All smiles for Olympic champion Hennig (GER) as hard work pays off

“Cross-country skiing is the absolute best sport in the world,” says Katharina Hennig. And judging by the smile that seems to be permanently spread across the German’s face, it’s hard not to believe her.

But could this be the season in which the 10km classic specialist establishes herself as one of the best in the sport?

“The priority is definitely the Tour de Ski [30 December-7 January] and the home World Cup event in Oberhof [19-21 January],” adds the 27-year-old. “I have no specific targets but I would like to build on what I achieved last season.”

Indeed, 2022/23 was something of a breakthrough campaign for Hennig, with five individual podium finishes, including her first over 15km and 20km, but success hasn’t come easily.

Born and raised not in the Alps but in the lower-lying Ore Mountains near eastern Germany’s southern border with the Czech Republic, young Katharina nevertheless grew up around “a lot of snow”.

“My parents were both cross-country skiers and I started skiing when I was just two, then I went to ski boarding school,” she says.

It was there where, as well as achieving her high-school diploma and considering a career in medicine, Hennig decided she wanted to be a professional cross-country skier.

That would eventually mean moving away from home, in 2011, to Allgäu in the Alps, where most of the German World Cup team trained – something Hennig’s time at boarding school had prepared her well for.

She would go on to claim junior world championship medals, competing against – among other future stars – Ebba Andersson. But Hennig’s progress was a little slower than the 26-year-old Swede’s, with just three individual podium finishes in as many years before last season.

“The turning point for me came with getting [4x5km relay] silver and [team sprint] gold at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics,” she explains. “That definitely gave me extra motivation and confidence. You don’t ever feel like winning is normal so it motivates you to train even harder to get more victories.”

A first World Cup stage win followed – in the 15km mass start (classical) in Val di Fiemme, Italy in January.

So which of the two golds felt more satisfying?

“Ooh, that’s tough,” Hennig laughs. “But I would choose team gold. We all train together so the feeling of winning as a team is special.”

In a what is a largely individual sport, Hennig has always been happy around others – whether that’s making the five-hour drive across southern Germany to spend time with family and friends (“they’re very important to me”) or helping to mentor the country’s promising youngsters, such as the junior and under-23 world champion Helen Hoffmann (“it’s always good to have somebody coming up behind you because it gives you the fire”).

In fact, the positive energy emanates so strongly from Hennig that you wonder if there’s anything that makes her unhappy. “Bike work!” she laughs. “I do four hours of cardio a day in the off season and there’s just something about the movement of cycling that my body doesn’t like. I like to use my arms and on the bike you only have to use the legs.

“I like to go to the mountains where I can do lots of hiking, trail running and roller skiing. Of course, some days it’s hard to motivate yourself but I always feel happy afterwards because cross-country skiing is something I love doing and the hard work pays off.”

It certainly seems to be. Off the back of the German team’s pre-season training camp in Finland, Hennig warmed up for the start of the World Cup campaign with victory in the 10km interval start classic in Muonio, Finland, a result if not a performance that she said was “a surprise”.

If she can now, in her own words, find “more balance between classic and skate [freestyle] results” – seven of her eight World Cup podiums have come in classic races – it would be no surprise to see Hennig smiling again this season.

Click here for the full 2023/24 Cross-Country Skiing World Cup calendar