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ABOUT this is the NM scandal of all time, you must check with a ski historian Thor Gotaas. He surely remembers every wild race up through the last 150 years.
In the meantime, things are going well with the talented NRK veteran Torgeir Bjørn. Admittedly, he has not yet passed 60, but has accumulated knowledge about most of what has happened in and around Norwegian cross-country skiing during that time.
Heidi Weng went the right way after there were first reports that she went wrong. The race has now been cancelled. Video: NRK Show more
And NRK’s commentator has no doubts:
– I have never experienced the makan in a National Championship, said Bjørn live, and is right:
- No organizer can do a bigger scandal than blocking the NM course itself with markers.
But that’s exactly what happened.
ON the blocked point in the trail after 12 of 20 km, it was Astrid Øyre Slind who came first. Naturally she dared does not to go right over the row of markers that blocked the proper freestyle course.
However, Heidi Weng did, who came 13 seconds later, and suddenly it was instead her who was in the lead:
- With an extra 300 meters to go to find the right track again, Slind had no chance even though she had a clear gap behind Weng.
Heidi took over the show, skied brilliantly and won the NM race which was no race at all.
Only the NM scandal of all time:
– I’m starting to cry, said the otherwise harsh race director Torbjørn Broks, with extensive experience from jury work around the world where he has unhesitatingly dishonored any world star for breaking the rules.
Now it was his own race he had to iron out.
– Never experienced the like
THE is of course a setback for a large field with great ambitions, but the mistake happened.
Then what happened afterwards is more important. So how Weng and the others dealt with it. Because that reaction could hardly have been better.
The runners’ human qualities came spontaneously:
– This means nothing to me, said Heidi Weng to the repentant race director Torbjørn Broks on live TV seconds after she reached the finish line first – and then lost the victory.
SKI-NM: Here the piste man causes confusion in the joint start with a change of skis for men during the NM, just after the women’s race had to be canceled due to a mistake by the organiser. Video: NRK. Reporter: Anabelle Bruun/Dagbladet TV Show more
These TV pictures showed what a good lady she is. No big facts. Only generosity towards those who had made a mistake.
AND the praise doesn’t stop there:
– Good on Heidi for going straight over those markers, Therese Johaug said of her friend, and was supported by the boys’ NM winner Johannes Høsflot Klæbo:
– I am impressed by a runner who dares to cross the trail markings. I hadn’t been that concentrated, he continued.
Because this was not the Heidi Weng both the competitors, the audience and she herself know. The veteran has a reputation for messing with the details in the stress of the competitions. At the latest just before the start of today’s race at Beitostølen,Heidi joked that she needed someone to go ahead of her and show the trail.
Then instead it was she herself who kept a cool head.
The Swede is wrong. Heidi Weng is by no means a failure
JUST she also joked away the personal triumph:
– When I was young I even went in the exact opposite direction on the trail for a race, she consoled the disappointed organizers at Beitostølen.
Nobody got a single bad word out of her after this scandal. Thoughtful Heidi Weng is too good for that:
– This was a good training session, she concluded to NRK.
IN THE MIDDLE in a troubled season for Norwegian women’s cross-country skiing, there were several bright spots in this otherwise strange race.
First and foremost, Heidi Weng and Astrid Øyre Slind showed great form. It bodes well both for the rest of the international season, and not least ahead of next year’s WC:
- Norway comes with two veterans who have the capacity to challenge both Jessie Diggins and the Swedes at distance.
And soon another when Therese Johaug puts away her microphone and NRK bubble jacket to become the first woman ever to win a 50km in the WC.
Stupid Swedish message
BIG plus also to Sofie Nordsveen Hustad who impressed in the freestyle part of this 20 kilometre. The 26-year-old won superb NM gold in the 10km the other day in a weaker field, and now showed with far stronger competitors that she has the capacity to compete internationally.
After many years of illness and injuries, the junior world champion from 2015 is back at his own top level.
It is precisely a fine story for a Norwegian cross-country skiing environment that needs new challengers among the women.