Starting the season the Ruka way

Even though it is everything but an ordinary season, the 2020/21 winter gets underway in the usual way: with a Nordic weekend far up north, close to the polar circle. The Finnish ski resort is welcoming the Nordic Combined World Cup for the 19th year, with only the blowout of 2015 striking Ruka from the World Cup result list.

In the last 18 years, Ruka has earned a reputation as one of the most difficult but also one of the most exciting venues. Nothing beats the feeling of seeing the entire Nordic Combined community coming together again after months of summer training and figuring out who will be the ones to watch for in this winter.

Still, Ruka doesn’t make it easy for the athletes. It’s the largest hill on our (HS 142), it’s often very windy, temperatures can drop to -20°C and the cross-country races in the afternoon are among the darkest on the tour. With volatile conditions, the venue had its fair share of surprise winners: Magnus Krog (NOR) set his maiden victory here in 2011, Espen Andersen (NOR) surprised onlookers with his first victory in 2017 and Mario Seidl claimed his debut win in 2018.

For this year, obviously, all eyes will be on last-years triple Ruka winner Jarl Magnus Riiber for any signs his reign might be attacked. From his own team, Jørgen Graabak will lead the chase, a and would have been accompanied by a strong Espen Bjørnstad, who bested Riiber at the Norwegian national championships just last weekend. But as Bjørnstad will become a father for the first time in the very near future, he elected to stay at home and await the baby's arrival.

The Austrian team will bring their top stars Franz-Josef Rehrl, Lukas Greiderer and Martin Fritz to Ruka, and also Mario Seidl will make his comeback after back-to-back ACL injuries took him out of commission for a long time.

Germany will challenge Riiber with their top stars Vinzenz Geiger and Fabian Rießle, who impressed at the German nationals earlier. For the Finnish home team, Ilkka Herola and Eero Hirvonen will lead the charge.

Ruka Tour

As in 2019 and 2017, the World Cup will start with the Ruka Tour again. The tour programme contains three Individual Gundersen competitions on Friday, Saturday and Sunday with the cross-country distances of 5 km, 10 km and 10 km. On the first day, all athletes are allowed to start, two qualifications on Saturday and Sunday will reduce the respective start fields to 50 for the second and third competition. For each event, the normal amount of World Cup points is awarded and the athlete with the most World Cup points after these three events wins the tour.

On all three days, only the podium athletes of the day will receive prize money. The rest of the prize money goes into an overall pot, which will be divided among the Top 20 athletes of the overall tour standings. The tour winner receives 15,000 CHF.

All rules and the concrete distribution of the prize money can be found here (Article 4.4.4)

https://assets.fis-ski.com/image/upload/v1605020869/fis-prod/assets/WCNC-M_2021-Rules_E.pdf

The programme

Thursday, 26.11.
12:30 Official training cross-country
15:00 Official training SJ HS 142
17:00 Provisional Competition Round

Friday, 27.11.
10:45 Trial Round
12:00 INDIVIDUAL GUNDERSEN competition round HS 142
16:00 INDIVIDUAL GUNDERSEN 5 km cross-country race

Saturday, 28.11.
11:00 Trial Round/Qualification HS 142
12:15 INDIVIDUAL GUNDERSEN competition round HS 142
17:00 INDIVIDUAL GUNDERSEN 10 km cross-country race

Sunday, 29.11.
09:15 Trial Round/Qualification HS 142
10:30 INDIVIDUAL GUNDERSEN competition round HS 142
15:55 INDIVIDUAL GUNDERSEN 10 km cross-country race

All times are local times (CET + 1 h)
The programme may be subject to change!