What a race !!!!

The Prologue of the Tour became a very interesting event. For the first time in history, we saw the best Cross-Country skiers in the world fighting over the distances of 3.3 (ladies) and 4.5 km (men).

It was definitely no sprint. Some of the racers looked just as tired as they do when they finish a 50 km race. 38 seconds between the number 1 and the number 30 among the women and 27 seconds splitting the 30 best men is to me amazingly big differences on such short distances. I wonder if the reason was the choice of wax and material or simply that many racers “miscalculated” the distance. Adding the bonus seconds we have already got some interesting splits before the second Stage. Will the Finnish girls work together to increase their lead on the rest of the field? Can Sachenbacher catch up in skating??

And among the men, Lukas Bauer and Axel Teichmann have already got 26 and 28 seconds lead on Sødergren and Hetland. That's a lot if they agree on cooperation. If not, it will soon be a long line. 47 seconds on Angerer and 43 on Northug !! The two leading men on last year's Tour. Are they not in their best shape or did they miss their skis today? The answer we will have tomorrow. If they do not catch up tomorrow, both of them are expected to be better sprinters than Bauer/ Teichmann......

There are a lot of open questions and likely fights. That's the Tour de Ski in a nutshell. See you tomorrow!

Yours Vegard