– Top sport is not necessarily fair, but it should not be extremely unfair either. And that’s what it was experienced as for some, says the man who is the coach for the Norwegian cross-country men’s cross-country team. Norway has more world-class runners than the number of places on the WC team. Possible world champions do not come to the start. It set feelings in motion in the house and at home, but most of all among those it concerns – those who dream of the possibility. MUST DECIDE: The time has come for Eirik Myhr Nossum, together with the rest of the national team management, to make their choices. Photo: Heiko Junge / NTB Eirik Myhr Nossum has the power to decide who gets this opportunity, and not least who doesn’t. Together with sprint coach Arild Monsen and cross-country manager Espen Bjervig, he first selected the squad and then prepared the individual distances during the WC in Planica in February/March. Perhaps the first athletes will get a message whispering in their ear already this evening. – Can change their lives The competitions in Les Rousses this weekend are the last chance the runners have to show that they deserve the chance to fight for precious metal. After the classic 20-kilometer race on Sunday, Didrik Tønseth told news that the most important thing was to beat the other Norwegians. He beat many. Soon he will find out if there were enough or if he has to watch his teammates fight for WC medals. READY TO ARGUMENT: Eirik Myhr Nossum hopes to have clear answers when scrappy athletes come to him with their frustration. Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB – I’m lying if I say I’m super good at it, because I think it’s terribly uncomfortable. It’s not because I’m conflict-shy, but because I think it’s so easy to completely defeat my own arguments because it’s so jammed, he says. Tønseth believes that a spreadsheet of the results this winter should be the basis. Others hope that the national team management looks as much at past merits. Depending on how the arrow has its shape throughout the winter. Nossum is painfully aware that his choice has extreme consequences for individuals. – They put their lives into it, everyone sacrifices just as much, everyone knows that winning a WC distance can change their lives. Economically, status, there is a lot that lies in it. And then I sit with the power to use the pen to cross out that one name, says Nossum thoughtfully. – In the next three weeks, I’ll get unfriended. I know that. Unhappy with his own reaction He speaks from experience after having weathered many storms. In the middle of the Olympics in Beijing almost a year ago, it was Emil Iversen who went out in the media with an attack. – For me, it has been quite frightening, difficult to take care of and the worst thing I have ever experienced. I feel I have been stabbed in the back, Iversen said to news after being wrecked from a distance he thought he had first been given the go-ahead to go. – I tolerate that people are angry with me, that people are sad and disappointed and all that, says Nossum. – I do not fear their reaction. It is my reaction that I am unhappy with. It is the one that is tiring. And in the worst case, it actually goes beyond how good you manage to be at work the next day, because you spend a lot of energy on it, and I’ll honestly admit that. I’m not very good at jumping on to the next step and sort of being done, the national team coach admits. The toughest wreck Of all the elections he has made – or the wrecks, as they are often called in the media – there is one that stands out. It was then that he had to inform Simen Hegstad Krüger that he was not allowed to walk the WC three-mile in Seefeld in 2019. WRECKED: Simen Hegstad Krüger was not allowed to run the three-mile in 2019. Here he walks the five-mile on the last day of the WC, where he was number five. Teammate Hans Christer Holund took the gold. Photo: Fredrik Hagen / NTB – It was rough. He was obviously qualified and not least he was Olympic champion a couple of quarters ago, says Nossum. For Krüger, he won the same distance in the Olympics the previous season. – Then I had to have a few extra days to find the words for it. So without crying, I was quite absent at home, says Nossum. Krüger is a runner who has been on the edge several times. He also does not forget the message from Nossum in 2019. – It is a tough message to receive. You know that places are tight and that there are terribly small margins. But you hope for the longest time that you are right inside, says Krüger. In that case, he also thought he should be inside. – I wasn’t angry. But I said clearly that I should have gone. I thought so, he confirms. Gastroenterologist Simen Hegstad Krüger understands the trainers’ dilemma. Even he is once again on the verge. He was strong in Davos before Christmas and in the Tour de Ski, but then he got corona. In Les Rousses at the weekend, the body did not work at all. Other athletes news spoke to in Les Rousses also understand the withdrawal crisis for the coaches, in a season where Norwegian men’s runners have dominated more than ever. Even a World Cup win does not guarantee a WC start. – I’m glad I’m not the one to take the team out, says one after the other. On Tuesday, the Norwegian WC squad will be announced. There is room for 12 men’s runners. The job of choosing the right four for each exercise continues until the WC. The results are there, and the national team management wants to make as objective an assessment as possible. Sometimes athletes have such similar results that it is not possible. – So I sit here and can only cross them off the list because that day I had a gut feeling in the same way that I had a gut feeling today that I had a breakfast mix and not slices of bread, says Eirik Myhr Nossum. CONSIDERED: Eirik Myhr Nossum is used to making tough decisions as national team coach. Here from Tour de Ski. Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB
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