Could very well be true. Northug wants to win TdS badly. But still he has to be in good shape during the world championship. I've heard that he has increased his capacity for this year (scary thought!) so I expect him to do extremely well, though I hope he does not repeat the pattern from last year with truly great shape before christmas and not so great afterwards. TDS fits C. perfectly since he is so stable and versatile. Both N. and H. have bad days sometimes, and the climb is tough for N.
=) hehe, well I understand your point. But I will make this last comment concerning this :P Cologna is behind Northug during the last part of the race, which is a huge advance compared to Kershaw. In XC-skiing, the person who tries to get away from the rest in an "early" stage of the race must have much better skis and much better strength to keep the top position. Also, in sprint there is not much time to get away from the others. 3 minutes. Add that and Kershaw made a hell of a race =)
Yeah, I remember that. Mainly because I am swedish and FIS destroyed the season for Daniel Richardsson and placed him last because of crossing the "allowed" track for 5 seconds. I am looking forward to the season to start now! =)
Even though I am swedish I think this is the year Northug will take TDS, the world cup and 3 individual gold medals at the World Championship. I think Cologna have won it "too" many times to put a 100 % fight. What do you think?
"Destroy" in this case means leaving the rest of the field way behind in an impressive and decisive manner. He did that on the hill but Cologna nearly overtook him so therefor he only "won".
Are you a theoretical physicist? Is so, then no, he did not "destroy" them. But its a sprint, and this finish is so impressive that it deserves some stronger words than just "kershaw won"
Yeah, that was totally unfair what they did to Rickardsson. He gained 2-3 seconds at the most and there were no bonus seconds to win. Besides it was unclear if he could actually take that shortcut in the first place. What Cologna and Northug did was obviously against the rules.
3 gold medals might be a bit too much if he wins TdS. But the 4x10 relay is safe for him unless he is in terrible shape or if his team messes up somehow. Of the individual medals I think he will win the 50 k (Quite sure of this; he has won every 50 k over the last 3 years. Except Holmenkollen last year since he was not there :D) and 30 k pursuit. But he has the chance to win everything of course...including sprint, team sprint, 15 km free... I'd say 2-3 gold medals and 2 silver/bronze.
@1337inzock He had great skis indeed, but "just"... nah... The norwegians and swedes have amazing teams working with the skis and i dont think the others had bad skis. Look at how he went up the final hills... its not "just" his skis. But maybe you dont know anything about x-c skiing and i am wasting my time with this comment.
Cologna actually cheated and crossed the spruce needles (the edge of the course) several times. If it wasn't for that he would not have got past Northug so easily. Northug did the same thing the year after during the race between Cortina and Toblach though.
""destroy " in this case means..." Haha =) Good for you to know the definition of "destroyed" when its used figuratively, and is able to apply that in every situation. You are a funny fellow that way =) ... I mean, we probably feel the same way, but you have a hang up on one word and claiming to know how every one should interpret a word in a figurative (spelling?) way