Cross-country skiing : Tomas Petterson not so kind to Therese Johaug
Last weekend, on the slopes of Ruka (Finland), Therese Johaug made her return to the cross-country skiing world cup after a two-year absence. The Norwegian, who is aiming for medals at the world championships in Trondheim (Norway), is still testing herself at the start of this winter.

And these first trials were quite conclusive. A solid second in the opening individual classic on Friday, the Scandinavian then followed up with a fourth place in Sunday’s mass-start skate , where everything came together in the final sprint.
And despite these honourable performances, the 36-year-old cross-country skier was strongly criticised by a Swedish journalist. Writing in Expressen, Tomas Pettersson said that Therese Johaug was “the only loser of this first weekend of competitions”.

These comments were not appreciated by the woman herself, and she made it quite clear. “If he thinks I’m a loser, then I can reply that he’s a loser too for having that opinion, the world multi-medallist defended herself to NRK. I’m very satisfied with my results. He can’t say that second and fourth place are losers. Those are strong words.”

On the eve of the second stage of the winter in Lillehammer (Norway), Tomas Petterson explained his statement of the last few days. “If she had come back and been as strong and superior as she was two years ago, it wouldn’t have been fun for us, he explained. Now everyone is a winner, except her in the current scenario. She’s not as superior as she was before. That’s the way it should be understood.”
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