 2017 and find out what some of the other team captains were thinking about after the longest season in history.
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The seventh season of Visma Ski Classics was quite an undertaking for all teams, the management and the events as it was longer than ever before reaching out to a new territory in the east, Vasaloppet China. Finland was integrated into the mix for the first time in history and Ylläs-Levi became the final race of the series. There were ups and downs throughout the season like in any other year with the usual fights against Mother Nature, some technical challenges in new places and some extremely hard courses for mass starts. But there were a lot of joy, excitement and awe in the air with new locations, new races and new teams.
Overall, the Season VII turned out to be the greatest success of the tour so far making it an international phenomenon in the Nordic skiing world. In the Northern countries, its brand value was solidified by the nationwide broadcasts of the EBU affiliates in Norway, Sweden and Finland, NRK, STV and YLE respectively. Long distance skiing has become a respectable sport on its own alongside standard distance skiing and other Nordic sports.
The calendar for the next winter has been published, and the Season VIII looks as intriguing and challenging as the one before it albeit a bit shorter in terms of the number of events because two of the races are not part of the cup anymore and the prologue has been changed to a pro team tempo race (11 km).
Another interesting addition to the cup is a new competition for those who love climbing up the hill. This “King of the Hill” idea comes from the cycling world where mountain sections are a pivotal part of any tour and the athletes with climbing abilities are considered to be the greatest heroes of the sport. Now, the new lumberjack bib will present an exciting flavor to the ever-growing long distance ski world championship with eight different climb checkpoints each on the top of a hill.
You can read about the changes and new additions to Visma Ski Classics on this website and find out how the prologue differs from the ones that came before and how this new climbing competition actually takes shape. You may find that the upcoming season seems to be a bit more evenly balanced as there are some weekends off for the teams to go home and focus on their training. Speaking of the teams, it would be interesting to know about their thoughts on the changes and how they feel about the new season with 11 races. So, without further ado, let’s give them a chance to have their say.
Magnar Dalen, the director of the number one team Santander, is ready for the next season and his team will have a kick-off training camp in Oslo next week where they will announce their team roster. Magnar says that there will be some great surprises and he urges us to stay tuned. But what about the new season in general?
“We are quite happy that there are less races this year,” Magnar states. “Both Vasaloppet China and Årefjällsloppet were great races, but the upcoming season will give us and all the other teams a bit more room to breathe as there are some free weekends from racing.”
Martin Holmstrand, the leader of the rising team Serneke (6th in 2017), seems to agree with Magnar when saying that less races work for everyone’s benefit.
“We think it is good with a shorter season and the fact that Visma Ski Classics focuses on higher quality in the remaining races. I think it will increase our possibility to market the brand and make it more appealing.”
Lars Ljung from Lager 157 Ski Team, the second best team of the last season, replies in unison with his two colleagues and states that having a smaller number of races will boost up the overall quality because all the teams can now fully focus on every race in the upcoming season and make sure all the best skiers are present.
All of the team directors are extremely happy to see the new climbing competition in the cup. They unanimously agree that some of the popular cycling sport features could successfully be applied to long distance skiing as well.
“It is exiting to have a new competition and we are sure that it will add another dimension to the cup, which is great,” Martin comments enthusiastically. “I have been lobbying for this, and it will also move us closer to the Pro Tour in cycling. It will be interesting to see which athletes will go for the bib.”
“I think it will be very good for spectators, commentators and the whole brand to have another competition like this,” Magnar continues with the thought. “Our team is certainly geared up to fight for that jersey. It is good news indeed!”
Lars gets somewhat analytical with his answer to the question about the new competition.
“It’s great that you separate the hill competition from the sprint one. It makes the sprint more sprint-like in nature, which means high speed and man against man. The hill competition itself is interesting and it will be compelling to see how it evolves over the season and in the years to come. Right now, the strongest skier of the day is often the best climber but that may not be the case in the future.”
The second part of the article comes out tomorrow!
