NORT Stage 2: Quick GPS Analysis

Many interesting route choices in the men’s middle distance at NORT in Oslo today – the leg from 15-16 seen above maybe being the most decisive. The winner Carl Godager Kaas was more than 30 seconds faster than Gustav Bergman (second in the end, only three seconds behind Kaas).

Links to GPS analysis NORT stage 2 in 2DRerun (with leg times corrected based on official split times when you use the analysis mode – just choose “Analyze course” in the upper right corner and click on a leg to see routes and correct splits on the leg):

• Men
• Women

Quick analysis Men

Only a quick analysis is provided – the figures below tell a lot more (and also the map above with the autOanalysis between Kaas and Bergman):

• 1-2: Going right on the road is clearly the best. Kaas has  a good start – while both Ekeberg, Dæhli and Hubmann go wrong. This is only one of the places Ekeberg looses the 21 seconds he is behind the victory.
• 3-4: On this leg you can go “anywhere” and just loose around 10 seconds – Hubmann is the fastest of the top finishers.
• 9-10: You can go fast to the left or to the right, but don’t go in the middle, Kyburz – that’s not the way to do it. Neither Kaas nor Hubmann manages to follow the ideal line. Merz looses nearly 90 seconds on a mistake here (not shown).
• 12-13: A place to loose it – but not to win it…
• 13-14: This is the top period in Bergman’s race – here he steadily increases his lead, seemingly cruising towards his first World Cup victory. But that’s before …
• 15-16: … leg 15-16 where the victory is decided to Kaas. Bergman looses more than 30 seconds – and the others going straight Kyburz and Hubmann (and having to both run up and down – and run in stony terrain) also loose a lot of time. The same goes for all other men trying to go straight (less differences in the women’s though, surprisingly)
• 18-19: At this point Kaas finds a very good line in the terrain – effectively winning the race here (and also out of 21)
• 20-21: Luckily the fight for victory in this middle distance was not decided here in the urban area, as all the top 3 take the wrong choice – loosing nearly 15-20 seconds by going left.

Quick analysis Women

An even quicker analysis for the women – not as much interesting there. The shorter course also stole some of the more interesting parts of the course for them, unfortunately.

• 1-2: None of the best consider anything else than taking the road – but Wigemyr looses a lot here close to the control.
• 9-10:  The women don’t try as much as the men in this area (where many take the road) – but the leg is also a bit different. No big differences, but this is a leg where Fasting looses time to Alexandersson.
• 12-13: The leg of the women’s course is a bit different from the men’s – still interesting to see that there is nearly no difference between straight and around for the women.
• 18-19: As for the men, right is faster.

When looking at Alexandersson versus Niggli (see map below with autOanalysis), Alexandersson misses nearly half a minute to number 2 and nearly a minute to number 8 (Niggli also looses some 10-15 seconds here).