Just so no one is in doubt: The cross-country queen herself flatly says no. This is Therese Johaug’s last season. After the WC in Trondheim, it’s finally over. And so the discussion ended there. Until then. The abdicated ski king from Mosvika, on the other hand, is not one to end any discussions. Petter Northug is and has long been very good at playing on the mystery and uncertainty that still surrounds him. Including whether he can actually end up with an Olympic comeback in the Dolomites in just 14 months. Mozart returns home? There is only one small catch to the spectacular plan: He just has to find a new homeland. It could already happen by the end of this week. Or maybe never. Petter Northug was once a virtuoso of cross-country skiing. The child prodigy who created a kind of folk art out of everything he did. Sport’s own Mozart, if we are to use a completely randomly chosen example. The last alternative that has been floated is Austria. The formerly prominent cross-country nation is not what it once was, despite uplifting results from both Benjamin Moser and Mika Vermeulen in the World Cup opening in Ruka. But they have room for more on the team for the nation that happens to also house Northug’s former partner, Red Bull. STEADY HOT: Northug impressed on several occasions last season. That meant that talk of a possible World Cup place started before this winter, but so far injuries have made it difficult for Northug. Photo: NTB 334 good reasons to continue The past few years have taught us that nothing is absolute in cross-country skiing. Thank goodness, some will probably say. With the Russians naturally banned from the international competition programme, the sport is on the verge of imploding as an entertainment product. Spectacular comebacks from semi-old heroes are helping to steer the interest curve back in the right direction. As long as it lasts. Either because the comebacks are not very well grounded in sport. Or that they are so short-lived that they almost feel a bit ad hoc. Johaugs may end up in the latter category. If it ends up as a pure WC stunt. There are 334 good reasons why that need not be the case. This is the insignificant number of days between the five thousand in Granåsen and the lighting of the Olympic flame in northern Italy. NOT A SEA OF PEOPLE: Johaug won individual Olympic gold in 2022, but the cross-country exercises there are not primarily remembered as a folk festival. Photo: NTB And with that the opportunity for an experience Therese Johaug has never tried in her otherwise unique career: a Winter Olympics at the heart of skiing Europe. This is a chance she can hardly pass up. Whatever she insists on right now. “You never know,” said her husband Nils Jakob Hoff at Beitostølen. It cannot be said more clearly – without saying anything at all. A Therese Johaug back at her very best, has four pretty good chances to become Olympic champion in Northern Italy. With that, she wanted to tie her friend Marit Bjørgen’s eight golds as the all-time winner in the Winter Olympics. Such thoughts must be enticing, even for someone who has tried pretty much everything there is to try in his career. And who may actually once again feel the longing for a different life than what top sport has to offer. But then there is the chance of a new Olympics being talked about. The best sport has to offer. Black Week offer on Northug Petter Northug, for his part, obviously wants to go to Val di Fiemme, where the cross-country training takes place, but cannot at the moment. As a Norwegian runner. But last week was the much talked about “Black Week”, and then it could come as no surprise to anyone that businessman Northug was on the offer side. If the slightly faded ski king from Mosvika must probably be said to be a little below world class in the track now, he definitely still is in the PR area. In the popular TV2 podcast “B-laget”, Northug said, in the episode aptly called “Northug drops a bomb”, that he was considering starting to play for Liechtenstein. And through that necessarily get an adventurous much easier way into the Olympic team, provided that the formalities of such a change of nation go well. And there is much in such a shift that is brilliant. For the sport of cross-country skiing, whether it likes it or not, it will be a gift in terms of attention. Male athlete of the year 2026 For Northug himself, this will also mean a very short path to accolades he has never been close to before. In 2026, Petter Northug may be praised for his achievements on a stage in central Europe. If he wins the fight against greats like Romano Püntener, Marco Pfiffner, Matthias Kaiser and David Maier. These are the candidates for the title of “Male Athlete of the Year” in Liechtenstein in 2024. Pfiffner is the only winter sports athlete. The mountaineer is nominated on the basis of two podium places in the not-so-given European Cup. The winner will be announced during a gala in the town of Schaan next Sunday. In two years, it may therefore be Petter Northug’s turn to be praised in the Grand Duchy. ALPINIST: Marco Pfiffner has participated in the Olympics in 2014, 2018 and 2022. In the previous Olympics he finished eleventh in the combination. Photo: AP Kæm e’ stortugen Just over a year remains until the next Winter Olympics. Both Therese Johaug and Petter Northug can appear there, if God and children and husbands and IOC will. Whether we like it or not, the WC in Trondheim is just a drinking station on the road. It is the Olympics that really count. And then there are some simple truths within this bubble: Norwegian women’s cross-country skiing cannot place all Olympic expectations on Heidi Weng – for her own sake. Therese Johaug has to go to the Olympics. And it must be something close to a popular demand. In Johaug’s case, one can perhaps hope that a return to the Olympic tracks in Lillehammer, with the 36-year-old’s first World Cup victory in 1,000 days, can evoke a kind of sentimental temptation, when it is the cross-country skiers’ turn to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Winter Games of all time. 2026 is also the anniversary. It has been 20 years since Petter Northug changed the entire sport of cross-country skiing. In the winter of 2006, the most controversial Olympic selection in cross-country skiing ever took place. It’s the NM in skiing at Kongsberg. And the until then unknown junior from Nord-Trøndelag named Petter Northug jr. is completely superior in a joint start with a change of skis. But that same evening, the national team management decides that Northug will not participate in the Olympics in Turin two weeks later. The next day it is ready for the NM relay. During the NM at Heistadmoen outside Kongsberg, the young starlet played with the Norwegian elite. But the national team management still did not want to send him to the Olympics in Turin a few weeks later, an Olympics that was a failure for the Norwegian men. The victory salute to Northug when he decided the relay for Strindheim was now legendary “Og æ ska’ itj til OL”. Which therefore started in Northern Italy. It may actually happen that he is finally going there, now as the Grand Duke of Mosvika himself. Published 06.12.2024, at 21.25 Updated 06.12.2024, at 21.25
ttn-69
