Erik Valnes cross-country skiing, Digi Mart USA News (Font-Romeu, France): After yet another championship setback, Erik Valnes (30) could not bring himself to watch cross-country skiing. He now feels a level of pressure and nerves he has rarely experienced before.
He returned home from another championship without succeeding in his favorite event, the sprint. When the World Cup continued without him, his interest was gone.
“I didn’t watch any ski races, in fact. I don’t think I watched a single minute of World Cup after the Olympics.
It wasn’t planned, it simply didn’t occur to me. So that’s a bad sign.”
The 30-year-old is now sitting with a VG reporter in the sunshine in Font-Romeu, France, where the Norwegian national team is preparing for a new season. It has been almost a year since he last stood on the podium in an individual sprint.
For the first time in a long while, Valnes is no longer an automatic pick for the Norwegian team.
“Before, I maybe had to avoid overexerting myself, but now I actually have to work my way into everything,” he says.
He has not raced in a ski competition since February 2026. The last three championships have also ended without Valnes achieving the result he wanted in his favorite event, the sprint.
After the Olympics, he tried to return to training and compete in World Cup races. But his plans kept being postponed, and eventually he pulled the emergency brake.
A new opportunity comes in February, when the World Championships are held in Sweden.
Poles tapped against the asphalt as the team trained in the mountain village in France this October day, with a rhythmic and relatively calm pace on the uphill sections. The sun shone, and there was also some time spent towing Johannes Høsflot Klæbo.
Valnes knows there is a long way to go before he has proper skis, waxing, klister and glide, the start gate and crowds at the World Cup opening in Ruka, Finland, which begins November 27 to 29.
Results from earlier races in 2025 and 2026 are what drive that feeling. That is why he hopes a sprint in Muonio, Finland, in mid-November, the so-called Finnish cross-country opening, will give him an early taste of competing before the Norwegian cross-country opening on November 20 to 22 can provide an answer before the season starts.
“Hopefully it’s also a bit to get that self-confidence and feel that things are as they should be.”
“The training has been good, and I’m at a good level, but you actually have to get the results too,” Valnes says.
