MOSCOW, 22 Oct. Norwegian television channel NRK has published an analytical material in which the authors acknowledged that the absence of Russian skiers at international competitions is akin to a «catastrophe», InoSMI reports. At the end of February, the international federation suspended Russian skiers from competitions under its auspices due to the situation in Ukraine . Later on Saturday, a decision will be made on the admission of domestic athletes to the competition in the new season. Having studied the results of the races over the past three years, NRK experts have come to an eloquent conclusion — the competition, in fact, has turned into a duel between Norwegians and Russians. More specifically: of the last 64 men's races at the world championships and cups, 80% of the gold medals were won by representatives of the two countries, in some of them the Russians and Norwegians did not allow the rest to even enter the top 10. Before the suspension in the overall standings of the World Cup in the top ten, only two athletes did not represent Russia or Norway. Now let's imagine that Russia has been gone for at least three years. What would happen then? In addition to winning four races out of every five, the Norwegians would have collected a complete gold set at last year's World Championships, and in two of them they would have taken not only the entire podium, but also the next two places. At the Olympics, they were criticized, but in the absence of the Russians, the Scandinavians would have managed to win four races.
