Cross-country skiing: Italy: a dead end in the build-up to the World Championships
In a podcast hosted by James Clugnet and Mika Vermeulen, ‘Skirious Problems’, Frederico Pellegrino confirmed that the Italian national team would not be performing at Les Rousses (Jura) from 17 to 19 January.

A strategic impasse to plan a volume cycle and prepare as well as possible for the World Cup stage in Cogne (Italy) and then the Worlds in Trondheim (Norway). “We were allocated these competitions in Cogne, in my region, and we certainly couldn’t miss the competitions in Italy, which is why we decided to skip the first competition of the three weeks [the one in Les Rousses, editor’s note]”, explains the Italian.
A preparatory course in Val di Fiemme
Since last summer, the national team had already planned a week’s work at the col de Lavazè, in the Val di Fiemme, to work at altitude in preparation for the world championships in Trondheim (Norway). The athletes who took part in the Tour de Ski will therefore benefit from an extra week’s rest. It has also been decided that the pre-selected athletes will not take part in the Italian Championships in Tesero, at the 2026 Olympic venue, on 11 and 12 January.

Federico Pellegrino reacted to the decision. “I don’t agree with it at all, but we’ll see after the Worlds if I or the coach were right on this issue,” he told Expressen.
The coach’s response
With the reorganisation of the calendar and the arrival of Cogne on the World Cup schedule in January, German coach Markus Cramer found it necessary to move the training camp back a week to recover from the Tour de Ski. “That’s the only loophole we found. We need a training period between a difficult Tour de Ski and the world championships in Trondheim,” he says.
He said he was aware of his star athlete’s dissatisfaction. All the more so as the Italian sprinter showed himself to be increasingly at ease over distance and had very good memories of the French public.
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