Tour surprise man can dream of the podium: wrestlers gave Beda Klee the finishing touch

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Upside-down world in Davos? Beda Klee (27) equals his career best result in the classic 20km race – and yet he throws a small tantrum at the finish.

A little later he can only laugh about it: “It’s actually nice if I can get annoyed about sixth place. But I just thought that the podium would have been possible today.” If the Toggenburger had ended up on a faster track during the final descent, the fifth stage of the Tour de Ski would probably have seen a Swiss sensation.

The dream of the stage is alive

In any case: thanks to his dazzling form, the distance specialist is stronger than ever at the World Cup. He is currently sixth overall in the tour – and now the races over 15 km classic (Saturday) and 10 km skating (Sunday) await in Val di Fiemme (It). Klee can dream of a podium finish like he did in Davos.

All he says is: “It’s just nice to be at the front; last year I wasn’t in this position at all.” At that point, he had never achieved a single-digit World Cup ranking individually.

“That was very inspiring”

Where does the sudden performance increase come from? Klee laughs and says, “Everything just fits together right now. The team, the form – and apparently my training choice is slowly paying off.” Klee made some adjustments after the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Especially with strength training. He consciously sought input from other sports. He relied, among other things, on units with the Sypoba training device, a “wobble board,” as he describes it. Klee trained a lot with the wrestlers Armon Orlik (28), Werner Schlegel (21) and Damian Ott (23), but also with the snowboarders Ladina Jenny (30) and Dario Caviezel (28).

“When you see the weights the wrestlers are lifting, you realize that you can probably do more than you think,” says Klee: “Competing with the other athletes is very inspiring. We try to make each other better.”

Now, after many months of hard work, his training change is finally really visible during the Tour de Ski. This also applies to the hype surrounding himself, which Klee modestly dismisses as ‘quite okay’. He could get used to the world turned upside down.

Source : Blick