Hot take: Johannes Høsflot Klæbo is more talented than any Ingebrigtsen, or any other runner

You must also remember Rodal. He actually reminds me quite a lot of the recent Moe Berg. (And also add in Halvorsen.)

Maybe he just likes to ski. Someone with a PhD in history or prolly could have became a doctor and made more money, but they like history so they stay with it.

If he has the talent for running that some posters think he has, he would love to run.

XC skiing is far more niche than running. Ingebrigtsen competes on the world stage while XC skiing is popular in only a few countries. I follow a lot of sports besides just distance running, but I had never had heard of Klæbo prior to the start of this thread.

He's from Norway and has been the best skier in the world since he started. He has almost Micheal Jordan levels of fame in Norway and parts of US. Why would he give that up to run? He'd be very fast, yes, but there are so many fast people who no one knows (i.e how many people know who Matthews Motshwarateu is).

Skiing is far far more technical than running and requires finesses and innovation. Running requires you doing the same thing over and over again. While skiing requires constant tweaking both in a race(snow conditions) and outside/generally ; even the top skiers completely re-do their technique(Sundby). This is why people would prefer skiing.

The level of technique and skill is what sets Klaebo apart not his aerobic engine. He actually gets beat handily on the Alpe Cermis Climb every year showing he’s not the strongest at sustained climbing.

Today’s race was great with biathlete convert Hedegart who has a much higher aerobic engine having a lead on Klaebo most of the way but Klaebo winning with a better pacing and strong last few K’s. Meanwhile Hedegart’s technique fell apart completely.

Another big part of the dominance is wax and skis. Skis have to be handpicked and tested and right now Fischer makes the best skis and the best of those skis go to Klaebo so it’s like he’s in super shoes and most of his competition is in trainers. Plus Norway has the biggest budget and best wax technicians so there is rarely and off day where with many countries you miss the wax nearly a third of the time and just have no shot at winning at this level.

Despite this, I think Klaebo is the most impressive athlete at the games and more skilled than anyone in running. I doubt he’d have been as good as ingebritsen at running had he dedicated his life to it. But neither would Ingebrigtsen have been able to match Klaebo in skiing despite the claim that they switched to running because skiing was too easy.

Good catch, I forgot about Toenseth. He hasn't been able to consistently perform on the level that gets him more then a handful of world cup starts for norway every year, but if he was from any other country he'd be one of their best guys

At our local weekly 5k, they keep records for years. One day a woman shows up and runs a 16:xx on a hilly, tough course, and nobody's ever heard of her. Previous women's record is mid 17:xx. So I look her up and she's a Nordic skier and runs just to get ready for the xc ski season. That opened up my eyes to just how tough the Nordic skiers are.

What are you talking about?

When people say the talent pool is shallow, overall numbers competing is exactly what they mean.

If I try to fill an Olympic sized pool with say 6000 litres of water, the depth that the water will rise will be very shallow.

However, if I fill it with say 2 million litres, the water level will be much deeper.

Hence, the metaphor.

That seems like a strange and difficult combination. Klaebo has been a legend for 8 or 9 years and always within the top handful of athletes in the world during that time frame.

On top of that there have been numerous articles detailing his major disputes with the Norwegian ski federation, and also his training in Park City, where he's been a regular for years, and very popular with athletes from numerous sports who train there:

fasterskier.com

Klæbo was dogged by a leg injury. Then he met a Utah physical therapist with NBA cred.

Open link

The original poster was implying its easy to make a nordic ski team at a NESCAC school.

This post got downvoted but you guys are assuming two unknowns. One is that he has the same, or better, distance running talent as Ingebrigtsen, and if he does, that he would choose XC skiing over running. As for running, a there’s no guarantee that a guy with a large VO2 max in a different sport could have been a great runner. There are other variables.

Why would he care what is niche or not where you live? What matters is what is niche or not where he lives.

Kids today know the names of skiers who had their peak 30 years ago. Hell there is a guy that competed for 45 years ago that made it into norwegian language with a common saying that reference one of his races.

Only people without any history would brush away the opportunity to make it into your nations history and be remembered for generations.

Skier Didrik Tønseth ran a 8:35 3000 and 29:48 10.000. Harald Amundsen has a 8:15. Anders Aukland has a 3:46 1500, 8:02 3000, 13:57 5000. Therese Johaug has a 31:40 10.000 without ever running on a track. Erik Anger have a 31:37 10k at 100kg.

And just to add, one of the biggest hurdles of them all (and toughest opponents) is to get the ability to race. Emil Iversen has 4 wc golds and an olympic silver, ans it was just by the hair the got selected to be at the team, and he has not been allowed to race this year. There is a handfull of could be medal contenders not selected for the team each championship.

Some of the competitions are quite big as well, in the equivalent of the maraton majors there is 15-16k participants (Vasaloppet, 40k for the whole weekend). 17k (birkebeinerrennet, 30k the whole weekend), 14k (engadin), 7k (marcialonga).

He had already won five gold medals in his two previous Olympic Games. Even people who only watch cross country skiing during Olympics had heard of him.

Yeah, it's like asking a top rugby player in New Zealand why he is playing such a "niche" sport.

I think it's reasonable for someone to have not heard of him prior to the start of this thread. This thread was started in August of 2018 (still after the 2018 winter Olympics, though.)

I've got to say, as I've gained some weight with age, skate skiing on relatively flat terrain is so much easier and more enjoyable than trail running on similar terrain for me these days. But skating up anything moderately steep is WAY harder.