Kris Freeman

10th place in Changchun, 15K Freestyle. A small but very strong field. Kris felt good. Here’s what he had to say about it on e-mail:

Well I’m sure you know by now that I finished 10th today. It wasn’t a podium but it was the first time I have been in the top 10 since 2003. Based on my sensations it was the best race of my year. I was battling it out with the russian who beat me by .4 seconds the whole way. I was 10 seconds up on him at the lap and 4 seconds down to him with a kilometer to go. I paced things much better but lost my chance at top 6 somewhere between kilometers 11-13. I hit a nasty rock that left a significant divot in my base at 10k that was not good for my state of mind. The snow was filthy as was the air. This whole city is like a giant coal plant. Between them and the two cycle engines running everywhere I have decided to stay indoors from now until its time to leave. I have a little post race hack which I don’t get often and contribute to the pollution. Its not bad though so don’t worry.

The snow was five inches of manmade snow with about two inches of natural snow on top sort of ground in but not very well done. This made for inconsistent speeds that were much slower than you would expect. I didn’t like the way my hard snow skis were feeling on this weird hard surface. I felt like the hot spots on them caught on the dirty snow from time to time, especially on downhills. So I raced on a pair of 610’s serial number 007. They have a 3.1 height rate on Roar’s flex tester and they felt good the whole way. The last time I was in the top 10 in a skate race I used 610’s also. Maybe I should remember this.

On the phone this morning Kris sounded relaxed and happy with the way things are going. He wanted a higher finish from the effort he put out today, but he’s got to be satisfied with his race. The trend is good - he’s feeling better every time he races.

Based on his domestic results, Kris has been offered the fourth start position in the classic sprint at World Championships. We had sort of ruled this out as a matter of caution. His focus is clearly on the three distance races. However, recovery has been excellent, and Kris is rested and hungry for efforts. It would be good for him to have some very short hard efforts during the coming week. The sprint is on Thursday and the pursuit is on Saturday. He doesn’t feel that there is any real risk to the schedule. The down-side is that, if he were to qualify and advance from the quarter-finals, the sprint day is very long, and a difficult one as far as blood sugar management is concerned. Kris will talk the decision over with the National Team coaches, and he and I will talk again when he’s back in Japan. We should know in a couple of days what the plan is.

Finally - for those of you who like to follow the Scandinavian gossip supplied by fasterskier.com - you might be aware that Petter Northug and Toby Fredriksson have been having a bit of a feud. Northug took-out Fredriksson in one of the Sprint races in the Tour de Ski (he’s taken Newell down twice in the last year, and the kid does seem to be a genuine menace). Fredriksson complained, and Northug basically said that he tried to go around but couldn’t make it because Fredriksson is too fat. Well, Fredriksson won the sprint in Changchun last year, so the whole place is plastered with posters of him. It seems that somebody has been going around drawing penises and hitler-mustaches on the posters…

Kris racing in Davos