With quarantine closing a few hours ahead of the TV-broadcast, there has been time to study the WOC 2021 Long course in depth. In this post we take a look at the important legs – this should be a nice companion for the TV broadcast.
Focus is on the women’s course, but the men have many similar legs. There is also a thread on Twitter where these were tweeted with some comments.
Leg 1: Intro to terrain
Data from first starters on leg 1:
Leg 2: Long leg
Data from first starters on leg 2:
Leg 3: Up or down (part 1 of many)
Data from first starters on leg 3:
Leg 4: Short one
Leg 5: Up or down
Leg 7: Decisive routechoice?
Data from first starters on leg 7:
Leg 13: Up or down?
Leg 15: Up or down?
Leg 17: Change in terrain
Leg 19: Decision time
Leg 21: Final chance to gain some seconds
But where were the forking legs?
I think IOF needs to revise the start order at WOC. They should look at Cross Country Skiing. The best seeded athletes could still start towards the end, but you alternate high and low seeds. Then you get 6 minutes between the best runners. My assumption is that lower seeds cannot follow the higher seeds if they are caught.
Is the ‘butterfly’ / ‘diamond’ setup buried by now? Could have had healthy impact on todays race…
In a butterfly/diamond setup Daehli and Fosser still run together, Kyburz alone. So maybe with a butterfly Daehli would have got silver… For balance, very gracious post by Daehli here… https://www.instagram.com/p/CRJ4NzYMs4n/
Well, I’ve seen butterflies with three rounds. That would have made the trick…