Cross-country skier Andrew Musgrave pinpoints his perfect Beijing conditions ahead of shot at Olympic glory
dailyrecord.co.ukAndrew Musgrave insisted the colder the better as he prepares to start his fourth Winter Olympic campaign in a frigid Beijing.Musgrave will compete in the men's 30km skiathlon on Sunday, an event he finished seventh in four years ago in PyeongChang.Temperatures in Zhangjiakou plummeted to minus 20 during today's women's race and Musgrave admits it'll be slow going."It's going to be a very hard fight, the snow is super abrasive and it's really windy too," said Musgrave."The snow is slow because it's so dry and cold.
It suits me, the guys who want really high speeds and a sprint at the end, they aren't going to get their way at these Olympics."Every race is going to be a slog.
I like a hard race with a high pace that doesn't come down to a bunch sprint, so I do feel there’s an advantage. The weather doesn't bother me, when you grow up in Aberdeenshire you get used to cold, rain and wind, basically just terrible conditions."I've just watched the women's race and their time was very slow compared to what we'd normally expect.
They stayed together for much longer than I thought they would and then the race just blew up. “Whoever gets medals here is going to need to be an absolute monster."I feel like I should be in the league group fighting for medals, that's what I need to do."Norway's Simen Hegstad Kruger won gold in the skiathlon four years ago and was widely predicted to defend his title before testing positive for coronavirus last week.But Musgrave, who lives full-time in the Norwegian town of Trondheim, admits he wants Kruger back, with the marathon 50km event, on the penultimate day of the Games, his main target."I think it's going to be the same people as ever and hopefully we'll see Simen here by the end of the
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