REF-312 · Tønnessen E, Sylta Ø, Haugen TA, Hem E, Svendsen IS & Seiler S, 2014 · PLoS ONE, · Paper · PubMed
The Road to Gold: Training and Peaking Characteristics in the Year Prior to a Gold Medal Endurance Performance
11 Olympic/World-champion XC skiers and biathletes trained ~800 h / 500 sessions in their gold-medal year; ~90% of endurance training time below the first lactate threshold, 10% above; volume fell 32% from preparation to peaking, but only 3 of 11 took a rest day in the final 5 days
Participants
n=11 elite cross-country skiers and biathletes: 4 men (28 ± 1 y, VO2max 85 ± 5 mL/kg/min) and 7 women (25 ± 4 y, VO2max 73 ± 3 mL/kg/min), each an Olympic or World Champion
Protocol
Each athlete reported one year of day-to-day training leading up to the most successful competition of their career
Training divided into periodization and peaking phases and distributed into training forms, intensity zones (relative to the first lactate threshold) and endurance activity forms
Key Results
Annual load ~800 h and ~500 sessions, of which ~500 h was sport-specific training; 94% of all training was aerobic endurance training
Of the endurance training, ~90% of TIME was low-intensity (LIT, below the first lactate threshold) and 10% high-intensity (HIT, above it); by SESSION count, 23% of sessions were HIT sessions with the main portions at or above the first lactate turn point
Volume and specificity followed a traditional periodization model; the absolute volume of HIT stayed stable across phases, and HIT patterns tended to become more polarized in the competition phase
In the competition phase 92% of training was performed as XC skiing
Volume fell 32 ± 15% (P < .01) from the preparation period to the peaking phase; but volume, frequency and intensity were UNCHANGED from pre-peaking to peaking
Only 3 of 11 athletes took a rest day in the final 5 days before their most successful competition — the champions did not follow the tapering practice derived from short-term experimental studies
Mechanism
Descriptive — no mechanism tested. The picture is a large aerobic base (~90% of endurance time easy), a stable absolute amount of hard work all year, and a peaking phase that is a continuation of the pre-peaking weeks rather than a sharp taper.
Practical Application
In 11 Olympic and World Champion XC skiers/biathletes, the gold-medal year contained ~800 h / ~500 sessions; ~90% of endurance training time was below the first lactate threshold and 10% above it, yet 23% of sessions were hard sessions — hard work was frequent but short relative to the easy volume
The amount of HIT (in hours) did not change across the year; what changed was total volume (−32% from preparation to peaking) and specificity (92% skiing in the competition phase)
The final weeks were not a classic taper: volume, frequency and intensity were the same in the peaking period as just before it, and only 3 of 11 rested in the last 5 days before the title
Not from this paper; the base's own practice: keep the number of hard sessions constant into a peak and trim the easy volume around them; this paper describes what champions did, it does not test that it was optimal
Limitations
Retrospective self-reported diaries — no control group, no test that the pattern caused the result
Norwegian XC skiing and biathlon only — generalizability uncertain
Gold medalists = survivorship bias; n=11
How this entry was checked and changed
Why this level
regraded 2026-09-27 from B+: elite case series, n=11, descriptive
Content correction 2026-09-27
"~85% zone 1 / ~10% zone 2 / ~5% zone 3" -> the abstract reports ~90% LIT below the first lactate threshold and 10% HIT above it by time (two zones), and 23% of sessions as HIT sessions.
"Volume peaked 4-6 months before, specific intensity introduced 8-12 weeks out, 2-3 week taper, drip loading, avoid >2 anaerobic sessions/week" -> none of this is in the abstract; removed. The abstract: −32 ± 15% volume from preparation to peaking, no change from pre-peaking to peaking, only 3 of 11 with a rest day in the final 5 days.
Sport "rowing, xc-skiing" and "rowing" in Participants -> the cohort is XC skiers and biathletes only; n=11 added (was missing).
Level B+ -> B (descriptive elite case series); Tier 4-5 -> Tier 5 (Olympic/World Champions).