Survey
on the first month of the World Cup season 2004/2005
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Sven was a particularly successful in December 2004. 3 wins and a 2nd rank in the overall world cup after the first three World Cups of the new season are on his chart. At the moment he's by far the best German athlete. Meanwhile he even wore the yellow and two red bibs. Now he has 28 individual victories, even though he's never able to answer the question about the number of his wins, because he doesn't count them. |
Sven started with a fourth place in the sprint of Beitostølen and won the following pursuit race. He was last man in the relay, after years of being 2nd or 3rd runner.
| On Holmenkollen Sven was exceptionally successful, though the conditions weren't ideal at all. It was quite warm, temperatures above 0° C all the time and therefore the track wasn't hard. But Sven could show he's in good shape in skiing anyway (the only "non-Norwegian" among the fastest skiers) and due to clear shooting the had his 2nd win this season in the 20 km. He himself was a bit surprised about that success and said: "It seems I had to become that old and a father, to manage a race like that … I haven't done anything special in my preparation." He blames the solid training over the years, that payed off now. |  |
Ole Einar Bjørndalen won the sprint in style: he shot clear and was more than 1 minute ahead of the second one in the end. He said it was a perfect race, one of the best he ever had – and was very disappointed, after gambling away a victory in the pursuit due to 7 misses. Sven who had started as 10th won the race and Ole Einar Bjørndalen noticed without envy, that Sven is simply the best on Holmenkollen.
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The
athletes left Norway the same day to fly to Sweden. But in
Oestersund, where they usually have loads of snow and low
temperatures in December, there was a lack of snow, just as it was
in Oslo and temperatures were +/- 0° C.
Ole Einar Bjørndalen, who was the World Cup leader at that time, skipped the Oestersund World Cup to take part in the cross country World Cup in Ramsau (just as Lars Berger), were he qualified for the Nordic Ski World Championships (7th in the 30 km). Despite of that two Norwegians won sprint and pursuit: Stian Eckhoff and Egil Gjelland. It was Egil's first individual win in more than 10 years on the World Cup. |
Things didn't go particularly well for Sven in the sprint, he came in 23rd after missing three targets in standing, but he improved 10 places in the pursuit. And in the first mass start of the season he finished 4th.