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THAT Swedish ski runners excelled more than in any championship but it was still a loss to bear. Kristine Stavås Skistad ensures that:

• Until her powers dissipate in the loose snow in the middle of the finale, she shows what’s about to happen.

Only 24 years old, Kristine has every chance of winning the next world championship.

The girl who made waves on live broadcasts when she became a top runner for the first time in 2019, has delivered a surprising comeback that will transform Norwegian cross-country skiing.

THAT almost unbelievable. Few could see this progress when the Konnerud girl was at her worst two or three years ago. And not at all himself:

– I really miss everything, Kristine said to Dagbladet when the last toilet was missed. Prior to the championships in Oberstdorf in 2021, he had barely qualified for the WC Norway squad. In the decisive qualifying race, he was beaten by another top Norwegian sprinter already in the prologue, and stood no chance in the quarterfinals:

• The girl who for years was careful with the number of hours of training, still trained at a low level.

The result is very familiar. Another winter marred by a training regimen that only makes it worse:

– Four weeks ago I had to quit completely and take a ten day break without exercising. I got very bad feedback. I have ended up in the same situation as last year. This is very coolsaid Kristine.

Little did he know then that the hardships would set in another winter, and also put him outside the Olympic team.

The rest are stories of top athletes who are getting sober but don’t want to give up.

ALREADY For As this year’s season begins, Kristine knows that concentrated efforts at home in the safe ski environment of Konnerud are finally helping:

– The past is forgotten. I’m looking forwardshe said in a new chat with Dagbladet, rejecting further evaluation of the guilt of the 24-year-old, who four years ago became the highest maximum speed female skier.

It turned out to be a great tactic for someone who otherwise willingly talks about most things in sports. All winter he was safely on the track.

But for cross-country management, the case of Kristine Stavås Skistad deserves close attention.

To at least remind us all that most individual top sports also have their own history.

Suddenly it stopped: Swedish elimination

THAT it was precisely there that the individual the Ski Association wanted to take the young Skistad forward after the breakthrough and so on drama at the 2019 Seefeld WC. He earned a spot on the national recruiting team to make the smoothest possible transition to the amount of training normally required to stand out in the sprints.

This cautious withdrawal caused outrage among those who did not understand the background to such individual moves in the national team:

– Skistad is not a sparrow. Gifts for Swedes, write one sports commentator scoffed at the coaches’ attempt to make the transition smooth.

But that’s Kristine Stavås Skistad.

Considered with traditional general training knowledge in cross-country skiing and Norwegian endurance sports. Those who build long careers through heavy doses of quiet long-distance driving.

Reviled in Russia

ET or elsewhere on this well-tried Norwegian training ladder, something went wrong with the Skistad. This is hard to know for sure, and it doesn’t necessarily have a transfer value. It can also be individual.

What’s interesting here is the chance to get your own plan in the national team. So, for example, Johannes Høsflot Klæbo has run most of the pre-winter scheme for himself.

Only the very best are able to see beyond themselves and themselves.

Breaking the silence

ONLY that consideration was the most moving thing for Norway on the first day of WC. Johannes Høsflot Klæbo’s joy over Pål Golberg’s first individual WC medal, and Pål’s tears over roommate Erik Valnes’ terrible ski break.

Norway’s strongest cross-country skiers mean a lot to each other, and that makes it easy to facilitate unique athletes like Kristine Stavås Skistad to reconnect with the community in a way that suits her best:

– We had to go back under the pine trees at Konnerud to train further, commented Lage Sofienlund; Kristines has been training at home for years at a thriving wideside club in the hills south of Drammen.

They will be allowed to do that, although Skistad will now return to international football. This path to the WC final showed he was up for it, and local help was wise.

BOTH OF THEM then-club coaches Sofienlund and Kristine were also dismayed by how the force disappeared down the long hill in the final, but in perspective it was a great day:

• That there is so much knowledge and power put into the best effort at one of Norway’s most socially conscious ski clubs shows Norwegian skiing at its best.

Then we can survive being beaten by a bunch of beautiful Swedish ski girls.

New gold: – No way

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