– It looks just like Star Wars

In February, Peder Kungschug, Halger Ingebrauten and Ambassador Lund Pedersen rushed to Raw Olympic gold at team pace Skiing in Beijing.

Ahead of this year’s season, they took steps to become even better. Because when the international skating season kicks off in Stavanger with its first World Cup Finals on November 11-13, skaters wear a fully upgraded helmet on their heads in an effort to gain extra seconds over competitors during the team’s pace on Friday.

The helmet has been carefully tested and developed in a wind tunnel, and Peder Kongshaug hopes it will give the team an edge in terms of collecting a few tenths on the ice, but also have a psychological impact.

– and then there’s a mask in front, so it looks just like Star Wars, Kongshaug laughs when he shows off TV 2’s brand new helmet, before getting more serious:

– Anything that can make us faster, we say yes, thank you. We took the time to find the best helmet and tested it in a wind tunnel. The truth is, we have to wear a helmet, and now we’ve found a model that’s faster than the others, and even as fast without a helmet and hoodie, which is great, then.

Excited to see the reaction

Kongshaug is excited to see the reaction of the competitors when they see the Norwegian team wearing the new helmet.

Every time there is something new, people are curious. I remember when Norway was looking for ski shirts, and someone mentioned that blue shirts were faster than other colors. Then it wasn’t long before others shifted as well, Germany and South Korea among others. But it really wasn’t much of a difference at the time, if it was mostly psychological, he points out.

Team mate Speed ​​Ambassador Lund Pedersen used the new helmet in practice at Sørmarka Arena on Thursday. He is very pleased.

– I tried it for the first time today, and I really liked how it sat on my head, and it was so good to use. It will be interesting to see if we can take a few tenths of our time with this helmet, says Lundy Pedersen.

Ice skating is a marginal sport where sometimes only a few thousand separate us. Then it is necessary to achieve all possible margins. Helmets are quite new to the team’s pace, but we’ve looked at several helmets in the wind tunnel and are very satisfied with the helmets we’ve found so far, he says.

Faster than the old one

Elite coach Bjarne Riekje says the skateboarding team has gone to great lengths to select the team’s new rhythm helmet.

– We have done many tests, and the model we are using now has been used by the United States and Italy last year with good results. We did several tests in the wind tunnel ourselves, and this helmet came out very well. We are very satisfied with the helmet. He confirms that he is faster than the previous one we had last season.

How many seconds can be gained with a new helmet?

– Now it is impossible to say. This is because the way we experience it is impossible to reproduce in a race. We know there’s a good helmet out there, but we don’t have exact numbers for the races yet. The Norwegian-Dutch will respond to this in the near future.

Not the best program

What’s not an advantage is that Peder Kongshaug will be running 1,500m and team pace on the same day during the opening weekend of the World Cup.

Walking at a maximum distance of 1,500 metres, two hours before the team pace, is not ideal. The way they set it up makes it hard to prioritize both. But now it’s like that, and then it’s just a matter of gritting your teeth and out at team pace after a few hours, Kongchoge points out.

He is supported by Sverre Lunde Pedersen, who will only take part in the team’s rhythm on opening day.

– It’s not the optimal arrangement they put in place. I don’t understand why they put 1500m before the team speed. They’ve done it differently before, so I don’t understand why they’ve changed all that now, he sighs.