Calle Halfvarsson Changes Manager Less Than Three Months Before Season Kick-Off

Calle Halfvarsson Changes Manager Less Than Three Months Before Season Kick-Off

Leaders, Newsfeed
He's kinda done it again. Less than 3 months to go to the World Cup season's kick off in Ruka (his favorite), Sweden's strongest male skier suddenly parted ways with his personal manager. Halfvarsson and Bo Johansson worked together for only about a year, Aftonbladet reports He still trains under Mattias Nilsson who is both Calle personal coach and that of the national team - they do have interesting arrangements in Swedish skiing, has to be said. No idea if directly related, but the sudden change in Team Calle comes against a background of series of resignations/dismissals in the national team , including that of Jonas Peterson who served as the national team manager only for four months.
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Northug & Co Rule TV Ratings In Norway

Northug & Co Rule TV Ratings In Norway

Leaders, Newsfeed
No offence to the rest of the show cast but it's magnetic charm of Petter Northug that attracts audiences. Aired last night on TV2 Norway, Landskampen show that pitted some of the top stars of Norwegian skiing and biathlon against their Swedish counterparts was a runaway success. 40% share of the national audience in primetime is something television bosses and advertizers/sponsors dream about. In case you've forgotten: modern cross country skiing runs on money from television & sponsors. It's essential for all involved to build best athletes into objects of adoration and to keep public interest in them on top level throughout the year. It's a death knell for business that underpins the system, to win the world championship and then to disappear into remote training camp till the next…
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Summer Skiing Shatters TV Ratings In Norway

Summer Skiing Shatters TV Ratings In Norway

Newsfeed
More than 350,000 viewers turned their TV sets on to watch Toppidrettsveka's Aure-Brekka race thus setting an overall audience record for the summer broadcasting in Norway. Overall, Toppidrettsveka led the ratings battle with 1,426,000 viewers over six events broadcasting with Blinkfestival being second with 1,245,000 over seven. In the country of 5.3 million people, babies included! Even in Norway ratings like this are far from automatic - on the contrary, it requires a careful choreography of schedules, venues and budgets . And, of course, making sure that the stars - both domestic and foreign - come to participate and not elect to hop off to some distant camp. Kudos to Harald Fladseth & team at Toppidrettsveka and Arne Idland & team at Blinkfestivalen - you really built great events worth…
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Team Jobstation Project Collapses, Morten Eide Pedersen Losing His 2d Team Within Few Months

Team Jobstation Project Collapses, Morten Eide Pedersen Losing His 2d Team Within Few Months

Leaders, Newsfeed
Morten Eide Pedersen does not deserve this misfortune. First Team BN Bank closes down in spring - and its 32 year old leader forced to search for a new team for the upcoming season... ...That finds itself in a shape of an ambitious continental entrant: Team Jobstation. The new French outfit talks big, signs -apart from Pedersen - Jean Marc Gaiilard , Masako Ishida and even Dario Cologna as a sort of a cameo appearance star.... Ten days ago, with considerably less fanfare, it is announced that a title sponsor has pulled the plug at the last moment, Team Jobstation is no more and there is an urgent need of a new sponsor willing & able to provide some 250.000 euros needed for the next season. Highly unlikely, alas. So,…
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Is It Worth Continue Having Identical Gear In Rollerski Races?

Is It Worth Continue Having Identical Gear In Rollerski Races?

Leaders, Newsfeed
...the video looks like the stuff of rollerskier's nightmares: first a wheel disintergrates on speed , then an athlete loses control, careens and ,finally, falls hard in the ditch, taking another skier with her. https://www.instagram.com/p/B1g4nCCIqDo/?igshid=1uqytt96lm96u It does not help from a PR perspective that skiers are called Frida Karlsson and Nora Ulvang, respectively. An hour later ( and off cameras as far we know) Alexander Bolshunov' s rollerskis suffer similar sudden destruction, with a Russian " doing a total overhead flip" in his own words on rhe speed of almost 60km/h Miraculously, there seems to be no serious damage. Except, perhaps, to reputation of a rollerski producer that was supplying skis to all athletes in the race. There is no gloating from competitors. "I feel sorry for them. It's a…
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