In particularly tough courses and under heavy conditions at Lillehammer, the Norwegian runners made a clean sweep and took the top six places. Iver Tildheim Andersen was the first Norwegian starter with start number 34, and took a superb lead at all passing points. At the finish, however, he was beaten by three Norwegians, and pushed off the podium. After the finish, Andersen was, to say the least, tough on himself. NOT SATISFIED: Despite fourth place, Tildheim Andersen thinks he was “pissed off”. – What did you think of the race? asked news. – Okay. – No more? – No. – Why not? – I get pissed off. – It’s a knockout When news meets Andersen again a few minutes later, the tone is the same: – There are margins, of course. I am on the verge of being able to say I am satisfied. That’s the way it is: Either you’re happy, or you’re sad in a way. He is clear that it is important to beat his teammates on the Norwegian team, especially in a WC season. – There are margins away, but it doesn’t seem to help me that much. It is hopeless to be number four. That is the definition of a loser – to be number four, he says. – It’s a knockout. Physically and technically and everything. – You seem very merciless towards yourself? – Yes, there is no reason not to be. – How do you feel after a race? – I dig myself down. The longer I dig in, the better it can be after Christmas, I think. Andersen is already looking dimly at the chance of going to the WC in Trondheim. – That train has soon left, yes. The Norwegian cross-country runners dominated the 10km at Lillehammer. The top six in the race were all Norwegian. Martin Løwstrøm Nyenget won the race. – Too hard on himself National team coach Arild Monsen believes the Oslo boy is too critical of his own performance. – He is far too hard on himself – quite obviously. Wasn’t he ten seconds from victory, then? I think it was a very good race from Iver, says Monsen to news. POSITIVE: Arild Monsen is more positive on Andersen’s behalf. Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB – He is hard on himself, and he just has to be. He made it sound dark, but it’s not at all, he says. Monsen believes the season looks bright for Andersen. – It goes one way, that. Ten seconds from winning a World Cup race – I think that’s good, me. Andersen was also far down after the season opener at Beitostølen, where he finished eighth and thus did not make it to the World Cup opener. His reaction was then captured by Viaplay’s cameras, in connection with their recent documentary about the cross-country men. – It is catastrophically bad. Now I have to come up with something damn clever. It was so bad that I’m considering hanging myself. Now I’m going to go home and drink ten beers and just leave it at that. At least there is no reason to be serious. It doesn’t make you better at all, he said then. Dissatisfied Swedes The best runner without a Norwegian passport at Lillehammer was the German Friedrich Moch, who finished in seventh place. Among the 13 fastest finishers, ten of them were Norwegian. Swedish Calle Halfvarsson finished all the way down in 33rd place. THE POLL: There was an all-Norwegian podium at Lillehammer. – It’s too bad, then. I can’t bear anything, says Halfvarsson to news after the finish line. The best Swede was William Poromaa in 20th place. – No, it’s too bad. We will talk together and see what we want to do, because we are doing something wrong. Nothing works for me today. I’m doing one of my worse races. It’s on the verge of me being able to break today, says Halfvarsson. – What do you say to six Norwegians at the top? – It is impressive. They continue to perform all the time. Early in the morning, Lillehammer-raised Martin Løwstrøm Nyenget was thus the strongest on the slopes in which he has countless training hours. No one was able to answer the final sprint of Nyenget, who won four seconds ahead of Simen Hegstad Krüger. WON: Martin Løwstrøm Nyenget won on the slopes he grew up on. Photo: Geir Olsen / NTB – It’s a very good finish by Nyenget. He has taken a further three seconds on Simen Krüger from 8.3 to the finish, commented news’s cross-country expert Fredrik Aukland. Nyenget himself says it tasted particularly good that the victory came under tough conditions. – This tasted fantastic. This is where I do all my training. Loose driving has been my Achilles heel. To win here – it means a lot to me, says Nyenget to TV 2. To news, the father of small children tells Nyenget about a very early start to the day. – We started the day at four o’clock today. So it’s just a matter of getting up in the morning, he says. – Did you take the night shift? – No, not the night shift. But there was one who had decided that now there was enough sleep for the whole gang. She started at four o’clock, and she did not give up. So then it wasn’t so easy to sleep. Harald Østberg Amundsen was third, 7.8 seconds behind Nyenget. The men’s 10 kilometers is the first race of the World Cup weekend in Lillehammer. All distances can be seen on TV 2 and heard on news Radio. Ola Lunde has never seen this before: – Very special 00:51 The hare is chased by 90 skiers: – Hysterical – images from Vsport1 00:55 Here the frantic recovery is decided 01:13 Flying off the piste at high speed – images from Vsport1 00: 40 Show more Published 06.12.2024, at 11.32 Updated 06.12.2024, at 15.48
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