Another retiring skier that I’m only passingly familiar with, Switzerland’s Silvana Bucher. Like Vina the other day, she hasn’t raced a ton at the WC level in distance events: Or sprints:
Also tagged retirement, silvana bucher, swissA few other athletes that I was less familiar with are also retiring, according to FIS, beginning with France’s Emilie Vina. Naturally, I head over to Wikipedia and discover that apparently she’s a non-commissioned officer? Huh. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she were a biathlete, I suppose, but that’s not a combination you see […]
Also tagged emilie vina, France, retirement, World CupWoo hoo! Another classic specialist! Ivan Batory has been around the block a few times. The first WC race I have for him is all the way back in the 1994 season. Let’s see, I think I was a freshmen in high school that year. Among Batory’s top 30 results, 63 were classic, 31 freestyle […]
Also tagged classic specialist, ivan batory, men, slovakia, World CupA skier after my own heart, he was! Skating? Bah! That’s for losers! Hjelmeset was the quintessential classic specialist: If you’re basically only going to do classic races, you’d better be pretty good at them, and Hjelmeset certainly was. His World Cup career included 119 classic starts, only 26 freestyle starts and another 9 pursuits […]
Also tagged classic, men, odd-bjoern hjelmeset, World CupMost everyone has probably heard by now that former Finnish skier and convicted doper Mika Myllylä was found dead in his home earlier this week. There had been a very large court case taking place in Finland involving numerous people’s involvement in past Finnish doping scandals and Myllylä had testified, admitting to drug use during […]
Also tagged head to head, mika myllylae, tragedyAnother accomplished specialist, Jens Arne Svartedal, is retiring as well. While no slouch in distance events, he had more success in sprinting. But his real specialty was classic skiing. My records show 25 WC level podium finishes for him, 7 in distance events and 18 in sprints. That includes his WSC Gold medal in the […]
Also tagged jens arne svartedal, retirement, SprintNow that it’s been essentially a decade since sprinting came to the WC scene in a big way, we’re going to start to see skiers retiring who have specialized in sprinting to increasing degrees. Lind is a good example of this trend, as I have 74 WC level sprint races and only 6 WC level […]
Also tagged björn lind, retirement