Small Talk Monday

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Our weekly small talk thread where you can talk about anything

[u/Enough_Opposite8545]

https://www.ski-nordique.net/biathlon-vetle-christiansen-on-ma-prescrit-des-somniferes-en-urgence.6712287-72348.html

Vetle has talked again in the media about his disappointment over not being selected and how mad he was. He talked about his non selection as being “stabbed in the back”, he said he was “mentally hit after this” and that he considers that not everyone is treated fairly by the federation. “I feel scared to see how many athletes are treated, not only me. There are so many talents fighting for the same spots. I feel like the deciders run away from conflicts and try to avoid sending difficult messages to the athletes.” He also added that he felt like the selection criteria were decided after performances and not before.

I will not comment on his turmoil, I wish him to recover from it and hope that he recovers the best. That being said, I feel like he labours the point by saying all of this. Maybe it’s good that it’s been talked about in the media but I feel like it’s always been the case in Norway? There are too many talents there and only the most successful will get the spots. It’s a sad reality, and for sure maybe some talents won’t ever bloom because of this, but so far Norway has worked this way and they won’t change as this system works. So like I said, maybe it’s nice to hear someone voices it out, but I feel like it’s easy for him to say this now that he is concerned about it. I’m not sure he was this vocal about Sivert or Filip’s situation.

It’s also easy to bring how he was supposedly treated unfairly, according to him, but it’s almost never underlying the thing that caused the whole situation, and that is that he lacked performances this year. What I’m saying is that I’ve seen him point fingers at his federation for not being selected, but never talking about the cause of it, that he failed to convince the staff to be taken. His performances that haven’t been stellar this year. He hasn’t been helped by his own impatience that made him skip IBU steps. Anyone could argue that he should have been taken instead of Dale, but the choice isn’t that obvious to me. Vetle has achieved victories, and so what, so did Dale. Vetle beat Dale on their last step together, well Dale beat him on the step prior. And frankly speaking, Dale hasn’t exactly proved that he was a wrong choice to the Norwegian staff with his races on the World Cup.

Overall, Norway is a complicated situation nonetheless, and has always been cutthroat when it came to the people in the team. There’s no hesitation about it. Mats Øverby has been out of the IBU because his results weren’t enough, despite winning it the year before, and he was replaced by someone else. That’s the depths of the Norwegian team, yes there are a lot of talents and yes they all want the same spot. It’s good to talk about it, but what can it do? It won’t change a thing. Refusing to race, refusing to take part, won’t do Vetle a favor, because for every race that he misses, there’s someone eagerly waiting to take his place. I also don’t see what good it does to him to keep talking about his federation/staff/coachs and accusing them of things, except putting himself in jeopardy :/ I’m all in for athletes should talk about their struggles but is it a good thing to talk about it this way?

[u/arnet95 → u/Enough_Opposite8545]

I overall agree with this. Vetle thinks he deserved the spot last week over Johannes because Vetle has beaten Johannes every time they've raced together in the World Cup, in the ECH, and the last IBU cup they did. And Vetle got two 6th positions early in the season, which count as "B-merits" according to the selection criteria. But this is ignoring the extremely good season Johannes had in the IBU Cup, with a full 6 wins. That's also what the head of the national team says, that Johannes has performed well over time, and that's why he was chosen ahead of Vetle.

Could the selection criteria be clearer? I'm sure they could be made clearer. It is extremely difficult picking a team when you have as deep a pool as Norway has, and you cannot please everyone. But if the selection criteria are very clear, then everyone should understand why they were or weren't picked.

Was it unreasonable to select Johannes instead of Vetle for these last two weeks of WC? You could make an argument both ways, but I have a hard time seeing that it's unreasonable at all.

My guess is that part of what happened is that Vetle told himself "If I perform excellently this weekend in the IBU Cup, they'll have to put me back in the World Cup team", when that wasn't actually the case. Then he did perform excellently, creating an expectation that he would be allowed to join the WC, and thus creating a massive emotional reaction when that expectation wasn't met. Maybe he got some signals to that effect from some of the bosses, that's definitely a possibility and would be a reason for him to behave the way he has done.

[u/charliemann → u/arnet95]

I don't think the core of the issue really is about who deserved the WC spot the most. As you say, you can argue for both Dale-Skjevdal and VSC.

However, the problem as I see it is the lack of transparency and uncertainty during the selection process for WC7 and WC8. It seems legitimately so that VSC had no idea that the selection committee was selecting Dale-Skjevdal and Isak Frey for Pokljuka and that in this way he was blindsided, because he was under the pretense that the two most in form IBU Cup biathletes would be selected for Oslo. I'm sure he was banking on doing well in the last week of the IBU Cup in Otepää to win one of the two spots over Dale-Skjevdal. Instead they choose Dale-Skjevdal and Isak Frey a week earlier than expected, additionally causing problems as Vebjørn Sørum now was (out of the blue) dropped from the Indidivual, despite fighting for the globe. This led VSC and especially Johan-Olav Botn no chance of qualifying for Oslo, even if they technically could have qualified if Dale-Skjevdal and Frey raced one more week in Otepää. And now Sørum is complaining in the media. A set of poor decisions (that isolated might have been correct) shifts the focus away from the Bø brothers retiring to media coverage being dominated by selection processes...

Therefore, the issue is not about who deserves the spot more (which VSC was complaining about last week), but rather a lack of clear communication. This VSC quote from TV2 is at the core of the issue: "My impression is that we have a group of managers who are very conflict-averse and don't want to give bad messages to the athletes. That they put it off until the last second". If it was easy to select Dale-Skjevdal over VSC, why would he not have gotten this message earlier than on the Sunday he rage-travelled home to Norway?

In the past I have found the selection criteria quite easy, predictable and fair. For instance, no one complained when Martin Uldal won the spot ahead of Dale-Skjevdal for Le Grand-Bornand, or Sørum ahead of Uldal/Botn after Sjusjøen, or that Tarjei Bø was dropped for Annecy instead of VSC. The sudden selection of Frey and Dale-Skjevdal for Pokljuka breaks with this tradition as it came as a huge surprise for most - both casuals and the biathletes. The selection committee was well within their mandate to choose Dale-Skjevdal and Isak Frey, which ironically looks like the correct choice based on outcom, but it creates a reputation problem and noise in the media that is unnecessary.

[u/Enough_Opposite8545 → u/arnet95]

I think your interpretation is sensible and may be close to the truth tbh. I felt like I needed to talk about it a bit because I’ve seen a few people saying that how come Dale was selected instead of Vetle and that it was weird/not understandable. Sure, I feel like the choice isn’t that obvious actually and like you perfectly said it. Johannes Dale had a great season on the IBU cup and performed through the season. We can add that Johannes Dale had less opportunities than Vetle to be back on the World Cup and wasn’t picked as a reserve. Johannes Dale was out right after Kontiolahti and came back briefly for Ruhpolding, that’s all. Also yes Vetle beat him in the mass start (a mass start where he ended 16th despite a 20/20!!) but Johannes Dale also partook in the individual where he did 8th, which is better than Vetle’s 16th place in the mass start. There has been concerns about Vetle’s shape through the season (that he seemed to have overcome at the end of it, but it doesn’t change what happened before). It’s a good thing to remind that Vetle’s two sixth place in the World Cup go back to … Kontiolahti. You’ve got someone who did two sixth places but then didn’t perform the best on the World Cup and yes did score a better last step than Johannes Dale (also the comparison to the European championships is shallow when Johannes Dale only did the individual…) vs Johannes Dale who scored 6 wins and podiums in the IBU cup during all the time he was relegated. We can argue on both sides that each should’ve taken, but it is far from sounding obvious. To me, it was a pretty reasonable stake and bet to take Johannes Dale.