Aim The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of race tactics on performance in the heats of an international sprint cross-country (XC) skiing competition in the classical style. Methods Thirty elite male XC skiers (age: 24±3 years, sprint [FIS] points: 61±27) performed a sprint time trial (STT) followed by one to three heats on a 1.7 km track. An integrated GNSS/IMU system was used to determine position, sub-technique distribution and kinematics. Positioning was ana lysed using the television broadcast of the race. Results STT rank correlated positively with the final rank (.719, P = .001), with STT rank explaining 49.9 % of the variance. The top-two finishers in each heat were on average ~3.8 % slower in the heats compared to the STT (237.1±3.9 vs. 228.3±4.0 seconds, P = .001). On average, the skiers performed ~10 overtaking per 100 meters from the start to the last uphill segment and only ~3 overtaking per 100 meters in the last two segments in each heat. The best-performing skiers positioned themselves at the front of the heat before approaching the final uphill, in which the top-two finishers and the skiers ranked 3-4 were generally faster than the skiers ranked 5-6 in the heats. Here, top-four skiers employed 5.3 % longer cycle lengths and 3.4 % higher cycle rates in the diagonal sub-technique than skiers ranked 5-6 (all, P = .01). Discussion The present study demonstrates the importance of race tactics for performance in the heats of sprint XC skiing, where optimal positioning before the final uphill segment combined with high speed in that segment were the main performance-determining factors.
© Copyright 2022 Book of Abstracts. 4th Nordic Winter Sports Conference "Performance in snow sports: Translating science into practice" 3rd-4th October, 2022, Mid Sweden University, Campus Östersund, Sweden. Published by Swedish Winter Sports Research Centre at Mid Sweden University. All rights reserved.