It was a sharp contradictory scene: with perhaps the season's most inviting backdrop in the background and at the same time an abrupt ending in the traces of the virus that now affects an entire world. For those who today, in connection with the sparse ceremony, snuck down in the pocket almanac laughed Friday on the 13th back, but what people felt was probably abandonment rather than bad luck.
The US team had already started packing their bags a day earlier and heading home to a US where President Trump told about closed borders to Europe, and the Japanese team and the British (who came from a fresh and strengthening podium in Krasnoyarsk last weekend) joined the same thought paths, but the others came inspired to a World Cup final, a season ending that promised something extra.
Looking forward to a crescendo
Blue sky, minus degrees, well prepared piste and for Swedish a chance to show off at home during a season that has taken a young national team many skis ahead.Already in early December in Ruka, two Swedes top-5, Walter Wallberg at pallet and Ludvig Fjällström fifth. Further World Cup stops, both Calgary and high-flying Deer Valley, provided pallet placements and, in the latter, two days on the rake; Felix Elofsson in singles and Wallberg in parallel puck. Also Mont Tremblant, Canada and Japanese VC resort Tazawako gave blue-yellow places in the so-called super finals (the six best) and team captain Lars Fahlén looked forward to a crescendo at home, despite the team's star Wallberg had to leave the season prematurely with a cruciate ligament injury.
Nothing came from it, just a snoopy “yes.” The Swedish riders (three men top 10 in the total World Cup!) Wandered easily frustrated around, some younger domestic talents who would have the chance to World Cup competition looked to have got a Christmas present out of their hands And the Swedish Confederate captain readily stated in his cheeky beard A team meeting last night informed the assembled nations of the snowy finish and extra plot it was for FIS longtime contestant freestyle fanatic Joe Fitzgerald who handled his last assignment. With a slightly hollow voice, Fitzgerald could tell that the decision was above his head, that in the shine of everything that was happening was the only thing right, but the look said something completely different.
Think about the next season
Could we just not have had to compete? More people thought of the idea, but surely today also raises the gaze across the horizon and sees a sporting world that is trying to parry its progress and in more and more cases just cross the skis and hope for the best. A flower ceremony later in Idre, the Swedish humpback phantoms were up on the slopes and already started thinking about next season. For in the middle of it all, the inviting building was still there, it was hoped for, smashed among the snow piles, a backlit winterboard. A kind of reminder that it, social humps, ice streets and difficult-to-master hopes, despite eventually coming back to a time of control and enjoyable sports everyday life.