December 15, 2009 (Davos, Switzerland) – If you would have told me before this weekend that the French men’s team would dominate the World Cup distance race on Saturday placing five men in the top 8 I would have said “Are you kidding me?”

What’s going on with the World Cup this year? In past years everything was so easy to predict – choose a Russian to win the women’s race and a Norwegian to win a men’s race and you would likely be right. And, every week it seemed like the same names were at the top of the leader board.

So far there has not been a repeat winner after four weekends of racing. We’ve seen new names on the podium and some old names that we thought were gone have come back. Some of our favorites from past years cannot be found – where are you Anders Soedegren, Virpi Kuitunen, Tobias Angerer, Pietro Piller-Cottrer?

Of course, not knowing who is going to win adds to the excitement of following the World Cup and predicting what might happen in Vancouver in February.

Davos brought out the climbers and the skiers who can ski at altitude. The 5km course there goes up beside a road towards a mountain pass until about 3.8 km and then turns around and goes back down to the stadium. There is about an 8-minute almost unbroken hill climb right out of the start. Pacing is the key to a good performance and all of the skiers on the podium in the distance races said that they tried to take it easy going out of the start so that they did not blow up on the first lap. Altitude makes it even worse if you start too fast on a course like this.

After a week off in Livigno to lick their wounds and put their team back together the Canadian men had a much better race on Saturday. Devon Kershaw (9th), Ivan Babikov (26th), George Grey (28th), Alex Harvey (34th) all improved and had their best results of the season.

Matti Heikkinen (Swe) is proving that he is the real deal and he has become one of the favorites for the distance races in Vancouver. In the past it seemed that every time he finished a race they needed a stretcher to take him away. Now he has learned to pace better and he is becoming a force.

Petra Majdic (Slo) is back on top of the World Cup standings after her win in the sprints. With team mate Vesna Fabjan finishing 4th in the same race it looks like Slovenia will have a great sprint relay team in February. Majdic did have a lot of trouble performing well under pressure at the World Championships last year in Liberec, though, so they are not a lock to win.

Comebacks are the story in the women’s distance race. A mini-comeback from Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla continues so far this year as she is on the podium again in 2nd. A midi-comeback by Marit Bjoergen (Nor) continues with her 4th in the distance race and 2nd in the sprints. And a major comeback by Kristina Smigun-Vaehi from Estonia after her 3rd place in the distance race.

The first two are coming back from illness, injury and overtraining. Smigun-Vaehi is coming back from retirement and marriage and a baby. Two weeks ago in Kuusamo she was 25th and did not ski well. But this race in Davos shows that she is back. She won gold in Torino in 2006 and was one of the best then. Now she looks on track to regain her former status as one of the best again.

Pettr Northug told us he didn’t like the distance course in Davos and the self-fulfilling prophecy came true as he finished 21st. It’s amazing that even the best in the world can let negative thinking bring them down. He redeemed himself in the sprints by finishing 2nd and he retained the overall World Cup lead.

He should be the favourite in the 30km mass start in Rogla, Slovenia on Dec. 19-20. He is the prototype of the modern distance cross-country skier. With many of the races now mass start races he has the perfect combination of endurance and sprint speed at the end to be a threat to win every race. Northug is the Mark Cavendish of cross-country ski racing.

Next week is the first mass start race of the season and I think that besides Northug we should see some different names again at the top of the results list. There are also classic sprints so it will be interesting to see if Norwegian sprint powerhouse Ola Viggen Hattestad can return to the top again after two poor races in a row. I love the World Cup this year – who knows who will win?