comments expresses the writer’s opinions.
Throughout my time as a reporter at TV 2, I have followed Heidi Weng’s entire career, and it is long and impressive.
I quickly learned, from a tabloid point of view, that it was wise to listen to Heidi Weng.
Because that lady is, in addition to being strong in the track: impulsive, charming and, not least, she says a lot of strange things.
Heidi Weng: No to five miles
Now she is making headlines again. She is against equality in cross-country skiing.
I can’t interpret it any other way.
She does not want women to walk the same distances as men.
One year after women ran five miles in Holmenkollen for the first time, she still bristles.
No to five miles for women, says Heidi Weng.
To NRK, she describes the Kollen-femmila as a touring race, and that such long races for women belong in Ski Classics.
Oh my God!
also read
Weng opens fire: – I don’t think anything of this
Backwards into the future
One step forward and two steps back. Smallest
This is the old lady against the current!
Talk about wanting to go backwards into the future.
Now a long battle to allow women to jump ski flying has been won.
And it was only last year at the latest that women were allowed to compete in the historic and dreaded five-mile race in Holmenkollen.
And it went brilliantly.
Ernst A. Lersveen
Worked all my life as a journalist/reporter. Started in local newspapers, then ten years in NRK, then 28 years in TV 2. Has worked in skiing in recent years; especially cross-country skiing.
Can get boring with Johaug
If Heidi Weng, who “bows in the hat”, has put on the hat of entertainment and fears that the five-mile for women will be a worse product on TV than the three-mile, then I see no reason for that.
In that case, it would have to be next year’s five-mile WC where Therese Johaug can appear. And it can get boring.
But, Johaug only makes a guest appearance. So there is no argument.
also read
Johaug superior in the comeback
Kollen-femmila: Not as brutal as some feared
The women’s debut in the Kollen five mile last year was for me at least as exciting to follow as the male runners.
And the reaction from the runners was mostly only positive. It wasn’t as brutal as some feared.
And I assume that the resistance to five miles is less now than in the survey among the runners in 2018, because then only eight percent of the female World Cup runners answered that they wanted to go the same distances as the men.
It has been adopted anyway.
Old fashioned and out of date
Resistance to women’s five-mile runs is, to me, a view that is old-fashioned and out of date.
We are now in 2024. Not 1924.
I am convinced that the grandmother of Ingvild Flugstad Østberg, Valborg Østberg, is quite annoyed by Heidi Weng’s actions.
Valborg was a pioneer in women’s cross-country skiing and fought a battle for women to be allowed to participate in races such as the Birkebeinerrennet.
She told me that, before women were allowed in Birken, she ran the race after registering with a boy’s name.
Women escaped to Birken in 1976.
The following year, Valborg won.
Here you can read more by Ernst A. Lersveen
“With wide buttocks, they tumble forward”
The only thing I wish was that 50 kilometers in Holmenkollen, for women and men, was the end of the World Cup season.
Then we avoid runners not lining up in Kollen to save themselves for the next races in the World Cup.
There were actually some who raised their voices, before the women got into the Kollen-femmila, and suggested that it could not be healthy for women.
Geez, what millennium are we in?
This is a bit like reading the verdict on women in cross-country skiing in newspapers 60-70 years ago:
“With wide buttocks, they tumble forward, with clumsy movements and with snot and sweat on their faces. No, graceful ballet or soft gymnastic movements are sports suitable for women”.
To Heidi: Have a good trip!