"The competitive premise of ski mountaineering is essentially that cross country skiing, already one of the most lung-intensive sports on the planet, presents an insufficient test of its athletes cardiovascular limits. It is as if organizers looked at the otherworldly abilities of Johannes Klæbo (and the howling misery of Jessie Diggins), and conceived of a way to introduce more suffering."
"You can think of skimo as a sort of triathlon that combines cross-country skiing, regular-style skiing, and trail running. Competitors first ski uphill with the help of adhesive climbing skins on the front of their skis, then peel the skins from their skis and descend back to the bottom again. Now the competitors repeat the climb, but in a more difficult way: For the second climb, the athletes stow their skis in their backpacks and run up the hill in their boots."
Ski mountaineering will make its Olympic debut as an intensely demanding endurance sport. Competitors alternate climbing on skis using adhesive skins, removing skins to descend, and running uphill with skis strapped to backpacks. The race format includes repeated ascents—one with skins and another requiring athletes to run in ski boots—followed by technical descents on much lighter skis. The uphill segments cause severe cardiovascular strain and complicate rapid equipment and motor-skill transitions. The lightweight skis make downhill control more difficult than alpine skiing. The sport rewards exceptional pain tolerance, sprinting ability, and sustained aerobic capacity.
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