Americans Rosie Brennan and Jessie Diggins have taken the 2021 Tour de Ski by force. Photo, US Ski and Snowboard Association
Yesterday as I was rushing a family grocery run to get home by the start of the Tour de Ski, I stepped into the big box store next door to grab some cold liquid glide wax since temps dropped pretty significantly in recent days and more cold was in the forecast. It took a few minutes out of my planned routine to grab what I needed. I could have added tools, pantyhose, fishing gear, small home furnishings, and satisfied any chocolate cravings while I was at it, such was the nature of the store. I also had multiple options in that store for cold waxes—from the hip, new convenient liquids to the iron-on chunks of plastics--more selection than I’d have from either of the two ski shops in Duluth, from the equivalent of a Target store. As I got in the car to rally home for the Tour, I reflected briefly on this level of ski wax convenience here versus the Tour de Ski standings at present.
Finland lives and breathes the sport of cross country skiing. Its competitive champions don’t drive the popularity, the cultural significance of the sport in the country drives their notoriety. But really, they go hand in hand. Finland’s Olympic, World Championship, and World Cup success is immense over the entire competitive history of the sport. Skiing success in Finland is not a wish, it’s an expectation that turns their champions into national icons. The reciprocal reaction in the United States for a similar achievement in the sport is appreciated in pockets, but not near similar in cultural significance.
With American women sitting 1st and 2nd in the marquee annual FIS World Cup cross country ski event of the year, and not a Finn truly in the mix in either gender, I have entered into a bizzaro Finland Tour de Ski world. I am referring to Bizzarro, the opposing supervillain to Superman, of Seinfeld fame. Seinfeld did a show in which Jerry and his cohorts entered a world in which they come across their “bizarro,” or character opposites. It feels like that in Finland right now as competitive skiing goes.
To be clear, this bizzaro world isn’t literal. Finland’s superstar, Iivo Niskanen, is not competing in the Tour and would undoubtedly be giving Finns something to cheer about, especially as the Tour heads into the classic-heavy portion. Besides, with a 50km classic at World Championships, the reigning 50k Olympic champion will likely give Finland its day in Oberstdorf at the World Championships in early March. In his absence, the top Finnish male, Markus Vuorela, is in 31st place in the Tour de Ski, 7:15 behind Russian leader, Alexander Bolshunov. Not what Finland expects in headlines during one of the season's biggest draws. Further, Krista Parmakoski is in the Tour, but still overcoming a late-fall bout of sickness and struggling to find the consistent form that I certainly would’ve expected of her to contend for the title in the absence of the Norwegian team. She's still in a respectable 7th place, and form has been good on some days of the Tour, just not all.
Krista Parmakoski, Finland's top-ranked skier, sits in 7th place overall in the Tour de Ski, 2:08 behind leader, Diggins. Photo: Lapin Kansa
A lifetime in ski racing—of wondering what it might feel like to be a Finnish (or Norwegian, or Swedish) ski fan—has me a little disoriented at the moment as I take all this in from Finland. It’s hard to know how to react. It almost doesn’t feel real where I am. Nonetheless, the situation is real and it is what it is, and it’s weird. In a good way.
I came here without any ski gear—no jackets, hats, boots, pants, etc… When I visited the US Ski Team in Ruka in late November, Jason Cork (USST coach) gave me a couple of his several-year-old US Ski Team jackets to ski in this winter which were really appreciated, because besides being functional, who doesn’t want to be touting the US Ski Team right now? As I clicked off 10km of classic skiing this morning to bring whatever mojo I could to the 10km classic happening in Dobbiaco later that day, I passed in the opposite direction an older guy I’ve seen several times before, cranking out laps at Laajavuori, wearing an early 2010s Helly Hansen Finnish Ski Team warm ups get up. The second thing that came to mind after I reflected on how much we both were posers in our warm up kits (ok, just jacket in my case) was, for the first time in my life, my USST jacket was kind of cooler right now than his Finnish one. That’s amazing when you take a little time to unwrap it. And it can’t be overlooked. Thanks, US Ski Team.
I’m not going to get too deep into the topic of how I feel about this week being live streamed without production in the US, but I will address it, because I kind of have to. The upside for me is I can sit in my living room here and watch it on TV in the early afternoon like a fan, which takes no prep, is relatively relaxing, and it’s not work. But don’t let me fool you. It totally sucks. Apart from calling World Cup ski racing for TV feeling like a job I’m laid off from at the moment, I feel for Jessie and Rosie more than anything. American TV is not truly capturing this historical performance for them, in the moment, nor for posterity--with American English voiceovers of these special moments. No analysis of how they might be pulling it off and why it’s happening. No context of the performances themselves and in comparison to the current field nor the history of the sport. That’s a massive drag for Jessie and Rosie, their sponsors and livelihood, and their legacy.
Living in Finland I am reminded of this way more than living in Duluth, because several times a day in the car and on the TV right now, I’m hearing, “rakety-tackety-yackety-rackety, Chessie Deegins, rackety-tackety, Rosie Braynen, yackety, Tour de Ski...” and so on. Imagine driving in your car anywhere in the US, and on the heals of Phil Collin's "I can feel it coming in the air tonight," a tone comes over the radio indicating that the news is next, and you hear Jessie and Rosie mentioned. And then imagine that happening several more times a day on multiple TV an radio platforms. We’re live streaming it in the middle of the night in the US on an app. That hurts. That’s all I have to say about that.
I am so psyched for what’s happening but I am also a realist. As a coach, I have always tried to anticipate the places where things might go awry, and head them off before they might affect my athletes’ performances. I fear the things I’ll miss. It keeps me awake at night sometimes but it also keeps me whole as a coach. So I analyze the situation from the realists perspective, for better or worse. As Jessie and Rosie were racing in Toblach, the US Ski Team had two staff already in Val di Fiemme testing kick wax for Friday's 10k mass start classic there.
Right now, not a single ski racer in the world (except maybe one or two Norwegians, but maybe even them) wouldn’t love to switch places with Jessie and Rosie right now. That’s amazing to realize. But this thing isn’t over. The work still has to be precise by the whole team, and you honestly can always use a little luck too. Stupak is still a very real threat with a mass start classic race on a very challenging, steep-uphill, run-and-gun kind of classic course and she’s a formidable classic sprinter. So are Jessie and Rosie, but neither event are historically their biggest strengths as much as they are for Stupak. The fatigue of the Tour is the X factor in all of it. This might be the most exciting finish to a Tour de Ski in its 15 years of existence, and America has not one, but two solid shots at the top prize with 3 days left.
I perused the results of the last 15 Tours de Ski this evening—nothing scientific mind you—but from a rough overview I saw no instances in which someone won two stages and was on the podium on the majority of the others, and DIDN’T win the Tour de Ski (over in Norway, TV2’s Petter Skinstad is fact checking me right now on that and he might prove me wrong, but remember Petter, I’m laid off right now, and I’m a little lazier than you). This of course is a good apparent trend in favor of Jessie remaining in the lead to the end, or Rosie being there in the end if Jessie has a hiccup. The one thing about a tour event is a huge miss on a single stage in which someone holding those cards I just mentioned, bleeds time so significantly that the tour is lost in a very quick handful of kilometers raced. It has precedent. It's why the Tour de Ski has aura. The realist in me says it’s always a possibility. The analyst in me says, Diggins is the most fit and resilient athlete in the field right now and a meltdown in Val di Fiemme is unlikely. Rosie seems equally so. They both can still win, and the odds favor right now that one of them will.
Being in Finland for this is kind of special against the circumstances. Regardless of what the clock says on the finish line of Alpe Cermis Sunday, this has been a thrilling ride for Americans who have long been or recently become cross country ski racing fans. The vast majority of what you need to understand will be evident Sunday just in the video pictures, even without commentary. It’s unique in that very way—if a ski race, or a spectacle posing as a ski race--doesn’t need commentary, Alpe Cermis is probably it. It’ll be worth setting your alarm clock and coffee pot for the middle of the night. I’ll be there with you. Shoot me a tweet.
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