Darios Cologna’s farewell tour is not going well

Dario Cologna was once the youngest winner of the Tour de Ski, in 2009 it was. Meanwhile, he is one of the seniors in the World Cup, and successes no longer fall into his lap. In the last three winters he only made it onto the podium twice, so it was logical that he announced his retirement in November towards the end of the season. Cologna will then be 36 years old. At the media conference on his resignation he was refreshingly frank: “It doesn’t get easier with age. So there is no reason to delay saying goodbye. ”

The cross-country skier from Val Müstair is on the farewell tour. And many other things are different for him this winter. In the spring he changed the ski outfitter because he had the feeling that the people there were no longer on the road with their last assignment. In September he became the father of a son.

Too many hours of training

It fits in with the fact that the Tour de Ski is also different for him this time, this multi-day test that he once called his favorite race. Four times he emerged as the overall winner, for years he was started as a top favorite; There was hardly any getting past Cologna, neither in the sprint nor in the distance race or in the final climbing test to Alpe Cermis.

But now Cologna is very cautious about his prospects for the tour, which starts on Tuesday in Lenzerheide with a sprint race. That is the right of an athlete who is on a farewell journey. But it does not suit someone who, on the occasion of his resignation announcement, promised “to attack again fully”. In any case, he only speaks incidentally about the overall ranking of the Tour de Ski; in the individual races he wants to find that good feeling again.

Because Cologna has so far not shone this winter. There were two 24th places; At the World Cup in Davos he even had to let another Swiss go first, almost two minutes behind the best Norwegians, and that over 15 km. The man from Graubünden certainly has explanations for his mediocre results: In autumn he was slowed down by an injury, a strain of the posterior cruciate ligament and a squeezed meniscus; he fell on roller skis.

After that he wanted too much, accumulated tons of training hours before the home race in Davos, and became tired and sluggish as a result. He has corrected that in the last two weeks, he speaks of “more freshness”. So it could still be something with his appearances at the Tour de Ski, even if Cologna does not allow himself to be carried away to declare war: “It would be nice to run into the first ten.”

In the past, his performances at the Tour de Ski were an indication of the chances of success at the following major event. And this is where things get demanding: Before the start of the season, Cologna announced that they wanted to win another medal at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. For the fourth time in a row.

Is that still a realistic goal at all?

Yes, says Christian Flury, the cross-country head of Swiss Ski. Cologna won each of its four gold medals from a special situation. In Vancouver 2010 he won his very first Olympic race; in Sochi in 2014 he won two gold after being injured until shortly before the games; in Pyeongchang 2018 a surprisingly steep upward trend had only started a few weeks earlier and led him to victory. The accumulated experiences in this way could take him far, says Flury. In Beijing, the conditions will be challenging again.

With the treadmill to China

The association has done a lot to enable its figurehead one last coup. It’s about individually tailored tests in the areas of nutrition, clothing and material. And in order to counter the likely freezing cold, Swiss Ski has sent treadmills to China as a precaution, which allow warming up indoors.

So it’s good that Cologna herself believes in an Olympic medal; he emphasizes it again in Lenzerheide. His coach Kein Einaste builds on this confidence: “Dario would never make such an announcement if he wasn’t convinced of the plan.” Both think of precious metal with the relay; But the focus is on the 50 km race, the one with the greatest prestige. Cologna says he has had this exam in the back of his mind since the summer. There are still seven weeks left until day X. “We’re not too late,” says Flury, the cross-country manager.

But now, at the Tour de Ski, the steps in this direction should be clearly visible.