General
Klebo delivered an ultimatum to the federation and drove off to Miami. Norwegians do not care about the national team?
Johannes Klebo / Photo: © picture alliance / Contributor / picture alliance / Gettyimages.com
The five-time Olympic champion, instead of signing a contract for the next season, chose to rest overseas.
The speed of the famous Johannes Klebo at the finish of sprint distances can sometimes be compared with the most powerful Formula 1 cars. There is no one faster than a Norwegian in the last eight years, and four of his five Olympic gold medals in this discipline are a vivid confirmation of this.
Apparently, therefore, the 26-year-old athlete could not miss the debut stage of the royal series in Miami. But he did it at the wrong time. For the second month now, the athlete has been trying to agree on his contract with the Norwegian Ski Federation, but so far without success.
It turned out that Klebo put forward two conditions to the leaders, one of which has not yet been met. While compatriots are thinking about satisfying the wishes of Johannes, the national team star is having fun in America.
Pleasant process
The saga of contract negotiations between the Klebo family and Norwegian ski officials, as required by Western management culture, takes place in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Johannes’ father, representing the interests of his son in this process, releases positive epithets to the leadership of the Federation. Those, in turn, break into a smile and demonstrate confidence in the imminent completion of the process. Everyone is happy, but there is no result.
Although a month ago, Hakon Klebo argued that the dialogue between the parties was going in a constructive manner, and his son stated that the presence of the sprint group coach Arild Monsen in the team was almost the main argument in favor of continuing the joint work of Johannes and the national team.
Monsen had indeed signed his agreement with the federation before the 2025 World Cup and it seemed to be a signal that his charge’s negotiations would soon come to an end. But it turned out that the participants in the dialogue simply continue to enjoy the process and are in no hurry to complete it.
Everyone is equal, but Klebo is more equal
A little later it became known that Johannes was particularly concerned about two topics. The first is the opportunity to have individual training in the mountains. The second is work in the team of his personal serviceman Frode Pedersen.
Remembering the failure of the Norwegians at the Beijing Olympics, who spent less time in the mountains than the Russians, Klebo’s demands on the first point are clear:
“I think I will be even better. And time will tell if I was right. I thought about testing it earlier, but the pandemic stopped the attempt. Now, I think there is such a possibility. And although next winter the world championship will not be held in conditions of height, I decided to conduct a full-fledged high-altitude training, with the goal of simply trying to become even better as a skier for the world championship in Planica, – the Norwegian explained his position in an interview with TV2.
At the same time, camps in the mountains are not provided for the rest of the team, so in order to fulfill Johannes’ wishes, you need to either redraw the plan or give Klebo more freedom than the rest. And the coaching staff with the federation are ready to go for it:
– You have to be honest. He has 48 World Cup victories and a lot of medals from the main competitions. I said that it would be difficult for me to build a team according to his wishes, but it is possible to do it. He is the best and he is a star. We treat everyone equally, but he will be given the opportunity to do so,” said Arild Monsen.
Now it becomes even clearer why Monsen’s presence in the national team is so important for Klebo. Arild is ready to make exceptions for the sake of his best student.
Went on vacation early
However, there is still no clarity on the second point, on which there were disagreements. According to the Norwegian newspaper Adressa, the greaser Pedersen was originally supposed to leave the national team, but Klebo did not like this, and he began to insist on his return. Apparently this has become a problem:
“We are working on this case and hope that everything will be cleared up at the end of this week,” says the head of the service of the Norwegian team, Stein Olav Snesrud.
It is pointless to wait for more accurate statements in this story. The parties keep a positive tone and continue to unravel the thin threads that should lead to a strong connection between the five-time Olympic champion and the federation. Will they just bring it? Dont clear. At the very least, the Norwegian champion is definitely not familiar with our saying: “Did the job – walk boldly.” Without waiting for a solution to the situation, Klebo flew overseas to the Formula 1 stage in Miami.
It was hard to miss the debut race on a track constructed from scratch, because the organizers did their best to make this event unique. For example, we prepared an artificial bay with painted water and real yachts. By the way, the Beijing Olympic champion in freestyle Gu Ailing (big air) also flew in to see Verstappen’s victory.
In general, the Norwegian had a formal reason to spend a weekend in the USA, but with his short vacation, the Scandinavian star again showed that the issue of signing a contract is not painful for him. At the same time, Klebo is not going to deviate from his conditions. Apparently, the leadership of the Norwegian ski races will again have to follow the lead of their main asset.
Source: Sportbox
I have been working as a sports journalist for about 6 years now. I currently work as an author at Sportish, which is a sports news website. I mainly cover sports news and I love writing about all aspects of the sport. I also have experience working as a broadcast journalist, so I have some great insights into how sport is reported and presented.
General
Commonwealth Biathlon Cup: when does it start, where to watch the live broadcast of the women’s pursuit race on December 20
The women’s pursuit race as part of the third stage of the Alfa-Bank Commonwealth Biathlon Cup in Tchaikovsky (Perm Territory) will be held on Saturday, December 20.
The 10 km race will start at 11:00 Moscow time. Watch the live broadcast from 10:50 on the Match TV and Match! Arena”, as well as the websites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.
The starting list includes Olympic silver medalists Irina Kazakevich and Kristina Reztsova, Inna Tereshchenko, Victoria Slivko, Natalia Shevchenko, Tamara Derbusheva and other Russians. Olympic champion Dinara Smolskaya, world bronze medalist Anna Sola, Elena Kulak, Irina Shakleina, Ksenia Vorobey, Anna Makarskaya, Victoria Shashkova and Anna Pestereva will compete for Belarus.
The third stage of the Commonwealth Cup will end on December 21.
Source: Sportbox
Thomas Astudillo is a sports journalist and author who writes for Sportish. He has a deep love and knowledge of sports, and is known for his engaging and informative writing on the latest sports news and events.
General
Commonwealth Biathlon Cup: when does it start, where to watch the live broadcast of the men’s pursuit race on December 20
The men’s 12.5 km pursuit race will be held as part of the third stage of the Alfa-Bank Commonwealth Biathlon Cup in Tchaikovsky (Perm Territory) on Saturday, December 20.
The race will start at 09:00 Moscow time. The live broadcast will be available from 08:35 on the Match TV and Match! Arena”, as well as the websites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.
60 athletes will compete at the start of the pursuit. Olympic bronze medalists Eduard Latypov and Alexander Loginov, as well as Daniil Serohvostov, Karim Khalili, Alexander Povarnitsyn, Kirill Bazhin and other Russian biathletes will take part in the race. Belarus will be represented by the silver medalist of the Games Anton Smolsky, Stepan Danilov, Maxim Vorobey, Gleb Orlovsky, Alexander Golyak, Nikita Lobastov and Ivan Tulatin.
The third stage of the Commonwealth Cup will end on December 21.
Source: Sportbox
Thomas Astudillo is a sports journalist and author who writes for Sportish. He has a deep love and knowledge of sports, and is known for his engaging and informative writing on the latest sports news and events.
General
The IBU resorted to meanness in order not to let Russians into the Olympics. The cynicism of the methods is shocking
Biathlon officials are putting a spoke in the wheels of our guys. Real chaos!
The admission of Russian athletes in luge, bobsleigh, skeleton and, of course, cross-country skiing gave hope that in other sports everything will soon improve. Moreover, the appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) were generally identical and ended equally well for our country.
However, the International Biathlon Union (IBU) categorically does not want to return the Russians and goes to any lengths to delay this process as much as possible.
The most negatively disposed federation towards Russia
It has long been no secret that of the winter sports, biathlon is the most negatively disposed towards Russians. The IBU leadership doesn’t even try too hard to hide this, regularly making it clear that they are not interested in admitting our athletes. However, they could hardly have expected that Russia would win several cases in a row in CAS in other disciplines and get the opportunity to compete on the international stage.
The shell fell especially close to the cross-country biathlon, where a week ago the long-awaited return of our guys took place. So far, these are only Saveliy Korostelev and Daria Nepryaeva, but the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) notes that the list of neutral athletes may gradually increase. In fact, athletes in alpine skiing and snowboarding are already receiving access.
The IBU in this sense is a related organization. It is logical to ask the question why Russian skiers can compete, but biathletes cannot? After all, the events take place in approximately the same countries, so the reason is solely in the leadership of the two organizations. If the FIS really was at least not against the return of Russia, then the IBU is a different story. However, even there they could not do anything with the CAS decision.
The Russian Biathlon Union nevertheless filed an appeal against the IBU for not allowing athletes in neutral status. Considering the experience of other federations, a positive outcome could have been expected. Another point was that everything had to be done in an accelerated format in order to try to qualify for the Olympic Games in Milan. Unlike skiing, in biathlon this can be done at the January World Cup stages. Actually, the head of the RBU, Viktor Maigurov, spoke about this in an interview with Match TV.
Explanations from the IBU
However, today it became known that the IBU completely abandoned this option and refused to Russia. This was confirmed by the head of the SBR press service, Sergei Averyanov, on his social networks and by commentator Dmitry Guberniev on Match TV. The IBU responded very quickly. The press secretary of the International Biathlon Union, Christian Winkler, tried to explain the organization’s position.
— Indeed, the IBU did not agree to an accelerated procedure for considering the arbitration claim. Regarding youth competitions, the IBU has taken note of the recommendation from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Committee and will review it. As the IOC has made clear, the application of these recommendations depends on the regulations of each international federation. Thus, at the moment, the position of the IBU, for which the IBU Congress voted democratically, remains in force,” Winkler told Match TV.
In general, they again tried to create true discrimination, because, apparently, CAS was not averse to doing everything quickly and efficiently. If you look at the situation objectively, then in essence there is nothing special to consider. If in similar cases with lugers, skiers and others the same decision was made, then here too everything should be transparent. The input data is absolutely identical.
“The largest concentration of Russophobes on the planet”
Of course, the IBU understood this all too well. Therefore, they made an attempt to delay the process. If the return of the Russians to the World Cup is inevitable, then at least spoiling our attempt to qualify for the Olympics has become a minimum task for them. And it seems that they can cope with it, because CAS cannot yet say exactly when they will make the final decision. And the point here is not the desire of the court, it’s just that in addition to the appeal of the SBI, they have many more cases under consideration, which are in the order of priority.
There is very little time left before Catholic Christmas, so there is a risk that everything will drag on until at least the beginning or even mid-January.
“If CAS decides in our favor, and everything indicates that this will happen, then the IBU will put a spoke in our wheels. It will be very interesting how they will react to the IOC recommendations to admit young people. Let’s say you are prejudiced towards adults, but what does it have to do with children? All requests have been sent, the IBU is silent. Let’s see how long this disgusting policy will continue. After we return, it will be possible to sue them and further demand compensation,” Guberniev told Match TV.
— I have already said many times that the IBU will be the last organization that will return Russian athletes to the international arena. There are so many Russophobes gathered there, this is the largest concentration of Russophobes on the planet. They will allow children because the IOC recommended so. They will not agree to confrontation with them. Now their task is to finally spoil us and not let us into the Olympics. Starting next year, everything will be restored, I have no doubt, so this is their last opportunity to show their essence,” added two-time Olympic champion Dmitry Vasiliev in an interview with Match TV.
In reality, the IBU really doesn’t have many options left to fight the return of the Russians. This should happen next year one way or another. I would really like to see our guys at the Olympics, and while there are at least small chances left, we must fight in court for this opportunity. The International Biathlon Union will not be able to go against CAS even with a strong desire.
Source: Sportbox
Thomas Astudillo is a sports journalist and author who writes for Sportish. He has a deep love and knowledge of sports, and is known for his engaging and informative writing on the latest sports news and events.
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