Tour de Ski summary
The Tour often have ups and downs, and we had both during the tour. In total we go home with more confidence, knowledge, and quite a few good results.
Val Müstair
The tour started with a skate sprint. The only one qualifying was James Clugnet. Patricija Eiduka and Astrid Øyre Slind were just outside at 32nd and Andrew Musgrave was quite far off qualifying this time. James did most of his heat after the plan, but not the last corner in to the finish straight, lost speed and was overtaken by three competitors. It ment he ended 6th in the heat and not 2nd as he was good enough to do.
The second stage was a 10 km pursuit classic based on the results from the sprint. We did not have the greatest starting positions, but it was possible to move up if you had a good day. Astrid had a great day and moved all the way up to a 10th place in the finish. Musgrave never got up in the race speed, and that is most likely a result of pushing the training to hard in the altitude camp before the Tour.
Clugnet ment he did not open to hard, but the time splits says he did compared to others, so he lost a lot of time the last 5 km. Eiduka had a group she was in most of the race, but she did not feel she had the greatest day.
It did not help that we did not have the best skis this day. They were a bit draggy, meaning the wax could be felt especially in double poling.
We travelled to Oberstdorf a bit down after seeing the chances fo a good overall result being gone for Muzzy, but on the other side we saw that Eiduka HR-data showed that she was about to get back in the shape from Lillehammer earlier this season. The same happened for Astrid and she probably needed a couple of days with competitions to get the engine going after being sick earlier in December.
As planned Jimmy stopped his tour here, and went home to France to prepare for WC in Livigno.
Oberstdorf
Third stage was 10 km classic individual. We have worked with Eiduka about pacing the race correctly since she has had a tendency to open to hard and payed for it the last 3-4 km of a 10 km. Therefore the plan was to do the first 3,3 very easy so she could give it all the rest of the race. And she did. After 2,1 km she was 57th and in the finish 14th. This shows how important to pace the race well to have enough energy towards the end. Lots of learning for her who gives confidence to do it again later.
Astrid followed up on her great performance from Val Müstair as well and really showed of her high level with a strong 11th.
On this stage Muzzy did a race more like we have seen from him this season coming 7th. A solid performance without being at his top level. The skis were really good this day, and he said he could thank them and the waxers for the result.
Fourth stage was 20 km pursuit. Muzzy had 38 seconds to get up to the leader, and he managed so. Even though there was many strong men there none of them wanted to put up a high speed, so in the end they were caught by more groups from behind. It was around 30 men in the group. After 16-17 km Muzzy took responsibility to try to drop more guys, but it was not possible On the last 3 km he did som tactical errors, and the race was destroyed when got hooked by another skier and fell. In the end he got a 20th spot.
Eidukas pursuit was the highlight of the tour for the team. She skied very good tactically, and managed to get in a big grouptogether with Astrid,fighting for 5th-14th towards the end, and she actually won it coming 5thand Astrid 12th.Eidukadid a perfect last lap, positioning like we talked about in the meeting the day before and beat a bunch of good finishers. Very impressive. Her time of the day was the fourth best, and this race was her international breakthrough. Worth noticing is it that she was the only one drinking every lap (3,3 km), and this most likely gave her the energy needed in the end.
Val di Fiemme
Going to Val di Fiemme it was much better mood in the car. Muzzy was a bit gutted since he had more in the trunk than he got out, but Paces mood clearly lifted him as well, so this shows the strength of being a team compared to if he had travelled alone in this Tour as well.
First distance in Val di Fiemme was a classic sprint. Not the distance we had the most expectations for, but it turned out quite well with uzzy qualifying as 30th and Eiduka being just outside with 31st. Astrid did her best sprint ever and went all the way through for a semi-final. Who bet for her doing that? This really shows of how strong she is at the moment.
Muzzy did a good heat coming fourth wich gave him a 20th in the end and good confidence before 15 km classic mass start the day after.
On the 15 km Astrid cam 7th and being the strongest Norwegian that day. She followed the front for most of the time and was only a few seconds behind the podium in the end. Eiduka came 19th after a race where she was struggling with the speed the first 5 km. After that she moved nicely in the group. The front of her group was 13th place. Worth mentioning is that Astrid recorded the best six personal results in the World Cup ever, during these first 6 stages of this Tour.
Muzzy was in the leading group the whole race, but was a bit to passive going out on the last lap. This gave him a position where it was difficult to get in the fight for podium. In the end he came 11th.
Before the last stage we had tactic session on the team meeting led by Hans about how to get in a good position before the narrow ca 5 km part between the stadium and the start of the Final climb. It seemed to work well with Muzzy going first in there and Pace being third.
Pace and Astrid followed each other alle the way to the finish, with Patricia being the strongst. She got out the best result she could got that day coming 13th and Astrid 14th. Muzzy pushed it a little bit to hard in the start of the climb, and had to pay a bit for that. He was in the group 8th-18th, but then he broke a pole and he was out of the game.
Musgraves tour ended 19th in the overall after ups and downs all the way. With his results earlier this season both him and us was hoping for at least a top 10 overall, but that opportunity was gone already after stage 2.
Astrid cam 7th overall and Eiduka came 14th overall and was the best U23 Women. That was more than we expected. The goal for the Tour was to do good stages and maybe be top 20 in the end if everything went well.
Next
Pace and Muzzy will not compete before the WC in Premanon 27th-29th January. It is still uncertain if the races will take place there because of the snow conditions.
Astrid went straight to Lavaze to catch up with the Ski Classic team and will race Pustertaler Ski Marathon And Prato Piazza Mountain Challenge the upcoming weekend. She has a goal to race the 30km during the World Championship in Planica, so her race calendar may be adjusted to aim that goal during the next weeks.
Young and Jimmy will compete in Livigno 21st-22nd January where it is a skate sprint and a team sprint skate.
We`re looking forward to the next races! Thank for supporting and following the team!
Thanks to Jostein Vinjerui, Team Manager GB Snowsport for this great summary!