Federico Pellegrino (ITA) beat Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (NOR) twice at the Blink Festival. Here, he talks about his technique choice, the season premiere, and his expectations for Toppidrettsveka.

Johannes Høsflot Klæbo commented that he was cool about being defeated by Pellegrino. On the other hand, the Italian got a hefty dose of self-confidence from beating the world’s best sprinter. Now they are both ready for Toppidrettsveka starting today.

Read More: Toppidrettsveka starts today – Who will fight for the win at the long-distance race?

Uncertain shape for Blink Festival

Pellegrino says he didn’t expect to beat Klæbo at the Blink Festival in early August. On the contrary, his expectations were relatively modest. Due to some problems in the early season, his training was interrupted until the middle of June. On the other hand, he did a lot of roller skiing training in July, which is why he had a lot of training load under his belt.

“We came to Blink’s competitions tired. We had been training for over a hundred hours for four weeks, and there was no optimal preparation for competition performance. But many had the same situation. We often go to summer competitions to get good training and feel some adrenaline caused by competitions. That was also the purpose of Blink,” Pellegrino tells Fondo Italia.

However, the Italian athlete was unsure of his condition after a difficult early season.

“I really didn’t have a good feeling before Blink. I missed a lot of good training this spring due to various problems. Even though I’ve been training well since mid-June and been on an equal footing with my national teammates, I and Markus (Cramer, Italy’s national team coach) thought I was behind schedule,” says Pellegrino.

However, the result for Blink was much better than he could have expected. The Italian beat Klæbo twice: first in the 15km mass start, where he finished second behind Erik Valnes, and then in the sprint, which he won.

“I used the mass start as a warm-up. In that, I had tough competitors the whole way. In the sprint, I managed to play all my cards perfectly, but I didn’t expect to do so well,” says Pellegrino.

“I really felt the previous four weeks. Those were the four hardest weeks of the entire training season. Also, I had to go home quickly because of a sports matter, so the fact that I performed so well despite all this makes me happy. Now I know that I have the physical ability to perform in sprints even with such a large total load.”

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Technique choice

When Pellegrino won the sprint, many noticed that the Italian used a different skating technique instead of the V2 technique, unlike many other athletes. He explains that it is not an invention.

“It’s not true that Cramer came up with the idea, and I didn’t learn it from him either. It’s just that I’m not very good at roller skiing and I roller ski the same way I ski on snow in the winter, and not like the specialists. They have a different technique.”

“I told NRK that I decided before the final with Markus (Cramer) that I wanted to be first at the finish straight and ski V2 alternate technique because at the 15 kilometers and in the heats, I felt my arms were too tired for the V2.”

Klæbo was not much impressed by the Italian’s technique or losing to him.

“It (V2 alternate) is effective on roller skis, but let’s see if it is just as effective in winter. It’s rare for us to go that hard on skis, but no doubt it would work here. I have not focused on these competitions. This was the first sprint of the year, and I’m quite satisfied, but he was strong,” Klæbo commented to NRK after the race.

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Ready for Toppidrettsveka – shape still a question mark

Like the remaining athletes of the Italian national team, Pellegrino is now ready for the Toppidrettsveka starting today.

However, despite Blink’s good performances, he is unsure how the body will react to the four new days of competition.

“I wonder how the body works when I compete again, and there is very little training after the previous competition. In the winter, we rarely arrive at the races completely overloaded, like with Blink, or in a completely under-stimulated state, like when we come to Toppidrettsveka.”

“I don’t like competing in such a state, and I don’t think my body is in top condition. But it will be interesting to see if I can take something from this if I find myself in a similar situation in the future.”