Cross-Country Skiing at the Nordic Skiing FIS World Championships 2025

[Monzanator 4,748]

  On 3/3/2025 at 8:02 PM, Grassmarket said:

Kowalczyk definitely did too much, but she did not have the sponsors & had to race for money.

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  On 3/3/2025 at 8:11 PM, copravolley said:

She was a representative of the typical Russian school - her coach came from the USSR, although he lived in Poland for many years. Not every organism would withstand such competition and training loads but on the other hand Kowalczyk had a bad skier technique (especially in the skate) and had to rely on endurance and strength. 

 

In my opinion, she had sponsors, because Poland is a big country and sponsors can always be found if someone is very successful and Kowalczyk was very successful for many years. She simply operated in such a training and competition regime and couldn`t do it otherwise. She had to starts everywhere, because otherwise her form would be worse. She was not a skier in peak form for 1 event in the season.

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Kowalczyk's coach was from Kazakhstan and yeah, that's the old Soviet school. Her training was very harsh and nobody in Poland could keep up so she was a one-athlete team for majority of her career. Some footballers saw her training in Tatra mountains in the summer and she was running up the hill with a tire attached to her waist with a rope. That's proper Soviet methods or what.

 

The sponsors were not there even after the bronze she won at 2006 OG, remember this was when our ski jumping was still at peak of popularity and Apoloniusz Tajner became the head of Skiing Association which made every other winter sport even less relevant. Kowalczyk only got some serious sponsorship (Orlen, PKO Bank, car manufacturers) after Liberec WC 2009.

 

In late 2000s she still travelled around Europe in a van with coach and two classic skis waxers from Estonia (Are Mets & Peep Koidu) that were the key part of the success (and many other feds wanted to buy them out but they stayed with her). She had different waxers for freestyle skis later on.

[Grassmarket 3,991]

  On 3/4/2025 at 9:32 AM, Monzanator said:

 

 

Kowalczyk's coach was from Kazakhstan and yeah, that's the old Soviet school. Her training was very harsh and nobody in Poland could keep up so she was a one-athlete team for majority of her career. Some footballers saw her training in Tatra mountains in the summer and she was running up the hill with a tire attached to her waist with a rope. That's proper Soviet methods or what.

 

The sponsors were not there even after the bronze she won at 2006 OG, remember this was when our ski jumping was still at peak of popularity and Apoloniusz Tajner became the head of Skiing Association which made every other winter sport even less relevant. Kowalczyk only got some serious sponsorship (Orlen, PKO Bank, car manufacturers) after Liberec WC 2009.

 

In late 2000s she still travelled around Europe in a van with coach and two classic skis waxers from Estonia (Are Mets & Peep Koidu) that were the key part of the success (and many other feds wanted to buy them out but they stayed with her). She had different waxers for freestyle skis later on.

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The other thing; she should have had a longer World Cup career - like Bjoergen, Slind & Johaug - but all the crazy training wore her out early, although she still went on the Ski Classics tour.

[Grassmarket 3,991]

Good news for TV spectators: plenty fresh snow since Sunday.

Terrible news for wax techs; plenty fresh snow since Sunday.

[Grassmarket 3,991]

Oh dear  fall short.  

[heywoodu 15,950]

Sophia Velicer fan spotted, including the actual Taiwanese flag instead of the nonsense Chinese Taipei thing

 

[heywoodu 15,950]

Women started and the quiet in the snow stopped, lots and lots falling again suddenly

 

Thank Odin for the roof

 

[Grassmarket 3,991]

  On 3/4/2025 at 2:29 PM, heywoodu said:

Sophia Velicer fan spotted, including the actual Taiwanese flag instead of the nonsense Chinese Taipei thing

 

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Noticed that they have changed her official name to Tsu Velicer, so obviously another one parent deal.  Certainly good enough to be on the World Cup given finance.

[Grassmarket 3,991]

Thriller again!

[heywoodu 15,950]

That was awesome, but damn, Stadlober

 

[hckošice 15,457]

Men's 10km Classical
Final Results

 

Johannes Hoesflot KLAEBO    

28:16.6

 

Erik VALNES

28:25.4

 

Harald Oestberg AMUNDSEN

28:27.6

Full Final Result HERE