Cross-country skiers are allowed to change their skis once during the race. Nepryaeva takes this opportunity and comes into the pits with number 12. The problem? She has start number 14. Box 12 belongs to the Germans.

Russian woman steals Hennig Dotzler’s ski: “Never experienced it before”

“It’s never happened before,” shouts ZDF commentator Heiko Klasen and immediately turns on head coach Peter Schlickenrieder. He admits that he has “never experienced” such an action either. “That of course makes the entire support team’s pulse beat faster,” he says.

“Sorry, but that’s like driving into the wrong pit lane in Formula 1. When the Ferrari drives into the McLaren. Sorry, but I think they’d blow their shoes.”

After all, the team has a strategy; sometimes they put the better ski in the box for the second part of the race. “If it is then taken by the competitor, then it will be a medium disaster,” said Schlickenrieder.

Replacement skis were not available so quickly because they are distributed along the route in the event of a ski break. The technicians had to dig deep into the wax box.

Hennig Dotzler doesn’t notice the excitement of skiing

DSV chief technician Lukas Ernst also speaks about the situation on ZDF. The team had two problems. For one thing, be on last day of Olympia A lot of things had already been packed up. On the other hand, the wax tubs and irons had already cooled down.

“What the waxers have managed to do here, to prepare the skis at top speed, is an achievement in itself,” says Schlickenrieder, calling it a “masterpiece.”

Hennig Dotzler didn’t notice any of the excitement, but it was a “just-in-time production,” said the trainer. When the team puts the skis in the box, Hennig is already coming around the corner, says Ernst.

DSV head coach: Russian woman must be disqualified

“She now has a ski under her feet that says Katharina Hennig on it and she assumes that it is the one she put there at the beginning.”

In Schlickenrieder’s opinion, the Russian woman starting under a neutral flag should be disqualified. “You can see that she has really good skis under her legs now. But that’s not possible. The next tactic would be to choose who had the best ski in the first round today and then I’ll take that.”