World Cup Racing: Season Preview
November 22, 2024We’re just under a week out from the start of a new World Cup season and the excitement is already building for a capstone season that will culminate in the World Championships in February. There’s a long road ahead to get to that point however, so follow along with us as we get you up to speed on what’s new this season, where the schedule will take us, and who to look out for along the way while we’re counting down the weeks to the big event in Trondheim, Norway.
Changes for 2024
Max Altitude
A change that may have implications for future World Cup competitions in the United States, the FIS Cross-Country Committee adopted a new max altitude rule for all Olympic, World Championships, and World Cup competitions which will be in effect for the 2024-2025 season. The rule limits the aforementioned events to a max elevation of 2,000m (a bit over 6,500ft for us Americans) along any proposed race courses, meaning the eligibility of some venues which have previously hosted World Cup or Olympic level competitions, like Olympic Valley, CA (1960 Winter Olympics), may be in question.
Tour de Ski
A host of changes are coming to the Tour de Ski this season which include:
- The top-6 (previously the top-3) sprinters and top-3 climbers (a brand new category) in their respective standings will receive prize money following the conclusion of the Tour de Ski.
- Mass start competitions will no longer implement bonus second starts based on Tour standings. Instead, athletes will line-up and start en-mass as is the norm. However, an exception to that rule is that the leaders in each of the three standings (overall, sprint, and climber) will get starting line positions for mass start competitions.
- Lastly, time cut offs have been updated for this edition of the Tour de ski. Those time cutoffs are:
- For races 5K and longer, athletes will be pulled if they are over 20% behind the race leader.
- For races shorter than 5K, athletes will be pulled if they are over 23% behind the race leader.
- And specific to the final hill climb up Alpe Cermis, athletes will be pulled if they are over 30% behind the race leader.
Race Distances
Implemented last season, but being applied for the first time this season as well in respect to the World Championships, the FIS Cross-Country Committee voted in May of 2022 to have all World Championships competitions feature equal distance events for men and women. As a result, events will be condensed to four distances: sprint, 10K, 20K, and 50K, with the skiathlon event becoming a 20K (10K+10K).
The Schedule
The customary commencement for a World Cup campaign for over a decade, this year’s World Cup racing action will get underway at the famed Ruka ski resort in Finland for the traditional three day string of events. However, a departure from nearly two decades of sprints opening the World Cup season will see an interval-start classic 10K as this year’s first event, taking place on Friday of that opening weekend. Classic sprints will then take place on Saturday, with a mass-start freestyle 20K rounding things out on Sunday.
The schedule from then on is as follows:
Period I
Nov 29-Dec 1 - Ruka, Finland
Dec 6-8 - Lillehammer, Norway
Dec 13-15 - Davos, Switzerland
Period II - Tour de Dki
Dec 28-Jan 1 - Toblach, Italy
Jan 3-5 - Val di Fiemme, Italy
Period III
Jan 17-19 - Les Rousses, France
Jan 24-26 - Engadin, Switzerland
Jan 31-Feb 2 - Cogne, Italy*
Feb 14-16 - Falun, Sweden
World Championships
Feb 26-Mar 9 - Trondheim, Norway
Period IV
Mar 15-16 - Oslo, Norway
Mar 19 - Tallinn, Estonia
Mar 21-23 - Lahti, Finland
*Note: Cogne, Italy replaced the original venue for Jan 31-Feb 2 after Nove Mesto, Czech Republic withdrew from hosting the competition citing “economical factors”. The planned races for those dates remain unchanged however.
Ones to Watch
Austria
A rising star for Austria, and one of several athletes to actually test the dominant Norwegian men’s team, Mika Vermeulen had a breakout season in 2023/2024, holding his own against some of the best in distance racing to earn himself a 5th place finish in the distance standings, and a 7th place finish in the overall standings. That’s an 81 place improvement in the overall standing from the season prior, and while we don’t expect him to make quite that large of a jump this season, it’s hard to believe he’s fully reached his potential either at the age of 25.
Finland
Staples of their national team, siblings Kerttu and Iivo Niskanen will be, without a doubt, the ones to watch for Team Finland. Of the two, Kerttu certainly has the higher ceiling for success, finishing no worse than 7th in the overall standings the last three seasons running, including a 1st place finish in the distance standings for the 2022/2023 season, all while steadily improving her sprinting results along the way. Iivo, on the other hand, has struggled with his fitness since the 2022/2023 season, dealing with multiple bouts of sickness, but has continued to prove himself dependable when it comes to distance events in the classic technique. And let us not forget about the veteran, Krista Pärmäkoski, who picked up her first win since 2018 last season, proving she still has what it takes to rise to the top.
France
Known for their sprinting success the past few seasons, it would be hard to imagine Lucas Chanavat and Richard Jouve not being up to the task again this season. Both secured podium positions multiple times over the course of last season, and Chanavat’s two individual victories were enough to land him a 3rd place finish in the sprint standings.
Success has been spreading throughout the team however, and new notables now include Hugo Laplas and Delphine Claudel. Laplas turned in an impressive performance during the Tour de Ski to finish 3rd, helping to propel him to a 9th place finish in the overall standings, and Claudel frequently finished within the top-10 last season, including two podiums.
Germany
Since the 2020 Winter Olympics, the trio of Victoria Carl, Katherina Hennig, and Laura Gimmler have been the face of the German team, and that fact remains heading into the 2024/2025 season. Carl was exceptional last season, finishing 4th in the overall standings and 2nd in the distance standings, while Hennig made her way to the podium on three separate occasions and Gimmler was also a frequent face among top-10 finishers. No one will be surprised to see the German women’s team reach the podium when it comes to a team event at the World Championships.
Meanwhile, the German men’s team has also found success as of late, with Friedrech Moch leading the group last season with a 2nd place finish in the Tour de Ski, and a 6th place finish in both the overall and distance standings. Add to that ten top-10 finishes last season and it’s hard to imagine him not being in the mix all season long.
Great Britain
One of the most consistent distance skiers active on the World Cup circuit, Andrew Musgrave will undoubtedly be in the mix in any distance event this coming season. The last two seasons he has placed a career-high 8th in the distance standings and will be looking to improve upon those results heading into this season, only finishing outside the top-20 in those standings once going back to 2018.
Italy
A veteran among veterans, Federico Pellegrino will be entering his 15th season on the World Cup circuit this winter and, while he may not be a favorite to lead the overall standings, his form has significantly improved in his later years. Back-to-back seasons he has finished within the top-10 in the overall standings, largely levied by improvements in his distance racing, but his sprinting form is nothing to scoff at either as evidenced by a pair of podium finishes last season. It won’t be too surprising if we see him make a few more guest appearances on the podium this season as well.
Norway
A group with no absence of depth, Team Norway will likely be the ones to beat all season long, and it’s not hard to see why. The men’s team is stacked to the gills with talented skiers, including the future Hall of Famer Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, who alone had 16 wins last season out of the 26 events he competed in. Normally that would be more than enough to secure the top spot in the overall standings, but as further evidence to the depth of the Norwegian team, that title went to one of his teammates: Harald Oestberg Amundsen. We expect those two to duke it out again this season, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the team has to miss out on all the action either. Finishing 4th and 5th in the overall standings respectively, Paal Goldberg and Martin Loewstroem Nyenget will undoubtedly want to have their say, especially when it comes to distance events, and Erik Valnes, the runner-up to Klæbo in the sprint standings, will also be vocal in any sprint event. Last but certainly not least there’s Simen Hegstad Krueger who always seems to show up when it matters most, like at a certain major competition in February.
Equally potent in recent years, the women’s team has Kristine Stavaas Skistad who has become Norway’s answer to years of sprinting dominance by the Swedish women. Last season alone she reached the podium in every sprint competition she entered except for one, winning the last three competitions to end the season. The rest of the team has been holding their own as well, with the extended Weng family of Tiril, Lotta, and Heidi continuing to show their quality. Heidi had a resurgent season last winter with a 2nd place finish in the Tour de Ski and a 8th place finish in the overall standings, while Tiril had ended up on top in the overall standings just a season prior. Add to that group the elephant in the room, the indomitable distance specialist Therese Johaug who had retired at the end of the 2021/2022 season and has announced that she will be returning for the 2024/2025 season, and there is a legitimate chance that Norway will take home a lion’s share of the medals at this season’s World Championships.
Russia
Still barred from FIS sanctioned events through the 2024/2025 season, and for the foreseeable future. In an exchange with Expressen, one of Sweden’s leading newspapers, Sweden's National Team General Manager, Lars Öberg, spoke to whether or not the possibility of Russian and Belarusian athletes returning to competition had even been considered at the most recent FIS Cross-Country Committee meeting:
"There was no discussion. We were simply informed that the suspension of Russia and Belarus has been extended, and their teams won't be competing in FIS events this season."
Sweden
The dominant force for the last few seasons, the Swedish women’s team had appeared to lose its edge as of late—that is, until their promising young star returned. Sidelined by a shoulder injury that put her out of commission for the 2021/2022 season and part of the next, Linn Svahn returned with a vengeance for the 2023/2024 season, earning 13 podiums across 32 competitions to finish 2nd in the overall standings, and 1st in the sprint standings. In the aftermath of her first full season back, it will be interesting to see just how she rebounds from narrowly missing out on the overall title come the start of this season.
One person does not make a team however, and much like the Norwegian team the Swedish team has depth in spades, at least on the women’s side. Frida Karlsson and Ebba Andersson had long been the go-to distance specialists before Svahn’s arrival, and they continue to be so after the pair finished 3rd and 5th respectively in the distance standings last season. For Karlsson, that result, coupled with a 7th place finish in the sprint standings, meant she was breathing down the neck of Svahn in the overall standings this past winter, finishing 3rd, and given her recent fitness it wouldn’t be surprising to see her continue that trend.
Sprinting has been where the Swedish women’s team has seen the most success lately however, and with the likes of Jonna Sundling, Maja Dahlqvist, and Emma Ribom on the roster (who individually finished 3rd, 4th, and 6th in the sprint standings) in addition to Svahn and Karlsson, there’s no reason we should expect to see anything less than that same level of dominance throughout the upcoming season.
Switzerland
In recent years there seems to always be a veteran and an up-and-comer on the Swiss team, and with the previous veteran Dario Colognia retiring a few seasons back, it’s been up to Nadine Faehndrich to take up the mantle. One of the more consistent sprinters on the circuit entering her 10th season, she’s worn the title well, only failing to make the sprint semifinals on one occasion all of last season. Comparatively, Valerio Grond’s World Cup career has been shorter, only four seasons to be precise, but in that time he has already cemented himself as a skilled sprinter, and his 7th place finish in the sprint standings last season should be a clear message to other athletes to keep an eye out for him.
United States
Coming off of a blockbuster season of firsts, the ceiling couldn't be higher for Team USA heading into a World Championships year. After a grueling World Cup campaign across both Europe and North America, including a stop in her home state of Minnesota, Jessie Diggins picked up her second overall title last season, becoming not only the first US athlete to win one overall crystal globe, but now two. In the four seasons spanning her two title triumphs, she hasn't finished lower than second in the overall standings. Add to that the fact that she also won the Tour de Ski for the second time last season, the first time coming the same year she won her first crystal globe, and the year before she took home two medals from the Winter Olympics, and the winds are certainly in Diggins favor.
Rosie Brennan also had a tremendous season last winter, finishing within the top-10 in the overall, distance, and sprint standings, and has all the motivation she needs to take home some hardware come February. Joining her on that journey is the youngster, Sophia Laukli, who really started to find her footing last season, earning her first World Cup victory on the climb up Alpe Cermis.
The biggest World Cup victory of the season had to go to Gus Schumacher of the men's team however, who shocked the hometown crowd in Minneapolis last February by upsetting the dominant Norwegian distance crew to get his first World Cup podium and victory, the first by an American man in a distance event in 40 years. Schumacher is part of a young group of guys who have collectively been pushing the envelope, a group that includes JC Schoonmaker and Ben Ogden who both also earned first World Cup podiums earlier that same season. We're expecting big things out of this group moving forward, and February's main event will be a real test to see if they can put it all together when it really matters.
Of course, the US squad is much deeper than those six individuals, and so, for reference, the complete pool of US athletes available for Period I is as follows:
Men
Kevin Bolger
Logan Diekmann
Michael Earnhart
John Steel Hagenbuch
Luke Jager
Zak Ketterson
Zanden McMullen
David Norris
Ben Ogden
Scott Patterson
JC Schoonmaker
Gus Schumacher
Peter Wolter
Hunter Wonders
Jack Young
Women
Renae Anderson
Erin Bianco
Mariah Bredal
Rosie Brennan
Haley Brewster
Jessie Diggins
Margie Freed
Lauren Jortberg
Julia Kern
Sophia Laukli
Novie McCabe
Sydney Palmer-Leger
Sammy Smith
Alayna Sonnesyn
An especially exciting lineup for supporters from the Midwest, seven athletes hailing from the region will be on call for Period I, Including Kevin Bolger (Minocqua, WI), Zak Ketterson (Bloomington, MN), Renae Anderson (Golden Valley, MN), Erin Bianco (Ely, MN), Jessie Diggins (Afton, MN), Margie Freed (Apple Valley, MN), and Alayna Sonnesyn (Plymouth, MN).
Where to Watch
As in seasons past, Skiandsnowboard.live will be the go-to streaming service for live broadcasts of World Cup racing action all season long. However, in a departure from last season, there will no longer be an on-demand option for live broadcasts as the platform will be moving towards subscription-based options only, with the lowest priced option being $11.99/month for all Nordic World Cup competitions.
This year’s World Cup season will again kick off in Ruka, Finland, with three days of racing action planned:
Friday, Nov 29th - Interval-Start Classic 10K
3:00 am CST - Women's Race
5:40 am CST - Men's Race
Saturday, Nov 30th - Classic Sprints
2:00 am CST - Qualification
4:30 am CST - Heats
Sunday, Dec 1st - Mass-Start Freestyle 20K
2:30 am CST - Men's Race
4:25 am CST - Women's Race