Nordic Roundup: Worlds mean sickness, snow and prominent no-shows

Nordic Roundup: Worlds mean sickness, snow and prominent no-shows{mosimage}Good News and Bad news as the nordic World Championships return to the sprawling stage at Oberstdorf, Germany, this week. The Good News – there’s plenty of snow. The Bad News – there’s also plenty of sickness.

Some journalists who covered the alpine World Championships in Bormio, Italy, through this past Sunday, arrived in Oberstdorf – about two hours west of Munich in Bavaria’s Allgau Valley – to a familiar refrain: coughs, hacks and sniffles. And athletes being sidelined so they can compete later in the championships.

The competitions begin Thursday with the men’s 15-kilometer skating race and the women’s 10km. The U.S. Ski Team has three starters sidelined – Kris Freeman, Carl Swenson and Rebecca Dussault. And the Yanks aren’t the only ones missing frontline competitors.

Germany, looking for a big medals haul at home, starts without Claudia Kuenzel, who’s been running a fever. Said Head Coach Jochen Behle, “We don’t want to risk anything for the later races.” Among the others sidelined: Finn Virpi Kuitunen, the 2001 pursuit champion who later served a two-year suspension for doping after being busted in those same Lahti championships. Canadian Beckie Scott is on the rebound after missing last weekend’s races in Reit im Winkl, Germany, because of sickness.

Runaway ski jumping World Cup leader Janne Ahonen of Finland expects to be back in action Saturday in the small hill (HS100) event and Sunday’s team competition on the same hill. Since setting the one-season record of 12 World Cup victories a month ago, Ahonen has missed the last couple of weeks because of the flu, but claims he’s almost back to full health.

At the same time, two-time World Cup champion Martin Schmitt of Germany is looking – perhaps wishfully – to recover some of his past glory. Schmitt emerged during the 1999 season, dominated the sport for two years and then all but went away as Pole Adam Malysz took over the sport in 2001. Schmitt came to Oberstdorf ranked 51st in the points and enduring one of his most frustrating seasons. For him to talk about looking to medal seems a little ingenuous.

Goldy, Funaki-san, Ingebrigtsen miss Oberstdorf cut

Three-time World Cup jumping king Andi Goldberger of Austria won’t be competing at the World Championships this season. And there’s speculation he may retire at the end of the season.

But Goldy won’t be the only high-profile jumper missing in Oberstdorf during the next couple of weeks. Kazuyoshi Funaki of Japan, gold medalist on the big hill and silver medal-winner on the small hill at the ’98 Olympics in Nagano – and then small hill champ at the 1999 Worlds in Ramsau, Austria, didn’t make the Japanese cut. And Norway’s Tommy Ingebrigtsen, one of the sport’s most erratic jumpers (1995 world champion in Thunder Bay, Ontario, at 17 and silver medalist two years ago on the 90-meter hill in Predazzo, Italy – and all over the map in between those high points), wasn’t named to Norway’s squad of flyboys.

Ski-flying is neither an Olympic nor World Championships event (yet), but Oberstdorf – one of a handful of ski-flying hills in the world – was the venue where Yugoslavian Vinko Bogataj spun out of control about 35 years ago, creating that unforgettable “agony of defeat” footage that used to open ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” for so long.

Sprint winner not picked for Worlds

Norway has dominated the sprints since they came onto the scene in the last decade, but there seems almost something “What’s wrong with this picture?” about Eldar Roenning winning Sunday’s sprint in Reit im Winkl, Germany, and not being named to Norway’s sprint team for Worlds. (On the other hand, Johann Kjoelstad also won this season and also wasn’t named.)

Roenning said he wasn’t crushed about being bypassed for the championships but he felt he could make a difference at Worlds. He also said he’s more likely to be out training than sitting in front of his TV February 22 when the sprints are held in Oberstdorf. The Norwegian foursome for the sprints, which will be classic technique this season, include 2001 Worlds gold medalist and ’02 Olympic champ Tor Arne Hetland, Trond Iversen, Jens Arne Svartedal – one of the strongest classic technique racers, and Odd-Bjorn Hjelemset, who has six World Cup sprint victories in his career.