Doubling Down

By Published On: January 7th, 2015Comments Off on Doubling Down

Skiing technique evolves in Davos

“Watch Bib 48 when he gets here.”

That’s what Norwegian coach Trond Nystad told American coach Matt Whitcomb as they watched last month’s 15K men’s classic in Davos.

It’s a routine stop for World Cup skiers, but what happened next was anything but routine.

Bib 48 belonged to Petter Northug.

“It was clear that he was going WITHOUT kick wax,” recalls Whitcomb. “He was flying out of the stadium in slow conditions, but then almost came to a stop on the steep little pitch we were standing on. He had a five-second lead at the top of that climb. I was impressed that he was trying it. I wasn’t sure it was going to work, but I think that level of risk deserves credit.”

As any junior skier who’s failed to apply enough kick wax can attest, it’s a struggle to climb without the stuff. Sure, World Cup sprints — short and fast bursts that eliminate the need to kick and glide — have seen plenty of racers skip the kick wax. But a 15K race, 40 to 45 minutes long? No way.

Until last month.

“It was a watershed day,” says U.S. Head Coach Chris Grover of the Davos event. “If you had told me two hours before the race that this was possible, I wouldn’t have believed you. I’m not sure there is a skier strong enough to do this in the U.S. right now.”

Up to five men chose to skip the grip in Davos, a decision that didn’t come on a whim. Three of them — Northug, Sweden’s Calle Halfvarsson and Switzerland’s Dario Cologna — skied into the top 10 with their waxless double poling. Cologna finished in third, just eight seconds away from winning.

“The Swiss coach told me Dario had been considering not using grip wax the night before,” says Whitcomb, explaining the deliberate decision. “He had a later start than Petter and had the liberty to see how his splits looked two kilometers into the race. When Dario saw that Northug was leading the race, he pulled the trigger on the risk.”

It’s worth noting that Dario’s wax-free finish is his best distance race of the season and that Davos is his home course. His finish is timely, too. This year’s World Cup has been so completely and thoroughly dominated by Norway that seeing any other country succeed is a breath of fresh air. It’s easier to count the number of podium positions Norway has NOT won (six) than it is keep track of the podium positions it has (26). When a single country is leaving each weekend with more than 80 percent of the possible podium spots, invention and fortitude from competitors is inevitable.

For its part in World Cup innovation, Davos is a unique course. It goes up the Fluela Valley on one side of the creek and then back down the other, with the distance course requiring considerable gliding. It pays to be strong in double pole and kick double pole when classic racing in Davos. To break it down, the Davos classic race demands roughly three minutes of striding per 5K loop, 8 to 10 minutes of double pole and kick double pole, and another minute of tucking. If there was a distance course on the World Cup where the bold move of skipping kick wax was likely to happen, Davos was clearly it.

Still, it was a big moment, and one not lost on Ahvo Taipale.

Taipale doesn’t speak so much as he punctuates. The Finnish- born mainstay of American cross country skiing started his St. Paul, Minn., shop in 1978, and has since been adding exclamation points as a coach, gear retailer and, increasingly, a nordic guru. He was in Davos, where he recorded an impromptu iPhone video with skiing great Bjorn Dahlie.

“Do we have a chance that this is going to be continuing more and more?” asked Taipale. “That people are focusing on double poling most races? Is classic skiing history?”

Dahlie answered the question with a nervous smile. “I don’t…hope so,” he said. “It doesn’t look good to go around double poling, so then the point of two techniques are, in a way, gone. We’ll see. Certainly the racers are stronger than before.”

Whitcomb says he isn’t worried about classic skiing demise just yet. “This could not be done with as much success in Kuusamo, Lillehammer, Oslo, Lahti, Sochi, Falun, or Otepaa, where the climbs are steeper and the descents are fast whether one is on skate or classic gear,” he says. “Davos is unique. It would also be very tricky to pull off in a mass-start situation where the accordion effect could really bog down a double poler if they are not leading. However, if the conditions in Davos are slow again for the next classic race, I bet we will see more than three people forgo kick wax.”

At Davos, every bib that crests the rises of the iconic Swiss venue will be worth watching to see if wearer is, in fact, pushing the boundaries of what was previously thought possible in cross country skiing.

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About the Author: Andrew Gardner

Andrew Gardner owns Press Forward, a communications firm based in Vermont with clients in sport, sustainability, health and wellness. You can find him at the Rikert Touring Center near Ripton, Vt., during lunch time most days in the winter.