Swiss are annoyed by jury: Thick air at Tour de Ski due to sudden rule change

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New Year’s Eve at the Cross-Country Skiing World Cup passed with some background noise. At the team captains meeting after the second stage in Dobbiaco, a point was heatedly discussed that the Swiss team was also angry about.

The reason: In order to continue running in the tour, the athletes in yesterday’s classic 10 km race were not allowed to lose more than 15 percent of the time of the day’s winner. So far, so familiar. With exactly this goal, the Swiss top sprinters Valerio Grond (fifth at the start), Janik Riebli and Co. started. to the race. They had to suffer, but reached the finish so quickly that their times were sufficient to participate in the second Tour sprint on Wednesday in Davos. However: Some runners, including French sprinter Lucas Chanavat, did not reach the limit.

In other words, the winner of the starting stage would have been eliminated from the tour. The jury then decided to reject the 15 percent claim – and still allow Chanavat and Co. continue the tour.

Conversely, this means that the Swiss and other runners have not worked as hard for anything. Lars Brönnimann, head of cross-country skiing at Swiss-Ski, said in a TV interview on SRF: “This decision is incomprehensible to us. It is very, very difficult to understand that the rules are being changed during the ongoing competition.”

He explains that the team was initially “relieved” that the top sprinters had come through over time. The news from the jury came as a big surprise: “Our athletes do not understand that they have invested everything to get ahead – and that this would no longer have been necessary.”

“Argument that cannot be accepted”

SRF expert Adrian Iseppi also criticized the jury’s decision: “This is not about Chanavat, a very likeable athlete. It is about changing the rules during a race that could have been reconsidered in the summer.” In explanation, the organizers argued that the women had a margin of 18 percent, that it was a difficult race over a 10 km classic and that Chanavat was ill beforehand.

Iseppi cannot understand all three points: “There would have been enough time to go through the books and adjust the percentage. And the race was difficult, but not extremely difficult. There were runners with a high starting number who managed to reach the podium despite the snowfall. It was fair to everyone. This is therefore also an argument that cannot actually be accepted. Just like the last reason Chanavat was sick – because that applies to others too. People have tried to justify themselves tooth and nail. That’s too bad.”

Despite the anger, the Swiss team sees that Chanavat can now compete for the sprint victory in Davos again in a “sporty” manner, as Brönnimann says: “We look ahead and will do our best again.” In other words: the Swiss want to provide the answer to the cross-country ski trail. (mpe)

Source : Blick