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From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.

Tag: freestyle team sprint

  • Olympic Preview, Sort Of—USA Third in Goms Team Sprint

    Olympic Preview, Sort Of—USA Third in Goms Team Sprint

    This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com.

    It was a good day at the office, a stunning office, for Ben Ogden (USA) in Goms, Switzerland. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    For the skiing stars of Norway, World Cup victories are commonplace—almost expected. For the skiers of most other nations, any World Cup podium appearance is a career-defining event. That said, some of the most interesting World Cup racing takes place on those days when the strength of the field is re-shuffled, when a few notables stay home, when a few teams re-arrange their rosters. Those are days when World Cup podiums will still be filled, and a greater number of teams know they can rise to that occasion. Still, it’s not a straightforward task, and many teams find themselves stumbling over the challenge rather than rising to the top. Today was a day that the USA saw this opportunity, and rise they did . . .

    Norway may have won today’s Team Sprint (though with Harald Oestbeg Amundsen and Einar Hedegart are a team that’s unlikely to contend for this same win when the Olympics begin in Val di Fiemme), and Italy may have flown second across the finish on the wings of Federico Pellegrino (a performance he would hope to repeat in front of his countrymen in the Olympics), but it was the third-place effort of Team USA’s Ben Ogden and Gus Schumacher that really drew attention. The circumstances of the day offered them an opportunity to ascend to a World podium; they grabbed that opportunity with both hands. It’s great to see American men on World Cup podiums, even greater to see them earn that position with such fortitude and skill.

    “Today was a pretty full field,” said Ogden. “But there was no Klaebo today. There definitely will be Klaebo in Val di Fiemme. I’m sure that some teams will put up different athletes on their Team Sprint than they did today, but it’s really one of those things that’s not worth dwelling on until the time comes to actually seethe start list, to go out and get it done.”

    The day started with Gus Schumacher (USA) having a great qualification for the Team Sprint in Goms, Switzerland. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    The Alpine municipality of Goms, Switzerland (population 1,160) was the venue for a staging of an event that will take place in the Olympic Games in Val di Fiemme—the Freestyle Team Sprint—but today’s race was not exactly a dress rehearsal for that Olympic race. Specifically, the cast of characters is likely to change in the Olympics even as the strategy employed by today’s winner, Team Norway, is likely to remain the same. They’ll set the pace, they’ll stay at the front (and out of trouble). They’ll accelerate in the penultimate leg. They’ll hope to give Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo a lead at the beginning of the anchor leg. They’ll rely on Klaebo to remain unbeatable in any Freestyle Sprint where he enters the finishing straightaway with a lead. We really do expect this Olympic event to follow that script. Even so, many questions remain. Who will team with Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo in what is likely to be the gold medal favorite team? And who will the USA field as its Team Relay pair? Will Schumacher team with Ogden? Or will coaches choose another combination of abilities? Will Pellegrino and Elia Barp continue to be factors in the finishing straightaway? And which other teams will arrive with hopes of a medal: Finland? Switzerland? Sweden?

    “If history is any indicator, then Norway leading and everyone else following will likely (repeat as a strategy) at the Olympics,” said Ogden. “Val di Fiemme is definitely a harder course, so I anticipate it being something like that. Championship Team Sprints are definitely intense; it’ll have some similarities to today, and probably many differences.”

    Individual qualifying saw USA 1—comprised of likely Olympic teammates Ben Ogden and Gus Schumacher—as the third fastest qualifier. They would be joined in the 15-team Final by USA 2’s JC Schoonmaker and Zanden McMullen (who would finish 11th on the day).

    Home-team, Switzerland 1, was the top qualifier thanks to the efforts of seasoned Sprint competitors Janik Riebli and Valerio Grond (though packing a Team Sprint team with a pair of true sprinters is usually not considered to be the best way to excel in this event—Switzerland 1 would top all qualifiers, but would finish sixth on the day). Switzerland’s fast qualifying standard was followed by Norway 1’s Harald Oestberg Amundsen and Einar Hedegart, both of whom were recently named to the Norwegian Olympic team, but neither of whom are likely to appear in this event in Milano-Cortina. Fourth fastest qualifier was Italy 1’s Elia Baro and Federico Pellegrino who are likely to team up when the Olympic Team Sprint takes place in their homeland.

    Ben Ogden (USA) also had an excellent qualification for the Team Sprint – together with Schumacher, they posted the third-fastest time. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    A Plan to Follow—Easier Said than Done

    For some teams, Goms’ Team Sprint was an Olympic dress-rehearsal, for other teams, a consolation prize. Norway 1 had the potential to take a World Cup win, but they will certainly NOT be the Olympic duo that Norway fields in this event (that spot being reserved for Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo and (presumably) his gold medal partner from Beijing, Erik Valnes). Norway 2 was comprised of Ansgar Evensen and Even Northug, two of the world’s best sprinters who, nonetheless, found themselves overlooked when Norway selected its team of Olympians. While the skiers of Norway 2 may have hoped to prove that they belonged on the Olympic Team, their efforts fizzled in Goms. Norway 2 would place 15th, last among starters in the Team Sprint final.

    Norway 1, on the other hand, performed as expected. Amundsen led out Leg 1, keeping the pace high and keeping himself out of trouble. He was followed by Riebli, Barp, and Ogden. Ogden tangled skis briefly with Barp as they entered the exchange, but both skiers shook it off masterfully. Norway 1 continued to lead.

    Norway kept the pressure on to keep things stringed out. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    Ogden tagged Schumacher to begin Leg 2. Schumacher seems a logical choice to team with Ogden in the Olympic Team Sprint, a pairing suggested by the tactic of pairing a sprinter with a seasoned, fast-skiing all-rounder who can navigate in a tight pack and not get dropped. American Olympian, Jack Young, is a world-class freestyle sprinter, but even though it’s called the “Team Sprint,” there’s no use in fielding a team of two pure sprinters. The only sprint that matters is the one to the finish line at the end of the final leg. Before then, each teammate’s job is simply to steer clear of trouble, to hang on to the pace, and to not get dropped. More than perhaps any of his US Olympic teammates, Schumacher fits that bill.

    “The first leg was pretty chill,” said Schumacher. “I found myself a little far back after our tag, but made a good move on the fast corner.”

    “The second leg was pretty fast,” Schumacher continued. “But we still had a group, so it wasn’t too bad. We held the gap to Norway, which is good. Norway was definitely trying to string everyone out. They were really impressive, but we’re not far off. And I think. if the right person was in a good position, they probably could have held that. With Norway, that’s something to think about for the future.”

    Schumacher knows his role, and in Goms’ Team Sprint he skied it brilliantly. Through Leg 2, he remained in contact, preserving energy as Norway 1’s Hedegart set the pace at the front followed by Switzerland’s Grond and Sweden’s Edvin Anger. Leg 3 began with no changes in leaders, and with Ogden remaining solidly in contact with the top five. Amundsen continued to set the pace for Norway followed by Riebli and Barp.

    Einar Hedegart (NOR) clearly was racing with something to prove to the Norwegian team coaches about his place in the Olympic Team Sprint with Johannes Hosflot Klaebo. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    Leg 4 saw Hedegart stringing out the pace while Schumacher continued to mark the skiers at the front. The field began to string out, with Schumacher keeping USA 1 in contention.

    Leg 5 is where the field expects Norway to make a move; Amundsen did not disappoint, storming off the front even before the field had left the flat terrain around the exchange zone. By the time he reached the course’s first uphill, Amundsen enjoyed a lead of 30 meters. Rather than chase him in vain, the chase group—led by Barp—sat up a bit to preserve energy. Norway had earned a gap as Amundsen tagged Hedegart to begin the anchor leg. The rest of the field would fight for second and third.

    The way the Americans set up today’s relay team—with the sprinter, Ogden, leading off and the all-rounder, Schumacher, finishing—showed that Team USA may realize that the Olympic version of this event will NOT come down to a finishing line sprint, but to a final-leg high-speed dash that sheds sprinters and leaves all-rounders leading the way to medals. This may be the scene in a few weeks—Schumacher dueling Pellegrino in the final leg. If so, then today was a bit of a dress rehearsal after all. On the first of the final leg’s two uphills, Schumacher tried desperately to cross the gap to Amundsen. It was a bold ploy, but one that a fast distance skier needed to try in order to shake Pellegrino. Pellegrino shadowed Schumacher, but seemed to struggle in doing so. Over the second uphill, and Pellegrino struggled again under Schumacher’s re-application of pressure . . . but in order to beat a sprinter you need to drop a sprinter.

    Gus Schumacher (USA) kept the pressure on, leading the chase group behind Norway. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    Ahead of them, Hedegart show-boated playfully at the finish line, taking off his poles and sheathing them like a sword after a successful duel. Pellegrino undid Schumacher in the finishing straightaway—a cagey veteran having played his hand with seasoned mastery. Schumacher shrugged across the finish line in third, having done all he could to lengthen the sprint in an attempt to take the sting out of Pellegrino’s sprint.

    “Pellegrino is a super strong sprinter,” said Schumacher.” Today, he basically made me pull through. I didn’t want to mess around with a big bunch sprint, and I’m glad I didn’t. I’m fine with him beating me in the end. But, yeah, we’ll see how it plays out in Val di Fiemme. I think I can beat him if I can get a good draft. We’ll see; you need drop him before the finish line. I guess you just have to go faster! But he’s also a great distance skier, so that’s a tough one.”

    “Having Gus in the second leg felt good for me,” said Ogden. “He’s really good at positioning, and super strong and fit, and he’s going to have legs at the end when it matters . . . Today was just to try something and learn from it. I think that we thought it was a natural thing to try. We went with it today, and it worked out well.”

    After all the strategizing, all the jockeying, all the surging, all the positioning, it’s a skier like Pellegrino—a world-class sprinter who can also contend in distance races—who is the ideal finisher for a Team Sprint. Approaching the Olympic Team Sprint in his home country—and hoping for a gold medal in front of his countrymen—Pellegrino still has one major obstacle to overcome: Klaebo is the one skier who has proven to be even faster, even more durable than Pellegrino. If the Italian wants to claim gold on home turf, he’ll need to beat the best of all time in order to do it . . . but that will be the same for any skier who hopes to claim gold in any event when the Olympic races are run in Val di Fiemme.

    Gus Schumacher (USA) and Ben Ogden (USA), (l-r) proved they are true contenders for a medal in the Team Sprint at the Olympics. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    While the cast may be different when this event is staged at the Olympics of Milano-Cortina, the script is likely to be strikingly similar. If so, then Team USA will be there hoping. To recreate the tactics, the speed, the strength, and the brilliance that took them to a third place finish today in Goms. Ironically, today’s Norwegian winners are not likely to be offered the chance to pursue Olympic gold in this same event. When asked whether he thought this dominant performance ahead of numerous teams likely to contend in this event in Val di Fiemme could cause Team Norway to reconsider their starters in the Olympic Team Sprint, Hedegart was playful, yet again.

    “Message sent,” grinned Hedegart. “I hope the message is received.”

    Chance of Hedegart becoming the face of Team Norway in season’s to come? Quite high, it appears. Chance of Hedegart replacing Valnes (as Klaebo’s teammate) in Norway’s Olympic Team Sprint? Far less likely . . . but much could happen between the World Cup finish line in Goms and the Olympic starting line in Val di Fiemme.

     

    Goms World Cup Men’s Freestyle Team Sprint QUALIFYING

    Goms World Cup Men’s Freestyle Team Sprint RESULTS

     

    Help Support Our Olympic Coverage!

    FasterSkier will have our own Nat Herz on the ground at the Olympics, which, to be honest, is a very big financial lift for us. If you value the thoughtful work and access FasterSkier provides at championships like this one, please consider becoming a Voluntary Subscriber. Your support directly fuels the work we do to cover the people, places, and moments that make our sport special.

    Join the FasterSkier community!

     

    Federico Pellegrino (ITA), Elia Barp (ITA), Harald Oestberg Amundsen (NOR), Einar Hedegart (NOR), Gus Schumacher (USA), Ben Ogden (USA), (l-r) share the Team Sprint podium in Goms, Switzerland. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)
  • Goms Wasn’t the Answer — It Was the Test

    Goms Wasn’t the Answer — It Was the Test

    This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com.

    Leg one gets started in the Women’s Team Sprint in Goms, Switzerland. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    There are World Cup races that arrive like answers, and others that arrive like mirrors. The women’s freestyle Team Sprint in Goms belonged firmly to the second category — not because the results were unclear, but because nearly everyone on the start line arrived with something else already decided.

    This was the last World Cup before the Winter Olympics in Milano–Cortina, and teams have been finalized. In Switzerland, the focus shifted from selection to tactical rehearsal, testing legs, patience, and restraint before Olympic stakes.

    That context hung over the Team Sprint from the opening qualification prologue to the final exchange. For some, the day was about execution. For others, survival. And for the U.S. women, it was an afternoon shaped as much by what wasn’t raced as what was.

    Jessie Diggins, focused on the Overall World Cup and conserving energy for February, sat out. Sweden, which has recently dominated sprinting, also left its top women on the bench. Their absences reshaped opportunity and increased ambiguity in a race where errors are costly.

    Julia Kern (USA) during qualification. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    A Course That Punishes Early Optimism

    Goms’ team sprint course was unforgiving. The moderate altitude, demanding climbs, and relentless rhythm tested the athletes in each of the individually timed qualification prologues. The top-16 teams advanced, then raced six alternating laps marked by tag zones, tempo shifts, and mounting fatigue.

    “It was definitely a rude awakening,” said Julia Kern, who returned to racing after a short training block at home in Vermont. “I think a lot of people felt that way — the qualifier was brutal, especially with such a long climb at semi-altitude.”

    Kern’s reset after the Tour de Ski was intentional. “The first week I focused on recovery, and the second week I finally got in a training week for the first time this season,” she said. “The snow conditions were awesome, which made it even better. But my body isn’t fully sharp yet, which is to be expected after some training and traveling back over to Europe.”

    That combination — fitness returning, sharpness still arriving — defined much of the U.S. women’s day.

    Kendall Kramer (USA) during the team sprint qualification in Goms, Switzerland. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    Two U.S. Teams, Two Very Different Races

    The United States entered two teams into the final.

    Team One paired Kern with Sammy Smith, a first-time Olympian whose rise this season has been defined by composure as much as speed. Team Two brought together Lauren Jortberg and Kendall Kramer, both newly named to their first Olympic team — and both still absorbing what that meant.

    For Jortberg, the Olympic nomination landed at the end of a season built on restraint.

    “I made a really conscious decision this year not to focus too hard on Olympic qualification itself,” Jortberg said. “I didn’t really think the Olympics were on the cards for me. I made a lot of big changes — a new ski brand, a team change, moving to a new country — so I just focused on the process.”

    That process had worked. She arrived in Goms feeling strong.

    “Today, I was really happy with the sprint qualifier — probably my best World Cup qualifier so far,” she said. “Time-wise, it was strong, and I knew going into the race that I was feeling good physically.”

    Then, just minutes later, it unraveled.

    Lauren Jortberg (USA) gets aero in Goms, Switzerland. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    The Moment Team Sprints Turn Cruel

    On Jortberg’s opening leg of the final, the pack compressed into one of the course’s tighter corners. The decision window was measured in fractions of a second.

    “Coming into a corner, I got tangled up with another skier,” Jortberg explained. “In that split second, it was either ski into their gear or crash. That’s just part of team sprint racing — it’s really tight skiing.”

    She went down. The gap opened immediately.

    For Kendall Kramer, suddenly tasked with damage control, the calculation shifted from ambition to probability.

    “I knew things happen in team sprints all the time — broken equipment, falls, tangles, people bonking,” Kramer said. “So I didn’t get discouraged or feel like we were completely out of it. You never know how a race can change.”

    But races do not always cooperate.

    “Not many crashes happened today,” Kramer said. “I think for both of us, being able to draft and roll with the group pace would have helped a lot.”

    Jortberg knew the consequences instantly. “It creates a huge gap, and that’s really hard in a team event because it affects your teammate,” she said. “It makes it even sadder when you know you’ve put them in that position.”

    Both athletes made the same strategic choice: do not burn the weekend to save a result that no longer exists.

    “It didn’t make sense to burn all our matches trying to close such a big gap,” Jortberg said. “We both have more important races coming up.”

    For Kramer, the day still mattered.

    “Just qualifying and getting to experience my first World Cup sprint day was really cool,” she said. “I learned a lot from it.”

    Julia Kern (USA) tags Samantha Smith (USA)  during the Team Sprint in Goms, Switzerland. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    Team One: Learning While It’s Still Allowed

    Up front, Kern and Smith stayed clear of trouble, navigating a race whose pace was notably more controlled than many recent team sprints.

    “The pace was more controlled, so it’s hard to say exactly how that will play out in the future,” Kern said. “But it was good practice finding places to relax — and also learning that you need to be near the front to avoid tangles. I had two close calls on the first lap where I lost positions, which wasn’t ideal.”

    Smith, meanwhile, looked comfortable doing exactly what Olympic team sprints demand: staying patient until patience becomes aggression.

    Samantha Smith (USA) the Team Sprint qualification in Goms, Switzerland. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    “Team sprints are my favorite event,” Smith said. “The format is so unique and challenging. It rewards consistency and composure balanced with speed and execution.”

    This was her first time racing consistently at the front in a World Cup team sprint.

    “I loved trying to match other racers’ moves, learning how the pacing changes lap to lap, and figuring out the best time to attack,” she said. “Every race is a learning opportunity, and I definitely took a lot away from today.”

    The most important lesson, she said, was restraint.

    “In a format like the team sprint, it’s so important to stay relaxed and patient,” Smith said. “You have to save enough so you can really push on that final lap.”

    Julie Bjervig Drivenes (NOR), Coletta Rydzek (GER), Tiril Udnes Weng (NOR), (l-r) all come to the finish in Goms, Switzerland. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    Germany Executes, Cleanly and Calmly

    While much of the field experimented, Germany arrived with a plan — and executed it.

    Speaking to the FIS broadcast after the race, Laura Gimmler explained the approach.

    “It was a pretty hard race here,” Gimmler said. “The plan was to slow a little bit in the first loop, save energy, and then build up from round to round so I could work for Coletta and let her save energy for her strengths.”

    Her teammate echoed the sentiment, crediting positioning and trust.

    “I knew I had a strong Laura who could make positions,” she said. “We worked for it.”

    The strategy paid off. Germany stayed composed as others faded, and when the final lap arrived, they were exactly where they needed to be.

    “It’s always nice to be on top of the podium,” one of the pair said via the FIS broadcast. “Confidence before the Olympics? We’ll see — but winning always helps.”

    Laura Gimmler (GER) and Coletta Rydzek (GER), (l-r) celebrate the Team Sprint victory in Goms, Switzerland. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    Olympic Reality, Briefly Revealed

    It would be easy to dismiss Goms as an incomplete picture. Sweden’s absence loomed large. Diggins’ absence larger still. The Olympic team sprint in Val di Fiemme will not be controlled. It will not be forgiving. And it will not wait for mistakes to resolve themselves.

    But that is precisely why this race mattered.

    “This course is very hilly, just like Val di Fiemme,” Kern said. “It was good practice to feel how the load accumulates through the rounds.”

    For Smith, the day confirmed belief as much as readiness.

    “It’s been a dream of mine to ski in the Olympics for as long as I can remember,” she said. “Now it’s real — and this weekend is about building momentum.”

    For Kramer, the meaning is still arriving.

    “It’s been really special to feel the pride from my hometown,” she said. “I don’t think it’s fully sunk in yet.”

    And for Jortberg, the crash did not undo the season that carried her here.

    “I’m happy to feel like I’m getting back into the groove,” she said. “Reminding myself that I can compete with the best.”

    Team USA with Kendall Kramer (USA), Samantha Smith (USA), Lauren Jortberg (USA), Julia Kern (USA), (l-r) at the finish of the Team Sprint in Goms, Switzerland. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    What Goms Did Answer

    Team sprints are rarely remembered for who sat out. They are remembered for who navigated chaos best — and who learned quickly enough to let the rest go.

    In Goms, the U.S. women did not leave with a podium. They left with something arguably more valuable at this stage: clarity. About tactics. About limits. About how quickly Olympic margins appear.

    There will be no controlled pacing in Val di Fiemme. No absent favorites. No allowance for first-lap tangles.

    But there will be familiarity — with fatigue, with pressure, and with each other.

    In the final World Cup weekend before the Olympics, that may have been the most important result of all.

     

    Goms World Cup Women’s Freestyle Team Sprint QUALIFYING

    Goms World Cup Women’s Freestyle Team Sprint RESULTS

     

    Help Support Our Olympic Coverage!

    FasterSkier will have our own Nat Herz on the ground at the Olympics, which, to be honest, is a very big financial lift for us. If you value the thoughtful work and access FasterSkier provides at championships like this one, please consider becoming a Voluntary Subscriber. Your support directly fuels the work we do to cover the people, places, and moments that make our sport special.

    Join the FasterSkier community!

     

    Astrid Oeyre Slind (NOR), Julie Bjervig Drivenes (NOR), Coletta Rydzek (GER), Laura Gimmler (GER), Karoline Groetting (NOR), Tiril Udnes Weng (NOR), (l-r) take the Team Sprint in Goms, Switzerland. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

  • Norway Goes 1-2 in Freestyle Team Sprint; Americans 7th

    The men’s podium of the freestyle team sprint in Planica, Slovenia. The Norway I team of Sindre Bjørnestad Skar and Erik Valnes took the win over the Norway II and Finland teams. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    From under the umbrella to inside the snow globe. Fat flakes were falling in Planica, Slovenia at the start of the freestyle team sprint. A painful mix of speed and endurance, each team member skied three 1.2-kilometer laps for a total of 7.2 k. Comprising the victorious Norway I team, Sindre Bjørnestad Skar and Erik Valnes stopped the clock at 16:54.52. Fellow countrymen Håvard Solås Taugbøl and  Gjøren Tefre took the Norway II team to second place (+1.29) followed by the Finnish team of Ristomatti Hakola and Joni Mæki in third (+1.43). 

    Coming into the third exchange at the halfway mark of the race, the pack of athletes included all ten teams, no one able to break apart the masses in the slow conditions. A variety of teams including Norway, Finland, and France took turns trying to create a gap, but wasting energy too early in the slow snowy conditions risked hazard. 

    The Norway II team of Håvard Solås Taugbøl and Gjøren Tefre tag off in a tight field during the freestyle team sprint in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    By the fourth exchange, there was no longer time to wait. Skar of Norway I pushed by Tefre of Norway II began to surge. He quickly created a small gap to all but Richard Jouve of France and Hakola of Finland I who went with the leaders in red.

    Though the density was lowered, the spread of the top eight teams was less than nine seconds as they made the final exchange. Having mingled with the leaders throughout, the American duo of Kevin Bolger and Logan Hanneman sat in fifth, less than three seconds back on the Norwegians. 

    Densely packed inside a snow globe, Norway pushes toward a 1-2 sweep in the freestyle team sprint in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    Winding up the energy in the final leg, Norway again made a push to break apart the field. Allowing them to lead to the climb at halfway, then working his way around the outside, yesterday’s sprint champion Chavanat made a go at the lead. Cresting the hill, Chavanat’s V2 was outmatched by two men in red jump-skating as though indefatigable even after 3.5 k’s of sprinting. 

    Valnes exploded off the front, leaving the threesome of Tefre, Mæki, and Chavanat duking it out to a close finish. Bobbling as he crossed into an opening, Tefre tangled skis with Mæki, but both men lost little momentum as they headed into the final straightaway. 

    Perhaps spent from his attempt to lead, Chavanat’s tempo could not match the others and he was overtaken in the final meters. Tefre slid his boot over the line just ahead of Mæki, leaving the French team 0.07 seconds off the podium.

    The Norway I team of Sindre Bjørnestad Skar and Erik Valnes took home the cheese at the freestyle team sprint in snowy Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    “It was a challenging day [for conditions], just as yesterday,” Skar told FIS at the finish line. “But it’s the same for everyone so you just have to deal with it and do your best.”

    The veteran duo of Skar and Valnes also won the team sprint in Dresden in January, and their teammates Johannes Høsflot Klæbo and Emil Iversen won the subsequent event in Lahti in February, making this three for three for Norway in team sprinting. 

    He explained how the wet falling snow affected tactics and how the race unfolded for the Norway I team.

    “It was so close and then with this weather it is almost impossible to go alone in the front. I tried the last half, but it was difficult, but we had to try and Erik was the best guy at the finish.” 

    Kevin Bolger accelerates out of the exchange during the freestyle team sprint in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    After losing contact with the leaders in the final lap, the Americans held on for 7th place (+21.19). 

    In a post-race call, Whitcomb explains that the team of Bolger and Hanneman was not finalized until the morning, when original anchor Simi Hamilton, who took 12th in the rain yesterday, was forced to withdraw after coming down with a cold. Because of the adjustment, the team lost their start position in the semifinal and began at the back of the field. The men finished eighth in the fast first round, from which the top three teams went on to be the top three teams in the final. The Americans advanced to the final with the last lucky loser spot. 

    Post-race interview with Matt Whitcomb on the men’s team sprint.

    Kevin Bolger (second from left) keeps the USA team in contact during the freestyle team sprint in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    “Logan and I had the weather on our side today!” wrote Bolger in an email. “I was skiing well but punched it to the front of my semi-final on the second lap and got a bit flooded from that. Luckily, Logan skied really well on his final lap to bring us into qualifying contention!

    “The Final felt a lot better,” he continued. “I skied a lot more conservatively and tactically better and am happy with how I moved forward. I was a bit surprised when Logan came into the Tag zone leading but was ready to head out and give it my all for the last lap!”
    Logan Hanneman stays in the mix behind Norway during the freestyle team sprint in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    At 26-year-old, Sun Valley native Kevin Bolger is in the midst of his third season of World Cup starts, landing inside the top-30 on eight occasions. Hanneman, who hails from Fairbanks, AK, has much less experience on the World Cup. Whitcomb explains how weekends like this one, where many of the all-arounders are resting for the Tour de Ski, consequently narrowing the field and improving the odds of sprinters like Hanneman who are often on the cusp of qualifying for the rounds. 

    Post-race interview with Matt Whitcomb on Logan Hanneman’s development on the World Cup.

    “The final was just nuts,” wrote Hanneman in an email about his day. “It was snowing so hard. The pace was much more pedestrian than the semi final. I found myself with an open lane up the last hill of my second lap, and made what I thought was a low energy move up into the lead… turns out it was all adrenaline because come my last lap I was dying. But Kevin skied great during the whole final, and we were able get beat some teams in the final. Very happy with the day for sure!”

    Final Results

  • Sunday Rundown from Seefeld World Champs (Updated)

    Sunday Rundown from Seefeld World Champs (Updated)

    Sweden (center) wins the women’s 6 x 1.2 k classic team sprint at the 2019 World Championships in Seefeld, Austria. Slovenia (r) took second place, with Norway (l) in third. (Photo: Garrott Kuzzy)

    FIS Nordic World Ski Championships Seefeld, Austria Women’s/Men’s Classic Team Sprint

    The furious pace of the World Championship racing schedule continued on Sunday in Seefeld, Austria with the women’s and men’s classic team sprint.

    Sweden’s Stina Nilsson and Maja Dahlqvist won the women’s 6 x 1.2-kilometer classic team sprint final in 15:14.93 minutes. Katja Visnar and Anamarija Lampic of Slovenia placed second (+0.37), with Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg and Maiken Caspersen Falla taking the final podium spot in third (+0.60).

    Russia’s Natalia Nepryaeva and Yulia Belorukova raced to fourth (+0.93). Sadie Bjornsen and Jessie Diggins were paired for the U.S. where they placed fifth (+2.79).

    Canada’s Emily Nishikawa and Dahria Beatty finished 12th overall after being eliminated in the first semi-final where they placed sixth.

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    Women’s Team Sprint Results

    The men’s 6 x 1.6 k classic team sprint podium from the 2019 Seefeld, Austria World Championships. Russia (l) took second, Norway (c) first, and Italy (r) third. (Photo: Garrott Kuzzy).

    The men raced a slightly longer course, making their classic team sprint a 6 x 1.6 k affair. Norway’s Emil Iversen and Johannes Høsflot Klæbo won in 18:49.86 minutes. Gleb Retivykh and Alexander Bolshunov of Russia finished 1.88 seconds back to take second overall. In third, finishing 4.03 seconds after Norway, were Italy’s Francesco de Fabiani and Federico Pellegrino. look at Rhino Gold Gel website

    Simi Hamilton and Erik Bjornsen were paired for the U.S team. The duo placed eighth (+28.56) in the ten team final. Canada’s Evan Palmer-Charrette and Len Valjas placed 10th overall (+1:40.99).

    Men’s Team Sprint Results

     

  • Wednesday Workout: Team Sprinting with the U.S. Ski Team

    Wednesday Workout: Team Sprinting with the U.S. Ski Team

    From left to right: Katharine Ogden, Julia Kern, Ida Sargent, Caitlin Patterson and Kelsey Phinney navigate the tag zone during a freestyle team-sprint rollerski workout at the U.S. Ski Team women’s camp on July 15 in Lake Placid, N.Y.

    LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — This past Sunday, July 15, FasterSkier visited the U.S. women’s cross-country team in Lake Placid, where the team has been holding a dryland camp since July 11. Most all of the team’s top athletes are there — sans those that train with Alaska Pacific University (they’ll largely stick to Anchorage and nearby Eagle Glacier for summer training) — for a “semi-intensity focused” camp that will last through Friday, July 20. Their training has included everything from rollerski speed work to ski walking/bounding, over-distance trail running/hiking and point-to-point distance rollerskiing. And they’ve held several workouts with the US Biathlon team, which is based in Lake Placid.

    Meanwhile, four members of the U.S. men’s team (Erik Bjornsen, Simi Hamilton, Ian Torchia, and Paddy Caldwell) have been in Villard-de-Lans, France, for a camp following the wedding of Bjornsen and Marine Dusser. Their overseas training, which has also included some “incredible trail/mountain running,” as head coach Chris Grover explained, wraps up today.

    “The weather has been fantastic so far; warm and dry during the days and cool at night,” Grover wrote in an email on July 9, the first full day of camp.

    Ben Saxton, of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) T2 Team, leads the men’s rollerski-sprint workout out of the start, with Ben Lustgarten (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) and Kyle Bratrud (SMST2) closest behind on July 15 in Lake Placid, N.Y.

    In Lake Placid on Sunday, it was a warm yet breezy day for a freestyle team sprint, with temperatures reaching the 80s by late morning. Asked how many times a year the U.S. team practices team sprints, complete with each member of a two-person team racing three laps apiece, U.S. coach Matt Whitcomb said they did so about twice a year: once in mid-summer and again in October.

    (On the World Cup circuit, team sprints are only held a couple of times each winter. This coming winter, a freestyle team sprint — the event Kikkan Randall and Jessie Diggins won at the 2018 Olympics — is on the schedule at 2019 World Championships in Seefeld, Austria.)

    “We’ll do a formal team sprint like this a couple times a year,” Whitcomb said. “It’s obviously a huge opportunity for us with the sprint depth that we have, for both men and women, and it’s just a fun way to have a super-hard workout in a camp environment.”

    Jessie Diggins (r) and Julia Kern during recovery time between the semifinal and final of their team-sprint session on July 15 at the Olympic Jumping Complex in Lake Placid.

    Sunday’s training group included 11 women, including Diggins, Sophie Caldwell, Ida Sargent, Julia Kern, and Katharine Ogden from the U.S. Ski Team, and several others from the Craftsbury and Stratton programs, and six men (Ben Saxton, Ben Lustgarten, Akeo Maifeld-Carucci, Kyle Bratrud, Adam Martin, and Karl Schulz). The course, which was held on the Olympic Jumping Complex rollerski loop, was about 1.3 kilometers for the women and 1.7 k for the men (taking about 3 minutes per lap for the women and 3:40 for the men).

    “Goal number 1 is to keep it safe and make sure we’re not having needless injuries, checking the equipment and making sure the athletes’ bindings are all working … ,” Whitcomb said. Sunglasses and helmets were mandatory. “And then secondly, just creating an environment that gives them a perception by the time they hit winter or the first team sprint on the World Cup that they’ve done this. When you feel that you’ve had experience, even if it’s because of a workout in July and one in October, you can draw a lot of confidence from that. While it is just a total 20 minutes of ‘on’ time today, it has much greater value than just that.”

    “When you feel that you’ve had experience, even if it’s because of a workout in July and one in October, you can draw a lot of confidence from that.” — Matt Whitcomb, U.S. Ski Team coach

    Athletes were selectively partnered in an effort to make for a “stimulating event”, Whitcomb explained. At times, they were instructed to leave the tag zone early before their teammate arrived to make for a more competitive event. The workout started with a semifinal round of head-to-head racing, followed by about a half-hour break, then finals. Due to lower numbers, the men did not compete as teams and instead raced each lap together, then took about an equal amount of rest before the second and third intervals.

    Ben Saxton (r) leads Ben Lustgarten, Kyle Bratrud and Adam Martin during a team-sprint workout on July 15 at the Olympic Jumping Complex in Lake Placid, N.Y.

    For coaches and athletes wanting to replicate this workout, Whitcomb said you don’t have to have a ton of athletes and a car-free, challenging rollerski loop like the one at the Olympic Jumping Complex.

    “Some days you only have three athletes and you might just have a one-mile strip of road that works and you can’t do a loop,” he said.

    The U.S. team has held similar team-sprint sessions with just five or six women.

    “We’ll just run it like an interval session,” he said. “We simulate it and you even have a tag zone, but you don’t have a teammate. We might simulate a race situation where somebody’s partner broke a pole and we’ll make them wait for five extra seconds or something like that.”

    On a point-to-point course, it might take a little more time to get back to the start, “but it gives the athletes what you’re looking for,” Whitcomb said.

    Sophie Caldwell leads Ida Sargent at the front of the pack during a team-sprint training session on July 15 in Lake Placid, N.Y.

    He also recommended getting creative and having fun with the workout.

    “Sometimes the ladies are making decisions on their own; they’ve got a good idea of what makes a great workout,” Whitcomb said. “There were a couple times where our PA, start-finish guy, Gus [Kaeding], who was also our creativity manager today, came up with some interesting situations, like somebody had slow skis that lap so [their partner] had to wait a little bit. For the men, they were running it more interval-style where they sent Kyle [Bratrud] out as a rabbit for Ben [Saxton] and Ben [Lustgarten] to chase down and that made it really exciting and stimulating for them.”

    The workout takes close to two hours to complete so plan the start time accordingly. The U.S. coaches moved the start of the women’s final up slightly to try to beat the heat.

    “In hindsight we probably would have started a little bit earlier,” Whitcomb said. “It’s hot out here today and it’s something you have to watch out for in the summer. If it’s excessively hot, we won’t run this workout because you start to lose the benefit. … But today was reaching 80 and happened to be humid, but it was manageable.”

    Coaches also took lactate readings of all participating athletes immediately after they finished their final laps of both the semifinals and finals.

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    Team sprint start times (as outlined by the U.S. Ski Team for its July 15 workout. These changed slightly during the session):

    9:30 a.m. Men’s semifinal (3 laps of 1.7 k with about 4 minutes of rest in between)

    10 a.m. Women’s semifinal (3 laps of 1.3 k with about 3 minutes of rest in between)

    10:30 a.m. Men’s final (Same format as men’s semifinal)

    11:00 a.m. Women’s final (Same format as women’s semifinal)

    The U.S. women’s and men’s teams also have upcoming training camps planned for New Zealand (three weeks in late August/early September) and Park City, Utah, in October.

    Athletes staying loose during team-sprint day at the Olympic Jumping Complex in Lake Placid, N.Y.
    Craftsbury Green Racing Project Head Coach Pepa Miloucheva (l) and Stratton Mountain School T2 Team Head Coach Pat O’Brien (center) assist athletes with lactate testing after the U.S. Ski Team’s rollerski team sprint on July 15 in Lake Placid, N.Y.
  • Pellegrino Anchors Italy to Another Dresden Win; Late Crash Takes Out U.S. Men

    Pellegrino Anchors Italy to Another Dresden Win; Late Crash Takes Out U.S. Men

    The men’s 6 x 1.2 k freestyle team sprint podium at Sunday’s World Cup in Dresden, Germany, with Italy’s Dietmar Nöckler and Federico Pellegrino in first (c), Sweden’s Emil Jönsson and Teodor Peterson in second (l) and Russia’s Andrey Krasnov and Gleb Retivykh in third (r). (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    (Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Canada’s Bob Thompson.)

    Federico Pellegrino’s winning move in the men’s 6 x 1.2-kilometer freestyle team sprint on Sunday wasn’t exactly the same as yesterday when the Italian attacked on the final climb of the individual skate sprint.

    “Yesterday on the right side and today I tried on the left side and it was OK,” Pellegrino said in a post-race interview with the International Ski Federation (FIS).

    By “OK,” Pellegrino meant perfect.

    “Today everything was perfect, even the sun was super,” he said after winning his second race in as many days with team-sprint partner Dietmar Nöckler. “We can continue like this to the Olympics then catch the gold.”

    A number of teams were looking to do exactly as the Italians did on Sunday on a tightly woven city sprint course in the heart of Dresden, Germany. This race marked the last team sprint before the Olympics, which starts in less than a month in PyeongChang, South Korea. The Olympic team sprint, set for Feb. 21, is also freestyle. Sunday was the first team sprint so far of the 2017/2018 season.

    Pellegrino locked it up after Nöckler came through the last exchange in fifth, 2.6 seconds behind Sweden’s Emil Jönsson in first. On the final lap, Pellegrino chased Sweden’s Teodor Peterson and Switzerland’s Roman Schaad, before Pellegrino made his move past Schaad in first heading into the final rise before the stadium. The attack was just slightly before the one he executed to win Saturday’s skate sprint over Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo.

    “I had to use it,” he said of the move.

    Federico Pellegrino (front) celebrates across the line as he anchors Italy to a freestyle team sprint victory for his second-straight win at the World Cup in Dresden, Germany. Behind him, Sweden I’s Teodor Peterson (second from r) and Russia’s Gleb Retivykh (r) battled for second, and Sweden II’s Karl-Johan Westberg (l) and Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (second for r) jockey for third. American Simi Hamilton (on the ground) is seen trying to recover from a crash. (Screenshot: ZDF broadcast)

    First over the top, Pellegrino pushed farther ahead of Peterson in second while Schaad, Russia’s Gleb Retivykh, Sweden II’s Karl-Johan Westberg, Klæbo, and American Simi Hamilton chased in third. Hamilton went down when he collided with Klæbo just before the finish line, but was able to get up and finish eighth, 14.28 seconds behind Italy in first.

    Pellegrino sealed the deal in 12:18.31, and Peterson crossed 1.07 seconds back for Sweden I in second place. Russia’s first team, with Andrey Krasnov and Retivykh, placed third (+1.23), just ahead of Switzerland I (Jovian Hediger and Schaad) in fourth (+1.45), Norway I (Kasper Stadaas and Klæbo) in fifth (+1.93), and Sweden II (Johan Häggström and Westberg) in sixth (+1.94). Italy II (Stefan Zelger and Giacomo Gabrielli) placed seventh (+7.31) ahead of the U.S. (Erik Bjornsen and Hamilton) in eighth.

    “When I arrived at the finish line, I could go slow and had some time to look to the people and say thank you for a great day,” Pellegrino told German TV broadcaster ZDF. “I had really good fun here in Germany!”

    “He showed all the world that today he is the strongest athlete on the track,” Nöckler said while standing next to his teammate Pellegrino in a televised interview with FIS. “And today we were both on the podium so we’re really happy.”

    Bjornsen, Hamilton in the Mix 

    The U.S. men were in contention to the finish, with Bjornsen putting them in third on the second-to-last leg. Norway’s Stadaas had been given a 1.3-second lead at the fourth exchange by his teammate Klæbo (who had previously made his way back into first after Stadaas tagged him in fifth). While Stadaas widened the gap for the first half of his last loop, Bjornsen led the chase, skiing several seconds behind him in second place.

    In an in-person interview with FasterSkier, Bjornsen recalled being tentative in the semifinals, where he and Hamilton finished fourth but advanced as lucky losers with a fast-enough time.

    “Going into the final, I was feeling good and I wanted to use my aerobic capacity,” Bjornsen said. “As soon as Simi handed off to me, I was kind of in the back end of that group and Norway had a good lead and I was like, I’m just gonna go for it.”

    Hamilton had tagged him in eighth, 2.5 seconds behind Norway in first. About halfway through the next 1.2 k loop, Bjornsen had bridged the gap to Stadaas, but brought a large pack of racers with him.

    “I went to the outside and was able to pass my group of like six or so, and I bridged up to Norway and tried to hit that corner pretty hard, then it kind of hit me,” Bjornsen said. “I was tired, that group had caught up to me and unfortunately I had pulled — some people jumped on the back of me, so then they kind of went by me, but I was able to hand off in third so I was happy with that. We were in the mix today.”

    Sweden’s Jönsson took the lead over the last rise before the stadium, and Switzerland’s Hediger slotted into second, coming through the exchange 0.9 seconds after Jönsson. Bjornsen tagged third, 2 seconds back.

    American Simi Hamilton (r) chasing Russia’s Gleb Retivykh (19) and one of two Swedish teams the second semifinal of the men’s 6 x 1.2 k freestyle team sprint at the World Cup in Dresden, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    From there, Hamilton kept himself in contention in the top five, hanging just behind Pellegrino and Peterson as the large group approached the finish. In the middle with several races on either side of him, Hamilton went down, hard, but stood back up again and finished eighth.

    “My crash wasn’t too terrible, but I did break Klæbo’s pole with my face and got a bunch of carbon fiber splinters in my upper lip. So once I got that cleaned up I was okay,” Hamilton wrote in an email. “Whacked my head a bit too, but I’ll be fine.”

    (Article continues below)

    https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd74ijTngPq/?taken-by=simihamilton

    He explained that he and Bjornsen had made a game plan to “ski towards the front, stay out of crashes, and figure out how the semifinal was going to play out while racing,” he wrote. “I thought we both skied the semi well, although I think I could have been a bit more aggressive on my last lap and done more skiing that would have assured us a spot into the final. But it turned out okay.”

    In the final, “Erik did an awesome job keeping us at the front and I just focused on doing the same for him,” Hamilton wrote. “He turned in a hell of a last leg, tagging me in 3rd for my last lap.”

    Bjornsen was pleased with his last lap, but would have like to have been first through the final exchange.

    “I wish I had a little higher speed that I could push past people quicker, but I find when I’m up against the best, my talent or whatever is to kind of press hard for a while,” Bjornsen said. “… So I just tried to send it hard for 45 seconds and it seemed to work out. I wish I could’ve handed off in first, but I’m happy to be in the mix there.”

    On the final lap, Hamilton recalled “a decent sized gap up to first and second, I think mostly because those were the only two teams that had perfect tags on that last exchange,” he wrote.

    Unsure whether to ski all out on his last of three 1.2 k efforts, while simultaneously pulling along competitors like Pellegrino and Klæbo, Hamilton focused on skiing fast, but not to his max.

    “On the far end, Pellegrino went by me and by that point we were really close to making contact with the top two,” he wrote. “I thought we were totally in the hunt for a podium until somehow I lost a second on the plateau [after the last hill] with about 15 seconds of racing left. “I don’t know how I lost it, if it was just entirely my fault or if something happened like I got punched from my line, but I am pretty bummed about it because that was where I felt like I let the podium slip through our hands,” Hamilton continued. “Coming in to the finish lanes, I got tripped up with Klæbo and my skis got clipped as were skiing for the same lane. It wasn’t intentional and he’s a very clean racer, but it was definitely a bummer to not be able to sprint it out for 3rd, 4th, or 5th with those other guys.”

    As for Norway, Klæbo told Germany’s ZDF he was out of the race at the start of that last lap: “After the last exchange it was too difficult, the gap was too large to the guys in front,” he said.

    Overall, Hamilton concluded that it was a great and interesting weekend of racing at a new venue in Dresden.

    “I think they could make some big improvements to the course with making it more technical, flowy, and wider, but I hope they continue to hold sprints here in the future,” he wrote.

    Canada had two teams in the first semifinal of the men’s 6 x 1.2 k freestyle team sprint at the World Cup in Dresden, Germany, with Canada I’s Julien Locke (near) skiing just ahead of Canada II’s Dominique Moncion-Groulx, who caught an edge just ahead of Italy’s Federico Pellegrino (second from r) and American Ben Lustgarten (behind Pellegrino), over the top of a climb. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    While the Bjornsen and Hamilton as the U.S. Ski Team’s first team on Sunday were the lone North Americans to reach the men’s final, Canada came close with Bob Thompson and Julien Locke.

    “The main points of our plan was make sure we stayed in the lead group and to take any easy opportunities to make up positions whenever we saw them,” Thompson, of the National Team Development Centre (NTDC) Thunder Bay, wrote in an email. “I started first as we were confident I could hang on to the pace and then after Julien’s excellent performance yesterday we felt he would have good speed to finish.”

    In Saturday’s individual sprint, Locke placed 15th for a career best.

    The two ultimately finished seventh in the first team-sprint semifinal, just one place behind Great Britain’s James Clugnet and Andrew Young. The Brits advanced to the final as lucky losers in sixth, 1.85 seconds behind Norway’s Stadaas and Klæbo in first, becoming the first team from Great Britain to reach the final in a World Cup team sprint. (In the final, they finished behind the U.S. in ninth, 14.68 seconds out of first.)

    After Thompson tagged Locke (Canadian National U25 Team/Black Jack Ski Club) in eighth in the last exchange of their semifinal, Locke picked off one place to finish seventh, 0.39 seconds behind Great Britain’s Young.

    “The third leg just started going from the exchange and I was able to hang on to the back and then dodge around the French teams who both crashed,” Thompson explained. “So I was able to tag off to Julien solidly in the mix of the lead pack. Julien had a pole break on the small hill with just 200m to go and had to free skate in, so the .15 seconds from making the final hurts a bit.

    “I’m happy with how we raced,” he continued. “We both stayed controlled and I think we had the pace well enough. I believe I skied it as well as I could have and being right up with those guys feels great.”

    The Americans’ second team of Andy Newell and Ben Lustgarten crossed the line 0.57 seconds later for eighth place (+2.81) in that semifinal. Newell had put them in second place at the last exchange, just 0.11 seconds out of first.

    “I felt good on my last leg and was able to make some moves and tag Ben in the lead going into the final lap,” Newell wrote in an email. “He skied really well to stay close to the leaders. If we were even less than a second faster I think we would have moved on as [lucky losers] instead of Sweden 2 and USA 1 from the next semi. So we were a bit unlucky there but it was a fun race.”

    American Andy Newell (2) chasing Italy II’s Stefan Zelger (in blue) during the first semifinal of the men’s 6 x 1.2 k freestyle team sprint at the World Cup in Dresden, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    Previously, Newell had tagged Lustgarten in fourth at the first exchange, then Newell found himself back in 10th and almost 2 seconds back after his second leg.

    “Ben and I tried to ski up toward the front half of the pack but had a small crash on our second tag,” Newell explained.

    “The [second] handoff wasn’t clean but I got Newell just in time,” Lustgarten, of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, recalled in an in-person interview with FasterSkier. “But there is so much happening and I obviously don’t have that much experience in this event, so it was just like a learning experience and trying to ski well. … On my last lap, Klæbo and Pellegrino went by and I am not really at that level yet so I didn’t really expect anything. I just tried to go as hard as I could.

    “I haven’t done a team sprint in eight years maybe, so it was a whole new kind of experience,” Lustgarten explained. “And obviously all these guys are so fast and strong that it was just an insane event.”

    Canada’s second team of Antoine Briand (Pierre-Harvey National Training Centre) and Dominique Moncion-Groulx (Alberta World Cup Academy) finished 13th in the first semifinal, 26.20 seconds out of first. Notably, Moncion-Groulx skied the fastest second leg of the race to bring them from 12th after the first exchange to sixth.

    The World Cup has two more weekends of racing before the Olympics, with all-classic races next weekend in Planica, Slovenia (classic sprint and 10/15 k classic individual starts), followed by freestyle races in Seefeld, Austria, on Jan. 27-28 (skate sprints and 10/15 k freestyle mass starts).

    Bjornsen said he was unsure whether he’d race next weekend in Planica, potentially opting for a training block before the Olympics instead.

    “I still have to talk to [U.S .SKi Team Head Coach Chris] Grover about which races I’m going to start at the Olympics and so if it looks like I’ll have a full schedule at the Olympics then I’ll try to do a training block,” Bjornsen said.

    Hamilton wrote that he was planning on racing the classic sprint in Planica, and was headed to Ramsau, Austria, with his teammates for a couple days of training first.

    According to Thompson, the four Canadians that raced in Dresden were also on their way to Ramsau, Austria, where they’ll train until Tuesday and then continue on to Planica.

    Results: Semifinals | Final

  • Sunday Rundown: U.S. 3rd in Dresden Team Sprint; Crawford 4th in Mass Start

    Sunday Rundown: U.S. 3rd in Dresden Team Sprint; Crawford 4th in Mass Start

    Kaisa Makarainen of Finland celebrates winning the women’s 12.5 k mass start in Ruhpolding, Germany, as Laura Dahlmeier (Germany) is second, Veronica Vitkova (Czech Republic) third, and Rosanna Crawford (Canada) fourth. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)

    IBU Biathlon World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): 12.5/15 k mass starts

    Kaisa Makarainen of Finland took her first win of the season and will start next weekend with the overall World Cup leader’s bib after she outsprinted Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier by 0.8 seconds to claim the win in the 12.5 k mass start. In a tight race for third, Veronica Vitkova of the Czech Republic edged out Rosanna Crawford of Canada for the final spot on the podium; the pair crossed the line 4.6 and 5.2 seconds behind Makarainen. The podium finishers all had two penalties apiece while Crawford shot clean, repeating the 20-for-20 effort that netted her third place and her first-ever podium in the 15 k individual earlier this week. Germany’s Denise Herrmann was sixth, +16.7 seconds, despite four missed targets.

    In the men’s 15 k mass start, Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø took a win over France’s Martin Fourcade as the pair continue their running battle this season. Bø had one penalty to Fourcade’s two, although that penalty came in the last shooting stage to make things interesting – Fourcade, whose penalties had come in the prior shooting stage, closed to within 4.5 seconds by the finish, but was unable to beat the Norwegian. Antonin Guigonnat, one of the newest members of the French World Cup team, shot 20-for-20 to claim third place and his second podium of the season. In an exciting race, the top nine men all finished within 15 seconds of one another. The sole U.S. entry, Tim Burke, was in the top 15 for much of the race before missing two shots in the final standing shooting stage and finishing 21st, +1:30.2

    Results: women | men

    ***

    The women’s 6 x 1.2 k freestyle team sprint podium at Sunday’s World Cup in Dresden, Germany, with Sweden II’s Maja Dahlqvist and Ida Ingemarsdotter in first (c), Sweden I’s Hanna Falk and Stina Nilsson in second (l), and USA I’s Ida Sargent and Sophie Caldwell in third (r). (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)

    FIS Cross Country World Cup (Dresden, Germany): 6 x 1.2 k freestyle team sprint

    Women’s report

    Men’s report

    For the second-straight day in Dresden, Sophie Caldwell notched third place and was nearly second with U.S. teammate Ida Sargent on Sunday in the World Cup women’s 1.2-kilometer freestyle team sprint.

    The race ended in a three-way fight for first, which Sweden II’s anchor Maja Dahlqvist took by 0.16 seconds over Sweden I’s Stina Nilsson. While the two lunged for the line, Caldwell came on strong to give them a run as well, finishing just 0.23 seconds back in third (after being in a photo finish for second).

    Earlier in the day, Sargent and Caldwell had won the second semifinal to advance to the 10-team final. The U.S. Ski Team’s second team, Caitlin Patterson and Kikkan Randall, finished second in that heat, just 0.11 seconds back and advanced as well.

    Sweden I won the first semifinal with Hanna Falk (Saturday’s individual skate-sprint winner) and Nilsson. Sweden II finished 0.17 back in second with Ida Ingemarsdotter and Dahlqvist.

    In the final, Sweden II’s Ida Ingemarsdotter led through her first two legs before tagging Dahlqvist in third with one lap to go. Meanwhile, Sargent tagged Caldwell in fourth, 0.9 seconds back. On the final lap, with Switzerland, the two Swedish teams, and USA I’s Caldwell skiing together up front, they dropped Switzerland’s Laurien van der Graaff before the finish and went all out for first.

    Dahlqvist took it for Sweden II in 13:33.4, Sweden I placed second and USA I third. The same duo of Caldwell and Sargent placed third in the pre-Olympic freestyle team sprint last year in PyeongChang, South Korea. There, Sargent also placed third in a classic sprint for her first World Cup podium. Sunday marked Caldwell’s fourth individual World Cup podium (sixth including team events).

    USA II was up to sixth after Randall’s first leg, just 0.5 seconds out of first, and remained 1.8 seconds behind the leaders with two laps to go. On the second-to-last leg, Patterson tagged Randall in ninth, and Randall anchored them to eighth (+7.95).

    Germany I finished fourth (+2.11) with Hanna Kolb and Sandra Ringwald, Slovenia was fifth (+4.46) with Alenka Cebasek and Vesna Fabjan, Germany II was sixth (+4.62) with Katharina Hennig and Elisabeth Schicho, and Switzerland seventh (+5.09) with Nadine Fähndrich and van der Graaff.

    The men’s 6 x 1.2 k freestyle team sprint podium at Sunday’s World Cup in Dresden, Germany, with Italy’s Dietmar Nöckler and Federico Pellegrino in first (c), Sweden’s Emil Jönsson and Teodor Peterson in second (l) and Russia’s Andrey Krasnov and Gleb Retivykh in third (r). (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)

    In the men’s race, Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo teamed up with Kasper Stadaas, and the two won their semifinal by 0.26 seconds over Italy’s Dietmar Nöckler and Saturday’s winner Federico Pellegrino. The U.S. men’s first team of Erik Bjornsen and Simi Hamilton advanced to the final as the last lucky loser in the second semifinal, where they placed fourth, 0.85 seconds behind Russia I’s Andrey Krasnov and Gleb Retivykh in first. Sweden I (Emil Jönsson and Teodor Peterson) and Sweden II (Johan Häggström and Karl-Johan Westberg) also advanced in second and third in that heat.

    In the final, which included Great Britain for the first time in team-sprint history (after James Clugnet and Andrew Young clinched the last lucky loser spot in the first semifinal in sixth place), Stadaas set a fast pace on the opening 1.2 k loop. He tagged Klæbo in first, 0.3 seconds ahead of Sweden I, while the U.S. hung in contention 0.9 seconds back in fifth.

    Norway continued to lead until Stadaas’s second lap, where Russia’s Krasnov came through the third exchange first, 0.1 ahead of Switzerland’s Jovian Hediger in second. Stadaas tagged Klæbo in fourth, 0.5 seconds back, and Klæbo predictably recovered the lead on the next lap.

    After he gave Stadaas a 1.3-second lead at the fourth exchange, Stadaas initially ran with it and extended it significantly. But he ran out of steam on the second half of his last loop and dropped to 10th (last place), 3.7 seconds out of first by the final exchange.

    There, Jönsson tagged Peterson in first, 0.9 seconds ahead of Hediger in second. Bjornsen had brought the U.S. to third, 2 seconds back, after leading the chase group in second as they reeled in Stadaas.

    On the final lap, Pellegrino came on strong in the last few hundred meters, just as he had done in Saturday’s individual sprint, to take the win for Italy in 12:18.3. Peterson anchored Sweden I to second place, 1 second back, and Russia’s Retivykh took third (+1.2), just ahead of Switzerland’s Roman Schaad in fourth (+1.4).

    Hamilton suffered a nasty crash in the middle of the group just before the finish and crossed the line in eighth (+14.2).

    Klæbo finished fifth for Norway (+1.9), with Sweden II in sixth (+1.9). Italy II (Stefan Zelger and Giacomo Gabrielli) followed in seventh (+7.3), Great Britain placed ninth (+14.6), and Switzerland II (Erwan Käser and Roman Furger) 10th (+20.9).

    This is the last team sprint before a freestyle team sprint is contested at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics.

    Results: 

    Women’s semifinals | Women’s final

    Men’s semifinals | Men’s final

  • Retivykh Wins Again in PyeongChang; Newell & Hamilton 4th in Team Sprint

    Retivykh Wins Again in PyeongChang; Newell & Hamilton 4th in Team Sprint

    The men's freestyle team sprint podium at the PyeongChang World Cup on Sunday in South Korea, with France's Lucas Chanavat and Baptiste Gros in second (l), Russia's winning team of Gleb Retivykh and Andrey Parfenov (c) in first, and teammates Nikita Kriukov and Artem Maltsev (r) in third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    The men’s freestyle team sprint podium at the PyeongChang World Cup on Sunday in South Korea, with France’s Lucas Chanavat and Baptiste Gros in second (l), Russia’s winning team of Gleb Retivykh and Andrey Parfenov (c) in first, and teammates Nikita Kriukov and Artem Maltsev (r) in third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    France has never won a World Cup team sprint, neither for men nor women, classic nor freestyle.

    And its team will have to wait a bit longer for that time to come. But France was oh-so-close on Sunday, with Baptiste Gros and Lucas Chanavat racing against the Russian duo of Andrey Parfenov and Gleb Retivykh in the men’s 6 x 1.5-kilometer freestyle team sprint in PyeongChang, South Korea.

    Chanavat, last year’s U23 world champion in the freestyle sprint, tried to attack on the last steep climb but could not gap Retivykh decisively. Then he positioned himself behind the Russian on the downhill into the arena that will host next year’s Olympic Winter Games, shaking out his arms before tucking into the draft. Coming out of the final left turn, he managed to push up next to him on the finishing stretch, but Retivykh lunged over the line a ski boot ahead for the victory in a time of 19:34.11, with Chanavat just 0.03 seconds behind.

    “I did not know in the finish if we won until Andrey told me,” Retivykh told the International Ski Federation (FIS), according to a press release. “It was just as hard skating as it was in classic the other day.”

    But the French duo was not too disappointed after narrowly missing the victory.

    “Romantic meal to celebrate this first podium of the year! We will bring back a good memory of Korea and be strong for next year,” Gros posted on his Facebook page, according to a translation, at 4 a.m. local time with a picture of him and Chanavat wolfing down two cups of noodles.

    “Second in the Team Sprint World Cup in Pyeongchang with my teammate Baptiste Gros (Showing his last drop of rage sinking in his beard)!” Chanavat commented on his Instagram account with a picture of both men smiling. “Next step: be prepared for the world championships in Lahti!”

    Russia’s second team of Artem Maltsev and Nikita Kriukov secured the third position on the podium (+5.52).

    “It feels absolutely great to be back on the podium,” Kriukov told FIS. “For me it’s a very important step on the way back to the top.”

    It was Retivykh’s second victory of the weekend after also winning the men’s invidual classic sprint on Friday, and Russia improved their statistic to become the most successful nation in this event with seven victories in World Cup freestyle team sprints, which have only been contested 25 times so far.

    The U.S. Ski Team’s first team, with Andy Newell and Simi Hamilton, finished fourth, 24.23 seconds behind, after being unable to challenge for the podium on the last leg.

    The Norwegian team of Daniel Stock and Mathias Rundgreen initially crossed the line before the Americans, but was disqualified for an error on the penultimate exchange only tagging off at least a meter behind the allowed zone. Perhaps hoping a later protest might be successful, they kept skiing and finished the race, with no coach or event official stopping them.

    Earlier in the day, Newell and Hamilton had won their semifinal, half a second ahead of the Swedish team of Robin Norum and Gustav Erikson, while Russian’s Parfenov and Retivykh advanced in third (+0.53).

    “For me, I felt great in the semifinal, and in the final,“ Newell said on the phone after. “The semifinal was a lot more enjoyable, because it’s a very challenging course with a lot of climbing, and the pace was just relaxed enough that I was able to make moves when I wanted, and control when I wanted to control. I was able to come in and tag Simi in second to start his final leg, we were able to win that semi, and that was great.”

    In the men’s race, 14 teams advanced to the final round: the top-four teams from each semifinal heat, plus six more teams with the best times.

    Simi Hamilton (U.S. Ski Team) racing to 12th in the men's classic sprint qualifier on Friday at the PyeongChang World Cup in South Korea. He went on to finish 17th overall after crashing in his quarterfinal and finishing fourth in that heat. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    Simi Hamilton (U.S. Ski Team) racing to 12th in the men’s classic sprint qualifier on Friday at the PyeongChang World Cup in South Korea. He went on to finish 17th overall after crashing in his quarterfinal and finishing fourth in that heat. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    In the final, Newell and Hamilton initially stuck with the leaders on the first legs, with each racer having to ski a total of three 1.5 k loops, tagging off repeatedly.

    They were only 2.4 seconds back heading into the fifth leg, before Newell lost contact with the top four, which included Norway.

    “It was interesting, because there were so many quality distance skiers,” Hamilton said on the phone. “It definitely became evident what their strategy was, especially in the final, they kept the pace really high the whole time. That was tough.”

    “In the final it was pretty intense from the get-go,“ Newell agreed. “I know Norway and one of the Russian teams were really trying to push the pace in the first leg. It was pretty challenging, really tough. I felt pretty solid until the last lap, and then I lost contact coming over the hill, and it was kind of windy and snowy out there, so as soon as you lost contact, it was hard to regain it. It was a real leg burner. Unfortunately, that took us out of podium contention, we did end up finishing fifth, and then the Norwegian team was disqualified, so we got fourth. It was a fun day, a great workout, and a great way to practice that event on the Olympic trails.“

    Not helping matters was that Hamilton had to race with an upset stomach.

    “I don’t know if it’s something I ate or drank, so my energy wasn’t 100 percent, but I still really wanted to race hard,” he said. “It was a good opportunity to get a good result here with diminished fields. I definitely felt better racing than I thought I was going to, but it was for sure a pretty tough day. The course is really hard, it’s long, it’s got a couple of really big climbs, but it skied really well and we had great skis. Andy and I are pretty proud having put in a solid effort, maybe not one of our very best, but a good one for sure. We’re both encouraged by good fitness right now, leading into this little training block before World Champs.”

    The team-sprint discipline, which is the newest on the World Cup circuit, is still rarely on the competition schedule. And only two freestyle team sprint races had been held in Asia previously, both in Sapporo, Japan, for a 2006 World Cup and for the 2007 World Championships. But it seems to be a popular format to test new venues.

    “I don’t know why they are doing this, but every pre-Olympic weekend at least since Vancouver [for the 2009 World Cup respectively the 2010 Olympics] has always been sprint, skiathlon, team sprint”, U.S. Ski Team distance skier Noah Hoffman said on the phone last week, before his trip to Korea.

    Now it was PyeongChang’s turn in the test weekend for the 2018 Olympics. Hoffman did not race on Sunday, but the U.S. was able to start a second squad with Matt Gelso (Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation) and Scott Patterson (Alaska Pacific University).

    American Matt Gelso (24) racing to 19th in Saturday's 30 k skiathlon at the PyeongChang World Cup in South Korea. (Photo: Salomon/Nordic Focus)
    American Matt Gelso (24) racing to 19th in Saturday’s 30 k skiathlon at the PyeongChang World Cup in South Korea. (Photo: Salomon/Nordic Focus)

    In their first World Cup team sprint, the duo managed to advance through the semifinal finishing fifth, 13.86 seconds behind the French team that won the heat.

    “In the semi, our goal was to simply get in the top four for an automatic advance into the finals,” Patterson wrote in an email. “The pace went out moderate for the early laps and there were enough weak teams later in that it was somewhat easy to secure a high finish. Things spread out a little on the last lap for both Matt and I and we were able to advance even with a close finish for fifth.”

    “Scott and I had a hard semifinal,” Gelso wrote. “The pace was very fast from the start so it was very tiring by the end. I felt completely exhausted on the final lap and was concerned with how bad my legs felt that the final would be very bad.”

    But despite feeling tired, the duo managed to hang on in the final and improved by two positions on the last two legs to finish ninth (+54.85),

    “The final broke apart really early,” Patterson explained. “I think for both of us it was kind of survival mode and see if we could get any last drops out of our muscles. Norway and Russia pushed it hard from the gun. I’m not the fastest starter and got caught up behind a Belarusian [Michail Semenov] so I could not chase quite as much as I wished. By the top of the first hill I was bleeding time. From there it was mostly finding our own battles. The Canadians were in it for a bit, but eventually it was between the Germans [Thomas Wick and Andy Kühne] and us. It was a good fight for both legs and happily we took it in the end.”

    Germany placed 10th (+55.13) after Gelso won the finish sprint against Kühne, pushing out of the draft on the finish stretch and raising his left arm in a small celebration as he crossed the line.

    “The team sprint today was very fun as Scott and I were able to be in the mix, get into the final, and ski solid through the race,” Gelso wrote. “Not an outstanding result but a good, solid, fun day on the race course with ample opportunities to make things happen.”

    Canada’s Len Valjas had the chance to become the first athlete in a long time to win two consecutive  team sprints, after winning last month’s freestyle team sprint in Toblach, Italy, with teammate Alex Harvey.

    Teaming up with Jess Cockney for Sunday’s race (who had placed 10th in the sprint on Friday while Valjas finished fourth), the duo placed sixth (+4.1) despite a broken pole in the second semifinal, which Newell and Hamilton won.

    In the final, Cockney and Valjas were initially able to keep in sight of the leaders, tagging off in ninth in the first exchange, only five seconds back. By the race’s halfway point, they were 10th (+21.0), before falling to the back of the field and losing significant time. They went on to finish in 13th position, 1:38.2 behind the winners.

    Valjas and Cockney could not be reached by press time to determine if they had fallen back due to a crash, more broken poles, or were simply running out of energy after racing on a very demanding sprint course all weekend.

    The World Cup goes on break for a week before resuming Feb. 18-19 in Otepää, Estonia, with freestyle sprints and 10/15 k classic races, in the last World Cup before 2017 World Championships in Lahti, Finland.

    — Gabby Naranja and Jake Ellis contributed

    Results

  • Bringing Back the Air Guitar, Harvey & Valjas Win Toblach Team Sprint

    Bringing Back the Air Guitar, Harvey & Valjas Win Toblach Team Sprint

    Canada's Alex Harvey (l) and Len Valjas celebrate their World Cup freestyle team sprint win on Sunday in Toblach, Italy. It was the first team-sprint victory for Canada since 2011 World Championships. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
    Canada’s Alex Harvey (l) and Len Valjas celebrate their World Cup freestyle team sprint win on Sunday in Toblach, Italy. It was the first team-sprint victory for Canada since 2011 World Championships. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)

    It’s been a year since the last World Cup freestyle team sprint. That event went down in Planica, Slovenia. Historically, the men’s skate team sprint has been a revolving door when it comes to the podium’s top step. According to the International Ski Federation (FIS), the last seven World Cup skate team sprints were won by seven different nations.

    Add an eighth nation to that list: Canada.

    On Sunday in Toblach, Italy, the Canadian duo of Alex Harvey and Len Valjas once again got an opportunity for some grandstanding air-guitar: a celebratory tradition it seems when the Canadians take the win. Harvey and Valjas won the 6 x 1.3-kilometer freestyle team sprint in 16:02.1 minutes. As the times back suggest, no team was able to pull away. Occasionally one nation shot off the front, trying to break the chain of drafting skiers, but that tactic proved fruitless. With Toblach’s undulating draft-friendly course, the chase pack would eventually glide up tight onto the skis of any athlete trying to make a break.

    Here’s how the podium rounded out. Sweden I, comprised of Karl-Johan Westberg and Oskar Svensson, placed second (+0.53). Dietmar Nöckler and Federico Pellegrino of Italy I were third (+0.65).

    As the times back to Harvey and Valjas suggest, it was a no-margin-for-error race; fourth through 11th place were separated by a little more than three seconds. So after five exchanges, where one skier tags the other for another two-lap 1.3 k leg, the U.S. team, with Simi Hamilton and Andy Newell, were in it: they finished sixth (+2.62).

    Harvey + Valjas

    Just one week ago, Harvey finished the Tour de Ski in seventh overall, a career best in the annual multi-stage event. And just days ago, Sunday’s win might have been off his radar.

    “If you had asked me that two days ago, it’s surprising. I felt really good yesterday,” Harvey explained on the phone Sunday. “My qualification was my best qualification in two years.”

    In Saturday’s individual skate sprint, he qualified eighth.

    “I had a lot of speed, a lot of punch yesterday,” Harvey added. “Then I was like, ‘OK, maybe we can do something in the team sprint.’ ”

    Canada's Lenny Valjas (in red) en route to his first World Cup victory in the men's freestyle team sprint in Toblach, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    Canada’s Lenny Valjas (in red) en route to his first World Cup victory in the men’s freestyle team sprint in Toblach, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    Sunday’s win was the first World Cup victory for Valjas, Harvey’s teammate on the Canadian World Cup A-team. It was also the first win for Harvey and Valjas together in a team sprint. Harvey said the pair came into the day with little on-the-ground practice, but they had discussed their exchanges beforehand.

    “We did not practice, actually, but we talked about it,” Harvey said. “Most of the time, after the pre-race meeting, it’s always the same; people say, ‘Don’t stress it. You can’t win the race with the exchange, but you can lose it, if it’s a bad one.’ So, we told each other, ‘Let’s not f- up, but if we can, let’s try and get position in the exchange.’ Like, why not? It’s part of the race.”

    The Canadians executed their verbally mapped-out plan: they kept to the back and side of the exchange zone, and efficiently communicated when to accelerate once the tag was made.

    “We made it clear what we wanted to do, and what we would say. Like, if I said your name and yell, ‘Go, go, go!’ that means you can go full gas, and I’ll still be able to touch you,” Harvey said of their exchange plan. “That’s half a second here, half a second there, and sometimes it’s two positions, and on a course that’s turny like this, two positions for free is a big difference.”

    For Valjas, the victory marked his sixth-career podium on the World Cup. Four of those podiums, including Sunday’s win, came in sprints. His last podium came four years ago.

    “This is unreal,” Valjas, 28, told the International Ski Federation (FIS) in a televised, post-race interview. “Honestly, we were hoping for a good result today, but I had no idea it was going to be this good.”

    He described Sunday’s race as crowded. For this season, FIS expanded the team sprint finals from 10 to 15 teams.

    “The final, there’s a lot of guys who go out,” Valjas explained on the phone. “[We] just kept ourselves out in the top half of the group in the top six or seven. Otherwise you just have so much traffic and it was on my last leg of my final, I got a little boxed in on the big climb, and I was making contact with people’s poles and skis and, instead of trying to make a move and potentially crashing, just doing everything I could to ski smart and to keep my skis off other people’s skis.”

    That patience paid off. Other teams led throughout the race, including Sweden II, Norway II, Finland II, Norway I, and France I.

    “The goal was to stay close to the front, but never in the lead because there was no point,” Harvey said of the team’s on-course strategy. “You could see the Norwegians on Lenny’s second leg in the final — the two guys gapped the field a little bit. But then it comes back in the downhill, and that surge, it takes it out of you because the recovery is so short in the team sprint, so it’s about positioning yourself in the best way possible while saving energy for the last lap.”

    The fifth exchange, when Valjas tagged Harvey for the final leg, it was still early, but maybe time to tune the air guitars.

    “I think it was around sixth place when I came around the corner … and out of the exchange. Alex had a great lane on the left, too,” Valjas recalled. He actually tagged off in eighth, but just 2.1 seconds out of first, it was close enough.

    “[Alex] made a quick burst leaving the exchange and passed three guys right there and moved into a contending position,” Valjas said.

    Respect the power of the mustache: Canadian Alex Harvey celebrates as he anchors his team to a World Cup freestyle team sprint win on Sunday in Toblach, Italy. (Photo: Salomon/Nordic Focus)
    Respect the power of the mustache: Canadian Alex Harvey celebrates as he anchors his team to a World Cup freestyle team sprint win on Sunday in Toblach, Italy. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)

    Harvey was ready to capitalize. Having watched other nations take flyers off the front, he had reserves. Harvey skied the fastest final leg, moving into third at the base of the last climb then leading over the top. It was a risky move, staying in first from the final descent down into the stadium and all the way into the looping finishing stretch. Nobody on Sunday had won from that position before, having become victims of the draft, but Harvey didn’t let that stop him from leading.

    “Look at those, look at those,” he said, pointing to his skis when FIS asked how he pulled off the win from that position. “The wax techs did a good job and we had good skis.”

    While several teams scurried for the remaining spots on the podium behind him, the Canadian crossed the line looking relaxed and grooming his mustache for the cameras.

    “I’m feeling good, but I had a really good teammate,” Harvey told FIS.

    With 2017 World Championships beginning late next month, Harvey and Valjas are likely eyeing the classic team sprint there.

    “Today was an amazing performance by those two, and I think it’s going to give them a really good boost for the world champs,” Canadian World Cup coach Ivan Babikov said from his home in Canmore, Alberta. “It’s a pretty stacked calendar [at World Championships] especially for Alex, who can be podium potential in every race. He wants to do everything, but sometimes you just have to be smart, and focus on the things he feels strongly about. Lot’s can change with the time, too. We’ll be looking forward to world champs, and try to plan it out perfectly, so enough energy through the whole World Championship.”

    Hamilton, Newell in It Until the End

    Canada's Alex Harvey (13) leading American Simi Hamilton (15) among others in the men's 6 x 1.3 k freestyle team sprint on Sunday at the World Cup in Toblach, Italy. (Photo: Salomon/Nordic Focus)
    Canada’s Alex Harvey (13) leading American Simi Hamilton (15) among others in the men’s 6 x 1.3 k freestyle team sprint on Sunday at the World Cup in Toblach, Italy. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)

    For the U.S. men’s team, Sunday was also a day to unkink and de-rust the team sprint tactics and techniques. Hamilton and Newell combined for fifth in their semifinal, one place behind Valjas and Harvey in fourth in that heat.

    Hamilton was coming off a second-place finish in Saturday’s skate sprint. He explained his initial sensations for the day were bland, as he spent over three hours after Saturday’s sprint navigating doping control in a cold, restricted area, absent equipment for a proper warmdown.

    Despite feeling sharp in the semifinal, Newell crashed just before the tag zone for the first exchange in the final.

    “It was unfortunate that I took an early, hard crash right before the tag zone on my first [leg],” Newell said on the phone. “I was kind of spun like a top and landed right on my butt. I was able to get up pretty fast, and sprint towards the tag zone, but we were still in last.”

    Also on that first leg, Newell received a yellow card for obstruction. He explained that he stepped on another racer’s ski on a downhill section of course. The infraction did not cause a crash, but it did give Newell a written reprimand. Accumulating two yellow cards in a season leads to a disqualification (although, according to the FIS rulebook, “Written reprimands given during the season are not valid in the WSC [World Ski Championships] and OWG [Olympic Winter Games] periods. Written reprimands given during WSC or OWG are valid until the end of the season.”)

    After that initial tag, Hamilton gunned it. He skied the fastest second leg, keeping the team from losing ground. Newell and Hamilton kept in the hunt, conserving energy, maybe losing a spot here, then gaining two there. Hamilton tagged Newell in 12th.

    “My right glute took a hard hit, and it wasn’t a super-easy course to pass on either, so I think we spent some energy trying to get around people, but even still, we were right in it by the last lap,” Newell said.

    Despite the spill or less-than-perfect exchanges, the U.S. was never out of it. Hamilton brought them into ninth and 4.2 seconds out of first after the fourth of six legs, and Newell slipped back slightly to 11th, just 4.5 seconds back. Finally, Hamilton’s second-fastest final leg time put them in sixth at the finish.

    “We are both quick on our feet and we’re adaptable and we figure things out like that pretty quickly, but I think, for sure, we will spend some time just working on our tags to make them a little more crisp,” Hamilton said on the phone. “At the same time, you can’t dial in just one way you are planning on doing things in the future because things are constantly changing. You never know if the race is going to be at a pretty ‘pedestrian’ pace off the bat and you might be tagging in the very front of the pack, or if it is a really hot pace, you might be closer to the back. You just have to change things on the fly a little bit. I think that is something that we are both really good at, just being able to adapt to kind of a changing environment.”

    The shifting nature of this race, when most teams at one point either seemed way out of it or right in it, was the type of changing environment Hamilton referred to.

    The next team sprint prior to World Championships will take place Feb. 5 at the World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea. Hamilton and Newell plan on contesting that event.

    Russia’s Matveeva 2-2 in Toblach; U.S. Women 10th

    On the women’s side, race organizers were most likely thankful for modern technology: after the teams of two raced their shares of the 6 x 1.3 k team-sprint pie, a hypersensitive camera was needed to determine the winner. It was a three-way photo finish.

    Russia's Natalia Matveeva (r) winning a three-way photo finish for first in the women's freestyle team sprint on Sunday in Toblach, Italy, ahead of Sweden's Hanna Falk (in white), who placed second (+0.04), and Norway's Maiken Caspersen Falla (second from l), who ended up third (+0.11), respectively. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    Russia’s Natalia Matveeva (r) winning a three-way photo finish for first in the women’s freestyle team sprint on Sunday in Toblach, Italy, ahead of Sweden’s Hanna Falk (second from l, in white), who placed second (+0.04), and Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla (second from r), who ended up third (+0.11), respectively. Germany’s Sandra Ringwald (l) finished fourth. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    Team Russia I’s Yulia Belorukova and Natalia Matveeva won in a time of 18:00.96, after Matveeva repeated her tactics from Saturday’s individual sprint to come from behind in the finishing stretch.

    Just like on Saturday, she followed Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla up the last climb and trailed her closely on the descent. Between them on Sunday, Sweden’s Hanna Falk drafted Falla while skiing in second on the downhill, then went wide on the curve to challenge her over the last 100 meters. Matveeva took the inside line around the turn and snuck up on the other side of Falla. Upon close review, the final results revealed that Matveeva captured the win — her second in two days — by 0.04 seconds over Falk in second, and Falla settled for third (+0.11).

    “Today I was definitely not world-class level,” a disappointed Falla said, according to a FIS press release. “I have a strong competitive instinct so this loss really irritates me.”

    For Matveeva, it was the beginning of a winning streak, and for her teammate Belorukova, a U23 skier, it was her first World Cup podium.

    “It was an amazing weekend in Toblach,” the 30-year-old Matveeva said, according to FIS. “To leave with two wins is great. Yulia did a great job in her leg, and I had a lot of confidence from yesterday I could be again fast on the home stretch. To win with my teammate is really special.”

    Falk teamed up with Ida Ingemarsdotter for Sweden I, while Falla combined with Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen for third.

    “It was a good day at work,” Ingemarsdotter said, according to FIS. “We raced well and this was a big step in the right direction for the upcoming competitions.”

    Canada did not enter a women’s team, and the U.S. team of Sophie Caldwell and Kikkan Randall placed 10th (+20.63).

     

    In an email, U.S. skier Caldwell mentioned it was a grind.

    “While I always love the opportunity to do a team event, I think I was running on fumes today,” Caldwell wrote. “The semifinal went well, but I didn’t have too much left in me for the final, so was bleeding some time on pretty much all parts of the course.”

    Russia's Natalia Matveeva (l) and Yulia Belorukova celebrating Belorukova's first World Cup victory and Matveeva's second-straight win after Sunday's freestyle team sprint in Toblach, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    Russia’s Natalia Matveeva (l) and Yulia Belorukova celebrating Belorukova’s first World Cup victory and Matveeva’s second-straight win after Sunday’s freestyle team sprint in Toblach, Italy. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    According to the email, Caldwell went to the hospital last Monday with a “stomach bug”.

    “I’m looking forward to getting in some solid training and focusing on eating back the energy I lost earlier this week from being sick. It’s a bummer to have a bad race, especially in a team event, but all I can do is look ahead and try to put this one behind me,” she wrote.

    Caldwell placed 11th in Saturday’s sprint, following Randall in 10th.

    In their semifinal, the duo raced to third to secure a spot in the final.

    “With 15 teams in the final it was pretty busy those first few laps,” Randall wrote in an email. “I just tried to stay relaxed in the pack on my first round. On the second round I tried to move up but it was really hard to find space to get around. I was always able to make up a few places coming off the last turn before the tag zone. But the tag zone was always really chaotic. Matveeva almost took Sophie out on the 2nd tag.”

    On her second leg, Randall skied the fastest split and was a handful of seconds back from the lead as she tagged Caldwell.

    “We were still right with the lead group going into Sophie’s last lap,” Randall wrote. “Sophie laid it out there up the first climb, but I think the effort caught up with her and we lost touch with the leaders before the last tag. I was able to chase a few teams down to get us into the top 10.”

    Like others, Randall is eyeing the World Championships team sprint.

    “World Championships this year will be classic so it could play out a little differently than today,” Randall wrote when asked what the U.S. will be looking to improve on in the team sprint. “We just need more durability so we can stay in the fight all the way until the last round and then I think we have several finishers on this team that could be in the hunt for a podium.”

    Results: Men | Women

  • Sunday Rundown: Valjas, Harvey Win 1st Team Sprint of Season in Toblach

    Sunday Rundown: Valjas, Harvey Win 1st Team Sprint of Season in Toblach

    Canada's Alex Harvey (l) and Len Valjas celebrate their World Cup freestyle team sprint win on Sunday in Toblach, Italy. (Photo: ARD broadcast screenshot)
    Canada’s Alex Harvey (l) and Len Valjas celebrate their World Cup freestyle team sprint win on Sunday in Toblach, Italy. (Photo: WDR/ARD broadcast screenshot)

    FIS Cross-Country World Cup (Toblach, Italy): Freestyle team sprint

    Race report

    The Canadians pulled the upset on Sunday in the first team sprint of the season, coming from eighth place and 2.1 seconds back at the last exchange to take the win in the men’s 6 x 1.3-kilometer freestyle team sprint final in Toblach, Italy.

    For Len Valjas, it was his first World Cup victory and first time back on the podium in four years. For Alex Harvey, the team’s anchor leg who secured the 0.5-second win over Sweden’s Oskar Svensson, it was a flashback to his team-sprint gold (with teammate Devon Kershaw) at 2011 World Championships. He hadn’t reached the podium in a team sprint since.

    “This is unreal,” Valjas, a 28-year-old member of Canada’s World Cup A-team, told the International Ski Federation (FIS) in a televised interview. “Honestly, we were hoping for a good result today, but I had no idea it was going to be this good.”

    Harvey did the unthinkable on Sunday, taking the lead on the last climb and into the downhill before the finish. In the preceding women’s team-sprint final and throughout the semifinals earlier in the day, no one had won the race by leading into that downhill. Harvey changed that, surging from third at the base to first by the top, ahead of Sweden’s Svensson and Italy’s Federico Pellegrino.

    As he rounded the final lefthand corner into the finishing straight in first, Harvey unleashed one last push to distance himself from his competitors, crossing the line in 16:02.1. Svensson (who teamed up with Karl-Johan Westberg for Sweden I) followed him in second (+0.5), just ahead of Pellegrino (who teamed up with Dietmar Nöckler for Italy I) in third (+0.6).

    “I’m feeling good, but I had a really good teammate,” Harvey told FIS. “We said we needed to stay near the front and try to have a good exchange. … People say, ‘Oh, you can’t win the race in the exchange, you can only mess up,’ but today we were moving really well in the exchange and that put me in a great position for the last lap.”

    Despite leading for much of the six-leg, 12-lap race, Norway missed the podium with Norway II (Håvard Solås Taugbøl/Pål Golberg) in fourth (+1.1) and Norway I (Sindre Bjørnestad Skar/Johannes Høsflot Klæbo) in fifth (+1.9).

    The U.S. men, Andy Newell and Simi Hamilton, placed sixth (+2.6), after Hamilton came on strong on his final lap to overtake both Russian teams and France, among others, after starting the last leg in 11th and 4.5 seconds out of first.

    In the women’s 6 x 1.3 k freestyle-sprint final, Russia’s Natalia Matveeva notched her second-straight victory, beating Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla and Sweden’s Hanna Falk down the finishing stretch after Falla led up and over the final climb. Matveeva finished in 18:00.9 for Russia I, teaming up with Yulia Belorukova for the win after a three-way photo finish for first. Sweden I’s Falk (who teamed up with Ida Ingemarsdotter) edged Falla by seven-hundreths of a second for second place (+0.04), and Norway I (Falla and Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen) placed third (+0.11).

    The U.S. women’s team, Sophie Caldwell and Kikkan Randall, reached the final and ended up 10th (+20.6), with Randall moving up from 14th at the final exchange.

    Final results: Men | Women

  • Sargent and Caldwell Fifth for U.S. in Planica Team Sprint; Newell and Hamilton DQed

    Sargent and Caldwell Fifth for U.S. in Planica Team Sprint; Newell and Hamilton DQed

    The start of the women's freestyle team sprint final, with (from left to right) American Ida Sargent, Slovenia Vesna Fabjan, Sweden's Ida Ingemarsdotter, Norway's Heidi Weng, Germany's Sandra Ringwald, Slovenia's Nika Razinger, Germany's Laura Gimmler, Sweden's Jonna Sundling, and Norway's Mari Eide at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    The start of the women’s freestyle team sprint final, with (from left to right) American Ida Sargent, Slovenia Vesna Fabjan, Sweden’s Ida Ingemarsdotter, Norway’s Heidi Weng, Germany’s Sandra Ringwald, Slovenia’s Nika Razinger, Germany’s Laura Gimmler, Sweden’s Jonna Sundling, and Norway’s Mari Eide at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    The team sprint is a unique beast that World Cup racers only get one or two shots in a season to tame. Despite strong skiing, the U.S. men’s and women’s team came up just short of being in podium contention in the 6 x 1.2-kilometer freestyle team sprint at Sunday’s World Cup in Planica, Slovenia.

    The format of the team sprint competition features two-skier teams who each race alternating legs of a sprint course. Each skier completes three legs and they must make contact with their teammate in the exchange zone between each leg. The Planica team sprints were held on the same fast, twisty and technically-challenging 1.2 k course as Saturday’s freestyle sprint.

    The format poses unique challenges for athletes as well as logistical challenge for the staff. For the athletes racing three separate legs, it is a challenge of measuring energy output to be ready for the decisive moves in the last lap. The technicians have their own race in between heats to work on skis.

    American Sophie Caldwell (c) and Sweden's Stina Nilsson (r) trail Germany's Hanna Kolb during the women's freestyle team sprint final at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    American Sophie Caldwell (c) and Sweden’s Stina Nilsson (r) trail Germany’s Hanna Kolb during the women’s freestyle team sprint final at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    “One of the challenges is we don’t get a chance to race this event very often,” head coach Chris Grover said on the phone after Sunday’s race, in which two of three U.S. teams qualified for the final. “We are doing the only team sprint out of 37 starts [this season], so it is a very rare format.

    “It is really fun for the athletes and the staff. It is so logistically intense in terms of ski prep,” he added. “It is a race to get the skis off the athletes’ feet, freshened up, and back on their feet.”

    Grover noted the course was shorter than typically used in team sprints (it took the men about 2 1/2 minutes and the women 2:45 to round each time on Sunday.

    “Because of that short window, it makes for an extremely hectic time for the techs,” he said. “But our techs did an awesome job and we had great skis.”

    The U.S. entered one women’s team (with most of its athletes taking the weekend off following the Tour de Ski); Ida Sargent and Sophie Caldwell teamed up to take fifth in the final, 20.57 seconds behind Sweden I, with Stina Nilsson and Ida Ingemarsdotter, who won the event in 16:14.08. Norway I (Heidi Weng/Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen) placed second (+3:51) and Germany I (Sandra Ringwald/Hanna Kolb) took third (+8.84).

    Ida Sargent (U.S. Ski Team) teamed up with Sophie Caldwell (not shown) to place fifth in the 6 x 1.2 k freestyle team sprint at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Madshus/NordicFocus)
    Ida Sargent (U.S. Ski Team) teamed up with Sophie Caldwell (not shown) to place fifth in the 6 x 1.2 k freestyle team sprint at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Madshus/NordicFocus)

    Sargent and Caldwell delivered a well-executed semifinal to automatically advance in second place behind Sweden I, the eventual winners. In the team sprint racing, the top two teams advance in both semifinals, in addition to six lucky loser qualifiers.

    “Ida learned from yesterday how to pace the course and made a great move at the end of her last leg and tagged off in first,” Grover said of the semifinal. “Sophie brought it in easily in second to advance.”

    In the final, the field broke apart during the third leg when Weng began pushing the pace. Sweden and Germany responded, but Sargent lost time on the leaders. By the final handoff, the U.S. had slipped several places to sixth, 13 seconds behind the leaders.

    At the final handoff, Sargent tagged Caldwell in sixth, 13 seconds behind the leaders, for the finishing charge. Caldwell was able to catch Norway II and hold off Germany II to secure fifth place, 20.57 seconds behind the Swedish winners.

    “Those top women’s teams just skied away. They [Sargent and Caldwell] actually skied great all day and did tactically what they wanted to do,” Grover said.

    “It ties my best-ever team sprint result and is my best ever with Sophie so it was a good day,” Sargent said on the phone. “The course was really hard with lots of climbing and fast technical downhills so there wasn’t much recovery and it was important to balance pushing the pace and conserving energy for later rounds.”

    Newell and Hamilton Miss the Tag

    Andy Newell (in white) rounds a corner with Germany's Thomas Bing (l), Italy's Dietmar Noeckler (r) during the World Cup men's freestyle team sprint final in Planica, Slovenia.
    Andy Newell (in white) rounds a corner with Germany’s Thomas Bing (l), Italy’s Dietmar Noeckler (r) during the World Cup men’s freestyle team sprint final in Planica, Slovenia.

    The men’s team of Andy Newell and Simi Hamilton made it to the final after advancing in fourth out of the first semifinal (behind the second teams for France, Russia and Norway, respectively). In the final, the Americans initially finished eighth, but were disqualified for missing a tag in the exchange zone.

    The men’s field remained tight throughout the final, making the exchange zone both challenging and game-changing.

    The U.S. men’s team ran into trouble when Hamilton entered a chaotic tag zone after his first leg for the second exchange.

    “It was basically unavoidable since the Norwegian, who was tagged right before I reached out to tag Andy, cut to the left and skied right between Andy and I, essentially creating a barrier,” Hamilton said on the phone. “We were tagging towards the end of the zone, so we didn’t have room to stop to ensure we made contact, even though both of us stretched as best we could.”

    They emerged out of second exchange in eighth, 2 seconds behind Norway II in the lead. One lap later, by the third exchange, they were 3.22 seconds back in ninth.

    Unsure whether the jury would rule an infraction, Newell and Hamilton continued to race. They finished eighth, less than six seconds off the podium. Italy I took the win with Dietmar Nöckler and Federico Pellegrino in 14:44.82, and France swept the remaining podium spots in second (+1.79) and third (+2.41), with Renaud Jay/Baptiste Gros and Valentin Chauvin/Richard Jouve, respectively. The first teams for Germany, Norway and Russia ended up fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively, and the top eight teams at the end of the day — not counting the Americans — all finished within nine seconds of one another.

    (From right to left) Italy's Dietmar Nöckler leads Norway II's Ola Vigen Hattestad, American Andy Newell, and Norway I's Anders Gløersen and a Russian in the men's freestyle team sprint final at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    (From right to left) Italy’s Dietmar Nöckler leads Norway II’s Ola Vigen Hattestad, American Andy Newell, and Norway I’s Anders Gløersen and a Russian in the men’s freestyle team sprint final at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    “It was disappointing for sure, but it was a good call by the jury,” Grover said. “Andy and Simi have done a lot of team sprints together and tags are such a critical part of the team sprint. Andy and Simi are usually some of the very best at maintaining speed and having really good tags in chaotic situations, but today they just missed it.”

    Reflecting on their semifinal, in which they advanced as lucky losers, Newell was pleased with how he balanced his energy.

    “I was able to stay up near the front with Norway, stay out of trouble, and put down a hard third lap tagging Simi in second,” Newell said on the phone. “In the final I don’t think we found the same rhythm, at least I hard a harder time feeling the line of hard versus too hard. We got bounced around a bit in the back and our tags weren’t as smooth as in the semi. It’s easy to waste energy even just trying to pick off a few places can take it out of you each lap when you are coming from the back.”

    Considering the circumstances, Hamilton was content with the day.

    “I felt good today, and my speed and shape are rebounding after getting sick during the Tour de Ski,” he said.

    “Team sprinting is one of the hardest race formats we have, but it super fun,” Hamilton added. “It combines the best of sprinting and distance racing I think, and I hope we see more of it, or events similar to it, in the future.”

    This was the first and only team sprint on the World Cup calendar this season.

    (Story continues below)

    (From left to right) Italy's Federico Pellegrino, American Simi Hamilton, Germany's Sebastian Eisenlauer, Russia's Alexey Petukhov, and Dusan Kozisek of the Czech Republic during the men's freestyle team sprint final at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    (From left to right) Italy’s Federico Pellegrino, American Simi Hamilton, Germany’s Sebastian Eisenlauer, Russia’s Alexey Petukhov, and Dusan Kozisek of the Czech Republic during the men’s freestyle team sprint final at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    Also competing for the U.S. was the second men’s team of Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess and Reese Hanneman. They finished 12th in the same semifinal as Newell and Hamilton, 51.08 seconds behind France II (Chauvin and Jouve) as the winner of that heat. Blackhorse-von Jess and Hanneman did not advance and ended up 23rd overall.

    “For Dakota and I, it was just a chance to get right in the big pack of the fastest guys in the world and see what we could do,” Hanneman wrote in an email. “No amount of preparation could really prepare you for the chaos that happens at breakneck speed out there.”

    “I think they were both left wanting more,” Grover said. “They are going to need some time in Europe to get get acclimated some good training and racing and hopefully come into their top form.”

    The weekend following the Tour de Ski can be rough on teams and the U.S. team is feeling the effects.

    “It was a little bit of a flat weekend overall for us,” Grover observed. “We are certainly feeling the effects of post-Tour de Ski fatigue, both physical and mental, and we have a bit of illness going around the team so all of these things added up to take our edge off a bit, but I think we’ll be back by next weekend.”

    ‘Good save Canada!’

    Four Canadian teams raced Sunday, but none advanced out of the semifinals. Canada’s second women’s team, with Cendrine Browne and Emily Nishikawa, placed eighth in the second women’s semifinal, 55.64 seconds behind Sweden I as the winners of that heat, for 15th overall.

    Emily Nishikawa teamed up with Cendrine Browne (not shown) to represent Canada II in the women's World Cup freestyle team sprint on Sunday in Planica, Slovenia. They placed eighth in the semifinal for 15th overall. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    Emily Nishikawa (above) teamed up with Cendrine Browne (not shown) to represent Canada II in the women’s World Cup freestyle team sprint on Sunday in Planica, Slovenia. They placed eighth in the semifinal for 15th overall. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    In that same semi, Canada I, with Maya MacIsaac-Jones and Dahria Beatty, finished 10th (+1:06.39) for 19th overall.

    “I focussed on staying with the pack as long as possible,” Browne, Canada II’s first starter, recalled in an email. “I managed to stay with them on the first lap but on my second lap, we were already a couple seconds back.

    “The down hills are pretty sketchy … I almost fell today but catched myself at the last second!” she added. “The jury even told me: Good save Canada!”

    “The women fought hard, but it will take some more racing at that level to get used to the speed,” Alberta World Cup Academy head coach Chris Jeffries, who’s leading the Canadian team in Slovenia, said in a Cross Country Canada press release. “These World Cups are definitely focused on development, and hopefully they will take some really good lessons to their training in preparation for the Ski Tour Canada races in March and the coming years.”

    Both Canadian men’s teams squared off in the second semifinal, with Knute Johnsgaard and Len Valjas placing ninth for Canada I (+13.23) for 16th overall, and Jess Cockney and Andy Shields finishing 12th for Canada II (+23.85) for 22nd overall.

    Results: 

    Women: Semifinals | Final

    Men: Semifinals | Final

  • Nilsson, Pellegrino Anchor Team Sprint Victories, Complete Slovenian World Cup Sweep

    Nilsson, Pellegrino Anchor Team Sprint Victories, Complete Slovenian World Cup Sweep

    Stina Nilsson on her way to securing the win for Sweden, with teammate Ida Ingemarsdotter (not shown), in the women's freestyle team sprint at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    Stina Nilsson smiles as she secures the win for Sweden with teammate Ida Ingemarsdotter (not shown) in the women’s freestyle team sprint final at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia. She beat Norway’s Astrid Jacobsen (behind) for the victory. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    Groundhog Day. That was the feel of Sunday’s 6 x 1.2-kilometer freestyle team sprints at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia, a day after Sweden’s Stina Nilsson and Italy’s Federico Pellegrino won the individual freestyle sprints on the same one-lap 1.2 k course.

    The women’s team sprint came down to the final climb on the last leg — just like in the last round of the individual women’s sprint on Saturday. Trailing a Norwegian on the last descent and into the base of the climb back up to the stadium (yesterday it was Ingvild Flugstad Østberg; today it was Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen), Nilsson carried her speed to pull up alongside and blow past the Norwegian, leading by the top.

    Look familiar? That's because it is. Sweden's Stina Nilsson notched her second-straight victory of the World Cup weekend in Planica, Slovenia, on Sunday, anchoring Sweden I to the freestyle team sprint win. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    Look familiar? That’s because it is. Sweden’s Stina Nilsson notched her second-straight victory of the World Cup weekend in Planica, Slovenia, on Sunday, anchoring Sweden I to the freestyle team sprint win. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    The 22-year-old Nilsson, both U23 and Sprint World Cup leader, continued to accelerate in the last 200 hundred meters to the finish, winning in 3.51 seconds for her second victory of the weekend. Nilsson shared it with Ida Ingemarsdotter, 30, teammates on Sweden’s first team (noted as Sweden I).

    “We had a great day as a team. You could say we are a good couple,” Nilsson told FIS after the race. “Ida did a great work. In the final lap I was in a good position and I could ski as I wanted. I am very satisfied with the weekend in Planica.”

    After sharing the podium with Nilsson on Saturday, Heidi Weng and Jacobsen teamed up for Norway I and finished second after leading at every exchange, just ahead of the Swedes. Nilsson and Ingemarsdotter had won their semifinal (ahead of Americans Ida Sargent and Sophie Caldwell in second) to automatically advance to the final, and Weng and Jacobsen won the other semifinal.

    “This is better than third, but not good enough tactically to win,” Jacobsen told VG after the final, according to a translation. “Towards the end Stina had a gear that I had not.”

    After nine of 10 teams skied within four seconds of the lead through the first two exchanges, Weng picked up the tempo on her second leg (third overall), and Ingemarsdotter and Germany’s I’s Sandra Ringwald stuck closest to her. Meanwhile, Sweden II slipped about 1.5 seconds off the pace in fourth, while the U.S., with Ida Sargent and Sophie Caldwell, skied in fifth (+4.46) at the third exchange — the halfway point.

    One lap later, Jacobsen and Nilsson remained close, about half a second ahead of Sweden II’s Hanna Falk in third. Germany’s I’s Hanna Kolb came through the exchange a second later in fourth. By the final exchange, Weng and Ingemarsdotter had gapped Germany’s Ringwald, skiing in third, by 2 1/2 seconds.

    “I knew Weng would run hard, especially in the second and third lap and am happy that I could latch on to and give Stina a good position,” Ingemarsdotter told Dagens Nyheter, according to a translation.

    “Ida made it perfect. I just got the position I wanted,” Nilsson said.

    Germany’s first team hung onto third and secured third, 8.84 seconds behind Sweden and 5.33 seconds behind Norway, for their first podium in almost two years.

    “My attack came maybe a little too early, but it was the plan, and maybe that didn’t totally work out because I folded a little in the end,” Ringwald told German TV broadcaster ZDF. “But the three of us were able to create a gap, and so we are satisfied with the third place.”

    “I am really relieved, because we knew we had a gigantic chance today and that we had to grasp it,” Kolb said. “Just a great feeling.”

    Last season, Nilsson and Ingemarsdotter won the only team sprint on the schedule — also freestyle technique — in Otepää, Estonia. There, they beat Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla and Østberg by 0.85 seconds, and Poland’s Justyna Kowalczyk and Sylwia Jaskowiec finished 0.95 seconds back in third.

    Falla and Østberg rested on Sunday, while Mari Eide and Kathrine Rolsted Harsem represented Norway II. Fourth through seventh were separated by 2.77 seconds, with Falk (Sweden II) leading the chase group in for fourth (+18.24), followed by Caldwell in fifth (+20.57).

    Germany II’s Lucia Anger edged Harsem in a photo finish for sixth by 0.01 seconds, 21 seconds behind the winners. Two Slovenian teams reached the final, placing eighth (+47.24) and 10th (+2:42.12), while Italy finished ninth (+55.98).

    (Story continues below)

    The men's freestyle team sprint podium at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia: with Italian winners Federico Pellegrino and Dietmar Nöckler (c), France I's Renaud Jay and Baptiste Gros (l) in second, and France II's Valentin Chauvin and Richard Jouve (r) in third. Yes, Gros is holding a chainsaw -- a noisemaker borrowed from spectators. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    The men’s freestyle team sprint podium at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia: with Italian winners Federico Pellegrino and Dietmar Nöckler (c), France I’s Renaud Jay and Baptiste Gros (l) in second, and France II’s Richard Jouve, age 21, and Valentin Chauvin, age 20, (r) in third. Yes, Gros is holding a chainsaw — a chain-free noisemaker borrowed from spectators. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    Italy, France, France 

    Minutes after the women’s final, the men’s final played out to produce the identical winner to Saturday’s sprint — Italy’s Federico Pellegrino — who essentially pulled off the same move as Nilsson, not long after she anchored the Swedish women to the win in 16:14.08. Pellegrino anchored Italy’s first team (with teammate Dietmar Nöckler) to the win in 14:44.82.

    In yet another repeat, France occupied the remaining spots on the podium in the men’s race. Renaud Jay of France’s first team led five frontrunners into the exchange zone for the last time, with France I, Germany I, Italy I, Russia I, and Norway I all within a second of one another.

    On the next lap, Jay’s teammate Baptiste Gros set a blistering pace and Pellegrino chased him up the longest climb on the course. There, they began to break away from Germany and France’s second team, and Gros continued to lead up the final ascent.

    On that climb, Pellegrino pulled a “Nilsson,” so to speak, as he carried his momentum from the downhill draft to pass Gros before the top. The 25-year-old Pellegrino, who became Italy’s winningest Italian male skier of all time on Saturday with his seventh individual World Cup win, added another victory to his resume as he skated away toward the finish, looking back a few strides before and winning in 1.79 seconds.

    (From right to left) Italy's Dietmar Nöckler leads Norway II's Ola Vigen Hattestad, American Andy Newell, and Norway I's Anders Gløersen and a Russian in the men's freestyle team sprint final at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    (From right to left) Italy’s Dietmar Nöckler leads Norway II’s Ola Vigen Hattestad, American Andy Newell, and Norway I’s Anders Gløersen and a Russian in the men’s freestyle team sprint final at the World Cup in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    France I’s Jay and Gros place second, and France II, with 20-year-old Valentin Chauvin and Richard Jouve, 21, held off Germany for third (+2.41).

    Germany I, with Thomas Bing and Sebastian Eisenlauer, notched fourth (+2.93). Norway missed the podium for the second-straight men’s race with Norway I’s Anders Gløersen and Eirik Brandsdal in fifth (+4.51) and Norway II’s Ola Vigen Hattestad and Pål Golberg in seventh (+7.66), behind Russia’s Gleb Retivykh and Alexey Petukhov in sixth (+6.46).

    Americans Andy Newell and Simi Hamilton crossed the finish line in eighth, but were disqualified for missing the tag in the zone on the second exchange.

    Early in the race, Gløersen led though the first exchange to give Norway I an early lead, but they slipped to sixth with Brandsdal on the next leg, 1.3 seconds behind Norway II in first. Hattestad had brought Norway II into the lead, and by the fourth exchange, his teammate Golberg remained third, within half a second of Pellegrino and Gros. One lap later, Norway I and II came through the last exchange in fifth and sixth, 1 and 2 seconds out, respectively.

    Norwegian commentators were quick to call Sunday’s final another instance of the Norwegians being “outclassed,” pointing out that six Norwegians occupy the top seven in the men’s overall World Cup standings. In the sprint standings, Pellegrino leads Norway’s Sondre Turvoll Fossli by nearly 200 points. Finn Hågen Krogh ranks fourth and Petter Northug is the third Norwegian in the top six.

    Italian teammates Federico Pellegrino (l) and Dietmar Nöckler after winning Sunday's World Cup freestyle team sprint in Planica, Slovenia.
    Italian teammates Federico Pellegrino (l) and Dietmar Nöckler after winning Sunday’s World Cup freestyle team sprint in Planica, Slovenia.

    “I realized a dream I had at a very young age,” Pellegrino told Italy’s La Gazzetta after Sunday’s win, according to translation. It was apparently Italy’s first team-sprint win since the women won in 2010 in Düsseldorf, Germany.

    “In my early years of the World Cup, one of my first trips to the World Cup was in Düsseldorf, where they scheduled just a sprint and team sprint,” he added. “Seeing champions such [Italy’s Arianna] Follis and [Norway’s] Hattestad that could make a perfect weekend lit my imagination. I wondered if I could ever do it.”

    For Nöckler, 27, it was his first World Cup win.

    “I did not feel that good in the semifinal,” he told FIS after he and Pellegrino qualified second behind France’s Jay and Gros. France II won the other semifinal.

    “I knew Federico is the best finisher in the world,” Nöckler added. “I tried to work hard to prepare a good position for him. We have won five Italian national championships together. It is great to win the World Cup.”

    At 2015 Word Championships, Nöckler and Pellegrino earned bronze in the freestyle team sprint (behind Norway and Russia, respectively).

    France’s Jay was thrilled to be on the podium after placing fourth on Saturday.

    “I knew Baptiste was very strong today,” Jay told FIS. “I wanted to gain some meters before the last exchange so that Baptiste has advantage on Pellegrino, but Federico was too strong.”

    For Chauvin, the weekend marked his first on the World Cup.

    “It is just amazing,” he said of Sunday’s podium. “It is fantastic I could be on the podium with my friends. The whole team did great here during the whole weekend.”

    Results: 

    Women: Semifinals | Final

    Men: Semifinals | Final

  • Valjas 5/100ths of a Second from Qualifying; MacIsaac-Jones Also 31st, Beatty 32nd for Canada

    Valjas 5/100ths of a Second from Qualifying; MacIsaac-Jones Also 31st, Beatty 32nd for Canada

    Len Valjas (Canadian World Cup Team) racing to 31st for the third time this season in a World Cup freestyle sprint. He was 0.05 seconds outside of the top 30 needed to make the heats in Saturday's sprint in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    Len Valjas (Canadian World Cup Team) racing to 31st for the third time this season in a World Cup freestyle sprint. He was 0.05 seconds outside of the top 30 needed to make the heats in Saturday’s sprint in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    Hundredths of a second continue to haunt Len Valjas. For the third time this season, the Canadian World Cup Team skier missed out on the top 30 needed to qualify for the World Cup heats in Saturday’s 1.2-kilometer freestyle sprint in Planica, Slovenia.

    In three out of four skate sprints this season, Valjas, 27, has finished 31st. On Saturday, his qualifying time was 0.05 seconds behind 30th. At the last skate sprint in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, he was just 0.01 seconds out of qualifying, and in December in Davos, Switzerland, he was 0.04 seconds off the mark. Add all those times up and Valjas is left with one-tenth of a second separating him from World Cup points in a combined three races.

    “I’m pretty disappointed to finish 31st for the 3rd time this season in skate sprints,” Valjas wrote in an email on Saturday after finishing 5.64 seconds off the top qualifying time set by Federico Pellegrino of Italy. Pellegrino went on to win the men’s final.

    “There is nothing more frustrating because you know that you are in good shape and your day is being decided by a fraction of a second,” Valjas added.

    Len Valjas (Canadian World Cup Team) racing to 31st for the third time this season in a World Cup freestyle sprint. He was 0.05 seconds outside of the top 30 needed to make the heats in Saturday's sprint in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    Len Valjas on his way to 31st in Saturday’s World Cup 1.2 k freestyle sprint qualifier in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    Just over a week ago on Jan. 8, he raced in an OPA Cup skate sprint on the same course in Planica. He qualified in 19th and went on to place 10th.

    While the goal had been to preview the course in advance “and try to get into the rounds this week,” according to Canadian Head Coach Justin Wadsworth, “He did say last week that this just wan’t the course for him, not his style.”

    Wadsworth was reached by phone Saturday morning while in Vancouver, British Columbia. He said Valjas reported the course required a lot of grinding one skate, or V2, which didn’t necessarily suit his strengths. Regardless, they discussed how he needed to finish.

    “I tell him every time, ‘You need to throw the biggest lunge in at qualifying … that’s one-tenth of a second,’ ” Wadsworth said.

    After Saturday’s race, Valjas explained that he “felt really good,” he wrote. “I know I would have had some fun in the heats. I’ve missed out on valuable points and it’s not an awesome feeling.”

    MacIsaac-Jones, Beatty Close to Top 30

    In the women’s 1.2 k qualifier, Canada had two just outside the top 30 with Maya MacIsaac-Jones (Rocky Mountain Racers) in 31st (+0.31) and Dahria Beatty in 32nd (+0.84). For both MacIsaac-Jones, of Rocky Mountain Racers, and Beatty, 21, of the Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA), Saturday marked their individual career bests in their first World Cup of the season.

    Canada's Maya MacIsaac-Jones (Rocky Mountain Racers) in her first international World Cup start on Saturday, racing to a career-best 31st in the women's 1.2 k freestyle sprint in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Cross Country Canada/NordicFocus)
    Canada’s Maya MacIsaac-Jones (Rocky Mountain Racers) in her first international World Cup start on Saturday, racing to a career-best 31st in the women’s 1.2 k freestyle sprint in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Cross Country Canada/NordicFocus)

    For MacIsaac-Jones, 20, it was her first international World Cup after competing in Canada’s World Cups in December 2012.

    “It felt great to be racing in a World Cup again,” MacIsaac-Jones wrote in an email. “This race felt different than the Canmore World Cup because in 2012, I was competing in World Cups purely to have fun and learn from the experience. While the same can be said, in a sense, about today’s race, I started today with much higher expectations of myself.”

    At the Planica OPA Cup sprint last week, she qualified in 28th and went on to place 20th. That race gave her confidence, she explained, “knowing that I could pace myself well and race the course efficiently. The snow today was a bit colder and more hard-packed than last weekend, which was great for me because it is the kind of snow I train on all the time in Canmore.”

    “I was both shocked and very excited to finish 31st!” MacIsaac-Jones added. “Although I would have loved to race in the heats, my result today gives me confidence and belief in myself that I am capable of top-30 results on the World Cup circuit. It was a strong day for Canadian women, and hopefully Cross Country Canada will continue to bring more women on the World Cup circuit so that we have the opportunity to chase down some World Cup points.”

    According to Wadsworth, all five women on the Canada’s current World Cup roster — MacIsaac-Jones, Beatty, Emily Nishikawa (who notched a sprint career best in 39th), Cendrine Browne (42nd), and Katherine Stewart-Jones (54th) — will continue onto the Nove Mesto World Cup in the Czech Republic next weekend. Valjas wrote that he will skip Nove Mesto to take “a short break” before the classic sprints in Drammen, Norway, and Stockholm, Sweden, in early February.

    “It’s a great start, it’s exciting and that’s why we have them over [there],” Wadsworth said of two Canadian women coming so close to the points. “Stepping up on your first [World Cup] in Europe and being so close to qualifying is really what our program needs right now.”

    For Beatty, a U23 Development Team member, this was her second European World Cup since placing 65th in the freestyle sprint last season in Lahti, Finland. At the OPA Cup last weekend, she qualified in 17th and placed 18th overall.

    “I felt like I was climbing well today, but I didn’t take the last downhill corner very well and stumbled a little over the final bump into the stadium,” Beatty wrote on Saturday. “Coming into the finish I knew it was a better qualifier than last weekend and was hoping it would put me in the top 40.

    “When I crossed the line in 31st and then later ended up 32nd I was extremely happy with the result but it was also a tiny bit bitter sweet,” she added. “When you are so close to the heats you always think about the little things that could have gotten me those 0.83 seconds. Overall it was a really good day and definitely my best qualifier of the year to date…”

    On Sunday, she’ll start the team sprint with MacIsaac-Jones. AWCA Head Coach Chris Jeffries is leading the team in Slovenia, and in an email, he explained how he selected Canada’s lineup for the freestyle team sprint.

    “To be honest, I kept it pretty simple with the team selections and based it completely on the results from the sprint today,” Jeffries wrote. “I kept the [OPA Cup] distance racing from last week in mind as well, but the results from today fell in line with the results at the OPA last weekend, so it made for a pretty easy decision without possible questions.”

    MacIsaac-Jones and Beatty will make up one women’s team (“Canada I”), and Browne and Nishikawa will make up the other (“Canada II”). Both teams will start in the second semifinal.

    “The only asterisk is Emily, since she is our female distance leader on the team and had the strongest results last week in all 3 races, despite being 3rd best today,” Jeffries continued. “But I’m really happy with Cendrine’s fitness right now, especially after her 9th place in the [OPA Cup] skate 10k last weekend. I feel as though both teams are quite even in strength, and after today’s results, am really excited to watch the girls fight it out heads up with the other teams.”

    Nishikawa’s Career-Best Sprint

    Emily Nishikawa (Canadian Senior Development Team) racing to a career-best World Cup sprint result of 39th in the 1.2 k freestyle sprint in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    Emily Nishikawa (Canadian Senior Development Team) racing to a career-best World Cup sprint result of 39th in the 1.2 k freestyle sprint in Planica, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    For Nishikawa, of Canada’s Senior Development Team, 39th was her best World Cup sprint result since placing 48th in the skate sprint at the Canmore World Cup in 2012. A week ago, she finished fourth in the OPA Cup sprint final — her first skate sprint of the season.

    “I was happy with my race, and it was nice to have my best ever world cup sprint result,” Nishikawa, 26, wrote Saturday. “I’m still trying to figure out sprint qualifying, but I’m happy with how my fitness, speed and power have come along in the past year. It was way harder and faster today than it was a week ago in the OPA race, but it was really fun racing today.  Especially exciting seeing some great results from my teammates Maya and Dahria.”

    Joining Valjas in the men’s sprint, Knute Johnsgaard (AWCA/U23+ Development Team) finished 54th, Andy Shields (Thunder Bay National Development Centre) was 56th, and Jess Cockney (Senior Development Team) was 61st on Saturday.

    For Johnsgaard and Shields, it was their first international World Cup. For Cockney, it was his fourth World Cup sprint of the season and fourth time outside the top 60.

    “I’ve been feeling slow this season and I’ve found it hard to dig into my fitness and really push through the race days and today was very similar to how I’ve felt all year,” Cockney wrote in an email. “My goals going into these races has been to find that ability to push again and I’m disappointed I haven’t made it happen yet.

    “In general I’ve been really unhappy with my sprinting,” he added. “I’ve worked hard all training season and prepared well in the winter and it’s for sure been the most disappointing season I’ve ever had.”

    On Tuesday, the 26-year-old Cockney will head home to Canmore, which he explained he was “thrilled about” since he hasn’t been home more than three weeks since early July.

    “I’ll focus on bringing my fitness back and try to get some volume training back home and doing some different types of intensities hoping to find that consistency that I’ve been missing,” he wrote. “I won’t compete in any world cups before the Ski Tour Canada but I don’t even think I have a spot in that tour with the level I’ve been skiing lately, hopefully I can show more fitness racing the NorAms in MSA [Mont Sainte-Anne] and Easterns.”

    On Sunday, Johnsgaard and Valjas will team up as Canada I, and Cockney and Shields as Canada II.

    “Len is our best sprinter, and Knute has had the strongest results in both sprint and distance, so that pairing was straightforward,” Jeffries explained.

    “I am fired up to race tomorrow in the team sprint,” Valjas wrote. “Hopefully get some payback for today’s disappointment!”

    Results: Women | Men

     

  • For Krogh and Northug, Team-Sprint Gold Strictly Business in Falun

    Petter Northug (c) celebrates Norway's freestyle team-sprint gold, which he won with teammate Finn Hågen Krogh on Sunday for his second title of 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
    Petter Northug (c) celebrates Norway’s freestyle team-sprint gold, which he won with teammate Finn Hågen Krogh on Sunday for his second title of 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)

    FasterSkier’s coverage of the 2015 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Falun, Sweden, is brought to you by the generous support of L.L. Bean, now featuring a complete line of Kikkan Randall training wear.

    FALUN, Sweden — Why waste time when you can get the job done? That was Petter Northug’s mentality on his second of three laps in the men’s 6 x 1.4-kilometer freestyle team sprint at 2015 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships on Sunday.

    Already on a roll with one gold in the World Championships classic sprint three days earlier, Northug was on a quest for another in the only event he had yet to win at worlds: the team sprint.

    With Norwegian teammate Finn Hågen Krogh, the two built an early lead in the final, and Krogh kept them in first on his second lap, handing off to Northug 2.79 seconds ahead of Sweden in second. Soon after, Northug attacked on the longest of the course’s two steep climbs, leaving Sweden’s Teodor Peterson behind.

    “In the final, I looked for things to do pretty early,” Northug said in a press conference. “We thought that Sweden wanted high speed in the final when they put Calle [Halfvarsson] on the first leg. I was prepared to fight with [Peterson] on the last leg, but he was sitting on the bike when we were skiing fast.”

    As Northug warmed up into his accelerated pace, Russia’s Nikita Kriukov led the chase, heading out six seconds after him. Teammate Alexey Petukhov had tagged him in third, just ahead of Italy and about two seconds in front of France and Germany, and Kriukov proceeded to lead Italy’s Federico Pellegrino and Germany’s Tim Tscharnke in pursuit of Peterson.

    They caught the Swede on the second uphill, and the four descended into the stadium and second-to-last exchange together, led by Peterson about eight seconds after Northug.

    One lap later, Krogh had increased Norway’s first-place cushion to nearly 16 seconds, while Italy’s Dietmar Nöckler and Halfvarsson raced behind him in second and third, respectively, up the first climb.

    On the second uphill, Russia’s Petukhov was back in contact with the chase group, along with Germany’s Thomas Bing, Finland’s Ville Nousiainen, France’s Robin Duvillard, and the Czech Republic’s Ales Razym. Another five seconds back, American Andy Newell led a second group in ninth.

    Krogh cruised into the final exchange in first, while Bing led the seven-man pack through 15.68 seconds later.

    “Petter didn’t leave me much choice,” Krogh said in the conference about the lead. “When I saw he had the gap, I only had one thing on my mind, it was go hard the rest of the race.”

    From there, Northug went through the motions, skiing the third-slowest anchor leg and looking back before the last rise in the stadium to see if anyone was charging from behind.

    Nope.

    The 2015 World Championships freestyle team sprint podium, with Norway (c) as the winners (Finn Hågen Krogh/Petter Northug), Russia (r) in second (Nikita Kriukov/Alexey Petukhov), and Italy (l) in third (Federico Pellegrino/Dietmar Nöckler). (Photo: FIS/Twitter)
    The 2015 World Championships freestyle team sprint podium, with Norway (c) as the winners (Finn Hågen Krogh/Petter Northug), Russia (r) in second (Nikita Kriukov/Alexey Petukhov), and Italy (l) in third (Federico Pellegrino/Dietmar Nöckler). (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)

    On that same stadium hill several seconds later, Kriukov attacked one last time to move into second ahead of Tscharnke and Pellegrino. He left both of them behind, securing silver for Russia, 5.64 seconds after Northug and nine-hundredths of a second ahead of Pellegrino, who claimed bronze for Italy.

    “We lost only five seconds to Petter, but while we was [waving] the flag and drinking coffee, what can you say,” Kriukov said through a translator in the press conference. “The Norwegians were the best. We are really happy for them.”

    The defending world champions in the 2013 freestyle team sprint in Val di Fiemme, Italy, Kriukov and Petukhov were also pleased with themselves.

    “I’m happy today,” Petukhov said in the conference through a translator. “Because this silver medal, I have to work hard for it, but of course if you win the race, then you are even higher above, but still I am very happy.”

    Tscharnke was 0.38 seconds short of the podium in fourth, which was Germany’s second wooden medal of the day after Nicole Fessel and Denise Herrmann placed fourth in the women’s team sprint.

    Finland’s Martti Jylhä finished another 7.55 seconds back in fifth, 13.66 seconds after Northug, and the Czech Republic placed sixth with Dusan Kozisek coming through 16.73 seconds after the winners.

    While Simi Hamilton skied the fourth-fastest anchor leg for the U.S., the Americans placed seventh (+17.48) ahead of Poland in ninth (+26.46), Sweden in 10th (+47.43) and France in 10th (+1:01.04).

    Petukhov inadvertently took out Sweden — the silver medalists in the 2013 World Championships team sprint — when he came into the last exchange with such high speed that he fell and broke Peterson’s pole as Peterson was about to start on his last lap.

    “I could not have done anything differently; I went to Teodor and apologized from the bottom of my heart,” Petukhov told Aftonbladet, according to a translation. “I cannot speak English so I do not know what he said, but I think we understood each other.”

    “He arrived and apologized. There is no evil in him, but he knows he did wrong,” Peterson told Aftonbladet.

    After breaking a pole in Saturday’s skiathlon, in which he placed sixth, Halfvarsson called the bad luck “just crap.”

    “Why is this happening? I broke a pole yesterday and now we break a pole on the last lap. It is pure bad luck,” he said to Aftonbladet.

    France also fell out of contention in the men’s final, after Duvillard had skied up to fifth at the halfway point behind Krogh. One lap later, they were still in the mix with Baptiste Gros in sixth, and Duvillard tagged them in seventh for the last lap, which was where they ran into trouble.

    Coming down the last descent into the stadium, Gros crashed suddenly at the bottom; his ski popped off and he sprawled out on the ground for several moments. He ended up finishing, nearly 14 seconds after Sweden.

    Earlier in the afternoon, France placed second to Italy in the first semifinal, one-hundredth of a second ahead of Sweden in third. While Italy and France automatically advanced, Sweden ended up moving on as well as one of the six-fastest lucky loser times among 28 teams. Finland and the Czech Republic also ended up advancing out of that semifinal.

    Norway won the second, slower semifinal after Northug set the pace for that heat on his second lap and forced everyone else to contend for a top-two finish to guarantee a spot in the final. Russia placed second in that heat, ahead of the U.S., which also advanced in third, and Germany and Poland made the final as well.

    Kazakhstan, which took bronze in the 2013 World Championships team sprint, did not advance to the final and placed 18th overall. Norway didn’t reach the team-sprint final in Val di Fiemme, where Pål Golberg and Northug finished 11th.

    “We had a really bad team sprint in Val di Fiemme and also in Oslo [in 2011 where] we lost the team sprint in the last meters to Canada,” he said in the press conference. “So it feels really good to win the World Championships in a team sprint — it’s good to have checked off all the distances.”

    With three races to go and 11 World Championships golds to his name, he’s still looking for more.

    “I milk [my] base for all its worth,” he told NRK, referring to his altitude training before and after Norwegian nationals late last month. “That makes racing really fun, and I’m planning on riding that flow the coming week as well.”

    Results

  • Cockney, Valjas Miss Falun Team-Sprint Final by Just Over a Second for 13th

    Norway's Petter Northug (l) leads Ales Razym of the Czech Republic (second from l), Canada's Lenny Valjas (third from l), Poland's Maciej Starega (6), American Simi Hamilton (5), and Kazakhstan's Nikolay Chebotko (r), among others, in the freestyle team-sprint semifinal at 2015 World Championships on Sunday in Falun, Sweden. Norway went on to win the heat, the U.S. was third, and Canada placed seventh. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
    Norway’s Petter Northug (l) leads the Czech Republic’s Ales Razym (second from l), Canada’s Lenny Valjas (third from l), Poland’s Maciej Starega (6), American Simi Hamilton (5), and Kazakhstan’s Nikolay Chebotko (r), among others, in the freestyle team-sprint semifinal at 2015 World Championships on Sunday in Falun, Sweden. Norway went on to win the heat, the U.S. was third, and Canada placed seventh. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)

    FasterSkier’s coverage of the 2015 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Falun, Sweden, is brought to you by the generous support of L.L. Bean, now featuring a complete line of Kikkan Randall training wear.

    FALUN, Sweden — Canada’s Jess Cockney and Lenny Valjas could see exactly where they needed to be in the men’s 6 x 1.4-kilometer team sprint on Sunday, they just couldn’t quite get there before the finish.

    That was the difference between the pace during something like a World Cup, where they placed eighth in the freestyle team-sprint final last month in Otepää, Estonia, and the Nordic World Ski Championships.

    “We tried to stay, obviously, in the group, in the front of the group if possible,” Valjas said after Sunday’s race, in which the Canadian men missed advancing to the final after placing seventh in their semifinal for 13th overall.

    “The first couple of laps [we were focused on] just spending as little energy as possible, and then on the last laps give everything we had and stay out of trouble,” he added. “Everything worked to plan, it was just we were a little bit too far back, a second or two.”

    In his first World Championships, Cockney, 25, skied them into fifth on his first of three laps in the second semifinal. Valjas then slipped to eighth, where they remained for the next two laps.

    With Petter Northug, who anchored Norway to the semifinal and ultimately the final win on Sunday, leading up front, the pace slowed significantly on the semifinal’s fourth lap. Despite Valjas posting the fastest course time of anyone on that lap, he tagged Cockney in the same position in eighth.

    The fact that the race was slowing wasn’t necessarily good for the Canadians, which regained contact on that lap but struggled to pick off the places. In order to guarantee themselves a spot in the finals, they needed to finish in the top two. Beyond that, the six fastest teams between the two semifinals move on. Since the first heat was faster, that didn’t leave teams outside the top two with much hope in the second semifinal.

    “You can hear in the stadium, they were saying this heat is six seconds slower than the first heat, so you start to think,” Valjas recalled. “You got to be ready to go. You know that the heat can go six seconds faster, so just being in a spot to react when it does get faster.”

    On Cockney’s final lap, he rose to fifth once again — behind Russia, Norway, Germany, and the U.S. — with the third-fastest time on that leg. From there, Valjas dropped two places to finish seventh, 2.27 seconds behind the Norwegian winners and 1.24 seconds away from a lucky loser spot. Norway and Russia advanced out of their heat in first and second, as did the U.S. in third, Poland in fourth and Germany in fifth. Belarus did not qualify in sixth (+2:07).

    The first semifinal was about nine seconds faster than the second, with Italy winning it in 15:34.02. Norway won the second heat in 15:43.06.

    “We were hoping to ski ourselves into the final, for sure, and fight for the top two, top four spots in the heat, so that’s where we thought we would be,” Cockney said.

    “I just wish I was with that group of four in the front,” Valjas added. “I was a second and a bit behind them; there’s no coming back from that. When you are that far back, there’s no draft, you’re kind of stuck.”

    Overall, the two explained they felt better than they had earlier in the week and earlier this season.

    “It felt better today, for sure, than the classic sprint,” Cockney said. He was 49th in the classic sprint at World Championships three days ago. “I think my skate skiing is decent right now. I don’t think I’m in 100-percent top shape. I think I was pretty good at the start of the year, before Christmas, just trying to find that shape again. Still have a little bit of racing here to do.”

    In the same sprint, Valjas placed 14th.

    “I’m feeling better — first half of the year, it was tough,” Valjas said. “Made some changes with intensity, and I feel much better. … We have one more [race], hopefully the relay, if I get selected, so gotta just keep getting the fitness better. It’s coming, it’s going in the right direction.”

    Canadian National Team Head Coach Justin Wadsworth called it a “good effort. I think they skied pretty smart,” he said.

    “They just weren’t quite there at the end,” he said. “If they both could of just made a spot each on the big uphill there, I think it would have put them in a little bit better contention for the final sprint.

    “This is a really fast finish, especially when the conditions are like this and the skis are running fast, it is hard to pass a lot of people,” Wadsworth added. “You’re trying to get around from eighth to fourth. I was trying to yell at them that they needed to be top four from the times we were seeing, but they were just trying to stay the pace.”

    The Canadian women did not field a team sprint, as two out of three women on its World Championships team (Emily Nishikawa and Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt) planned to arrive in Falun on Sunday after recovering from illness in Östersund, Sweden.

    Results

  • No Bjørgen? No Problem as Norway’s Østberg, Falla Take World Champs Team Sprint Title

    Ingvild Flugstad Østberg awaits her longtime friend and Norwegian teammate Maiken Caspersen Falla at the finish of the women's 6 x 1.2 k classic sprint on Sunday at 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden. The two took gold by more than eight seconds over Sweden. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
    Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (in red bib) awaits her longtime friend and Norwegian teammate Maiken Caspersen Falla at the finish of the women’s 6 x 1.2 k classic sprint on Sunday at 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden. The two took gold by more than eight seconds over Sweden. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)

    FasterSkier’s coverage of the 2015 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Falun, Sweden, is brought to you by the generous support of L.L. Bean, now featuring a complete line of Kikkan Randall training wear.

    FALUN, Sweden — With Marit Bjørgen out of the freestyle team sprint on Sunday after what she considered a disappointing sixth-place finish in Saturday’s skiathlon at 2015 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships, that left someone to step up in her absence.

    The Norwegian national-team staff decided one of their best bets was Ingvild Flugstad Østberg, a longtime friend of their other athlete in the race, Maiken Caspersen Falla.

    Teammates for the last decade, the two wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

    “If there is anyone who makes me better, it’s Ingvild,” Falla, the 2014 Olympic classic-sprint champion told NRK, according to a translation, after Sunday’s race.

    “We’ve known each other a long time and push each other on countless sessions,” Østberg added.

    Both 24, the two are nearly three months apart in age, with Falla being the elder. Partners in the World Cup freestyle team sprint last month in Otepää, Estonia, Falla and Østberg placed second, 0.85 seconds behind Sweden’s Ida Ingemarsdotter and Stina Nilsson in first.

    While the Swedes stuck with their winning order, the Norwegians switched it up on Sunday, with Østberg leading out and Falla anchoring the 6 x 1.2-kilometer freestyle team sprint. The combination worked, as the two won the first semifinal of the day ahead of Poland’s Justyna Kowalczyk and Sylwia Jaśkowiec. The two teams automatically advanced to the final, and Sweden in third earned a spot as one of six teams with fast-enough times to move on as well.

    Germany’s Nicole Fessel and Denise Herrmann won the second semifinal, and the Americans, with Sophie Caldwell and Jessie Diggins, placed second in that heat. Finland, Russia and Slovenia advanced as well, along with France and Switzerland from the first semifinal.

    Poland's Justyna Kowalczyk leads Norway's Ingvild Flugstad Østberg on the first lap of the women's 6 x 1.2 k freestyle team sprint on Sunday at 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
    Poland’s Justyna Kowalczyk leads Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg on the second lap of the women’s 6 x 1.2 k freestyle team sprint on Sunday at 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden. Østberg reclaimed the lead for good for Norway. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)

    In the final, Norway got down to business from the start, with Østberg leading out of the stadium and into the first-and-only climb of the women’s 1.2 k course. Fessel and Ingemarsdotter followed, while the U.S. positioned itself in fourth with lead-out skier Sophie Caldwell.

    By the time the pack returned to the stadium, Kowalczyk put herself in third for Poland, less than half a second behind Østberg in first and Fessel in second. Ingemarsdotter came through the exchange in fourth (+0.88), Slovenia’s Katja Visnar tagged Nika Razinger in sixth (+1.47) while the U.S. was 2.01 seconds back in sixth.

    One lap later, Germany was up to first with Herrmann, and Jaśkowiec was 0.55 seconds back in second and Falla 0.57 seconds behind in third. The silver medalist from Thursday’s classic sprint, Nilsson came through in fourth (+1.01) for Sweden, with Diggins three-tenths of a second behind her in fifth. Flying into the exchange and prohibited from snowplowing to stop, Diggins ran into one of the Germans and nearly caused Ingemarsdotter to crash before the Swede headed out on her second loop.

    “The U.S. was falling in front of me so I had to go around them,” Ingemarsdotter said in a press conference. “It was a little bit scary for a while, I think, ‘Oh I hope, I don’t fall.”

    She didn’t.

    With two of six laps completed, the race for gold appeared wide open — until Østberg launched an attack on the steep climb.

    Fessel went with her, as did Kowalczyk, while Ingemarsdotter started to fall off the pace and Caldwell drifted farther back in fifth. Østberg led Fessel into the exchange, where they tagged in first and second, respectively, 0.43 seconds apart. Kowalczyk tagged her teammate some 3 seconds out of first, while Ingemarsdotter was another second back in fourth and Visnar 10.17 seconds behind in fifth. Behind Russia in sixth (+10.41), the U.S. slipped to seventh (+11.21).

    Heading out on her second lap, Falla made a point to stay up front and push the pace, leading Herrmann up the steep climb while Jaśkowiec and Nilsson clung tightly to them. Diggins moved up into fifth several seconds behind the leaders, while Falla widened the space between her and everyone else on her way back down into the stadium.

    By the time she reached the tag zone, Falla put Norway 1.07 seconds ahead in first, followed by Herrmann, Jaśkowiec (+1.67), Nilsson (+2.56), and Diggins (+16.28).

    Her final time around, Østberg went for it once more on the sprint hill, this time dropping Fessel. Kowalczyk took advantage of the fading German and moved into second over the top, while Østberg led by a significant margin on the way down. Meanwhile, Kowalczyk, Fessel and Ingemarsdotter pushed to take hold of second.

    “I had a little gap to Poland and Germany so I just tried to push everything I had to get Stina in as good a position as possible for the last lap,” Ingemarsdotter recalled. “I know if Stina has a little bit feeling that she is with them, then no one will beat her.”

    While she put Sweden in fourth, Østberg gave Falla a 6.11-second head-start for their final lap. Kowalczyk tagged Jaśkowiec in second, six-tenths of a second ahead of Germany in third and nine-tenths of a second ahead of Sweden.

    Falla continued to plug away alone up front, while Jaśkowiec, Herrmann and Nilsson jockeyed for position in the chase pack. On a tight turn before a final descent into the stadium, Nilsson came from behind and nearly collided with Herrmann. The two stayed upright, but Herrmann dropped to fourth while Jaśkowiec led Nilsson into the finishing stretch.

    The women's freestyle team sprint podium at the medals ceremony on Sunday night at 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden. Norway's Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (third from l) and Maiken Caspersen Falla (third from r) teamed up for gold, Sweden's Ida Ingemarsdotter (l) and Stina Nilsson (second from l) took silver, and Poland's Sylwia Jaskowiec (second from r) and Justyna Kowalczyk (r) tallied bronze. (Photo: Falun2015/Twitter)
    The women’s freestyle team sprint podium at the medals ceremony on Sunday night at 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden. Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (third from l) and Maiken Caspersen Falla (third from r) teamed up for gold, Sweden’s Ida Ingemarsdotter (l) and Stina Nilsson (second from l) took silver, and Poland’s Sylwia Jaskowiec (second from r) and Justyna Kowalczyk (r) tallied bronze. (Photo: Falun2015/Twitter)

    There, Falla, the 2015 World Championships classic-sprint bronze medalist, crossed the line uncontested for the Norwegian victory in 14:29.57.

    “We were planning to start a little bit easy in the first round and speed up in the second and give it all in the last round, and we did as planned,” Østberg explained in the conference. “It was amazing to give Maiken some seconds and she was really strong in the last lap, and then we could cross the finish line first. That was amazing.”

    Nilsson outsprinted Jaśkowiec to clinch second for Sweden, 8.17 seconds after Norway and 0.31 seconds ahead of Poland.

    “I was very inspired by Ida’s amazing last lap so I felt that the medals were really close,” Nilsson said after her second-straight silver. “I gave it everything I had on the last lap and I’m very happy it worked out well.”

    “I saw only the back of Falla,” Jaśkowiec recalled in the conference. “I was going [for] second place in the finish area, but I felt in my back that somebody push very fast and I tried to focus on only to get the final line. Stina was amazing with amazing finish and I could just only watch how she passed, but bronze medal is for us. I am really happy we could even be a part of this today.”

    Her teammate, Kowalczyk was just as thrilled after missing out on a medal when she placed fourth in the classic sprint on the first day of World Championships.

    “Before the race, I was sure that we’ll be good because Sylwia has really good skating, but there was five or seven really strong teams,” Kowalczyk told FasterSkier. “I am so happy because this is the first medal for Poland [at these World Championships], and I’m so happy for me and of course for Sylwia because she’s ranking number two in Poland now, who have the medals in cross-country skiing. … It’s not only Justyna now.”

    Jaśkowiec reveled in her first World Championships medal after coming back from a rollerski accident in 2010.

    “Four years ago, I had a very bad accident and I spent one year on rehabilitation so comeback was very tough,” she said in the conference. “I have a lot of thought if I could come back in skiing — the level is so high that I felt that the top athletes just run away from me so today it’s a huge satisfaction and my dream has come true. I know that the tough time was worth so much pain and fighting, and I hope that my courage just now start to be faster and faster and it will be the beginning of the show.”

    Herrmann anchored Germany to fourth, 11.57 seconds back from the winners and three seconds off the podium. Russia’s Anastasia Dotsenko and Natalia Matveeva improved to fifth (+29.19) after ranking ninth at the second-to-last exchange. France was sixth (+30.26) with Coraline Thomas Hugue and Celia Aymonier, and Switzerland was seventh (+33.98) with Seraina Boner and Laurien van der Graaff.

    The U.S. finished eighth (+34.06) after slipping from fifth to eighth on Caldwell’s last lap. Slovenia placed ninth (+42.39) and Finland — which reached the team-sprint podium in the last three World Championships — was 10th (+42.9) with Riikka Sarasoja-Lilja and Anne Kyllönen,

    At the last World Championships in Val di Fiemme, Italy, the U.S. won the freestyle team sprint with Diggins and Kikkan Randall in 2013. Sweden took silver with Charlotte Kalla and Ingemarsdotter, and Finland earned bronze with Sarasoja-Lilja and Krista Lahteenmaki (now Pärmäkoski).

    Østberg and Falla placed fourth in that race, some 20 seconds after the U.S. and 10 seconds off the podium. After that showing, Østberg viewed Sunday as an opportunity.

    “When Marit said she wasn’t supposed to go [in the team sprint] then I’m really happy that I could show that I also could do a really good job,” she said in the conference. “In 2013, we were the same team and the same distance and then I ruined it, and today we could do this for the team and to do this with Maiken is amazing. We’ve been teammates for several years and good friends so that’s an awesome feeling.”

    “In 2013, we were the same team … and then I ruined it, and today we could do this for the team and to do this with Maiken is amazing.” — Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg, who won gold with teammate Maiken Caspersen Falla on Sunday in the 2015 World Championships freestyle team sprint

    “We were a proper gold team today,” Falla told NRK, according to a translation. “It means so much to stand here with Ingvild — we’ve been through so much together.”

    The two set the tone for back-to-back Norwegian victories on Sunday, as Finn Hågen Krogh and Petter Northug teamed up for gold in the men’s 6 x 1.4 k team sprint later that afternoon. They beat Russia’s Alexey Petukhov and Nikita Kriukov by 5.64 seconds.

    Women’s results

  • U.S. Taps Caldwell, Diggins for Team Sprint; Randall ‘Playing it day by day’

    Kikkan Randall (U.S. Ski Team) during Thursday's 1.4 k classic sprint qualifier, in which she placed 36th to miss advancing to the heats on the opening day of 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden. She finished 35th overall after Sweden's Hanna Falk was disqualified. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
    Kikkan Randall (U.S. Ski Team) during Thursday’s 1.4 k classic sprint qualifier, in which she placed 36th to miss advancing to the heats on the opening day of 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden. She finished 35th overall after Sweden’s Hanna Falk was disqualified. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)

    FasterSkier’s coverage of the 2015 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Falun, Sweden, is brought to you by the generous support of L.L. Bean, now featuring a complete line of Kikkan Randall training wear.

    FALUN, Sweden — The defending world champions in the women’s team sprint will field a new team at the 2015 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships. Sophie Caldwell will join Jessie Diggins as the Americans attempt to defend their title in a field that features fierce competition in the form of Norway’s team of Maiken Caspersen Falla and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg and Sweden’s team of Stina Nilsson and Ida Ingemarsdotter.  

    Kikkan Randall, a member of the defending 2013 World Championships team, will not start Sunday.

    “It was a really hard decision to make. We had a number of women we were considering for that,” U.S. Ski Team (USST) Head Coach Chris Grover said in an interview. “Jessie was the first pick for that team given what her form has been like.”

    Grover explained that Caldwell, Randall, Sadie Bjornsen, and Ida Sargent were all in the running for the final spot and that U.S. coaches took results, tactical abilities and current states of fitness into the consideration. He said that the decision to start Caldwell was due to her improving form over the season.

    “Sophie seems to be coming into better and better fitness. Her skating in the pack in a sprinting environment is always good,” he said.

    Randall has struggled to find form so far this season. In the first two races of World Championships, she finished 35th in Thursday’s classic sprint and 31st in Saturday’s 15 k skiathlon.

    “[I’m] just kind of playing it day by day, and searching, and trying to find better feelings,” she said after the skiathlon.

    According to Grover, the decision to leave Randall off the team was difficult giver her abilities and experience. He believes that Caldwell’s addition gives the U.S. its best chance at a top result. He also acknowledged that “at the end of the day, you never really know if you made the right choice or not.

    “It was a hard decision with Kikkan because even though she’s not at her peak fitness right now, she’s still good tactically and a good skater. She knows where to be and knows where to see the openings,” he said. “It was tough and in the end, we felt like Sophie’s trajectory right now was putting her in a place right now where she could be part of our best team.”

    The women’s and men’s team sprints begin tomorrow with semifinals at 12:30 p.m. CET (6:30 a.m. EST).

    Team sprint start lists: Women | Men

  • USA II’s Sargent, Brennan in the Money in Sixth in Otepää Team Sprint

    USA II’s Sargent, Brennan in the Money in Sixth in Otepää Team Sprint

    Ida Sargent racing earlier this month in the opening prologue of the 2015 Tour de Ski in Obertsdorf, Germany. (Photo: Marcel Hilger)
    Ida Sargent (U.S. Ski Team) racing earlier this month in the opening prologue of the 2015 Tour de Ski in Obertsdorf, Germany. (Photo: Marcel Hilger)

    Suddenly, it dawned on her. Rosie Brennan of Alaska Pacific University (APU) hadn’t given the team sprint in Otepää, Estonia, much thought until she was on her way to Europe earlier this week and realized that she was going to be one of four U.S. women in Otepää, Estonia, this weekend.

    A little quick math — the format required two-person teams — and she and APU coach Erik Flora determined that meant she’d probably get a chance to race the 6 x 1.2-kilometer freestyle team sprint on Sunday.

    Brennan, a 26-year-old former U.S. Ski Team member and the current SuperTour leader, had done a team sprint just once before — back in 2009 at the pre-Olympic World Cup in Vancouver, British Columbia. There, she teamed up with Morgan Arritola to place 17th. Arritola and most of the other women in that race are no longer competing.

    Coach Erik Flora runs to grab a new pole for Rosie Brennan, APU, 3rd after she broke her pole and was given an oversized one. Women's 10 k freestyle, 2015 Cross Country Championships, Houghton, Michigan
    Alaska Pacific University (APU) Head Coach Erik Flora (l) runs to grab a new pole for Rosie Brennan after she broke her pole and was given an oversized in the 10 k freestyle individual start at 2015 Cross Country Championships two weeks ago in Houghton, Michigan. Brennan went on to place third, then won the remaining races at nationals.

    At the time, the 2009 team sprint was only Brennan’s second World Cup race.

    With nearly two dozen World Cup starts under her belt in the time since, Brennan returned to the international circuit this weekend for the first time since December 2013. Her expectations weren’t results-based, but she was definitely excited for the team sprint.

    “Every time I watch [a team sprint], I always think, yikes, going out for the finals seriously seems like one of the hardest things in ski racing,” Brennan wrote in an email. “So, yes I was a little nervous and unsure how I would fare…”

    Brennan and Ida Sargent formed the second-seeded U.S. team, and Sadie Bjornsen and Sophie Caldwell teamed up for the U.S. first team. Both teams were put in the second of two semifinals, on 35-degree Fahrenheit afternoon when racing earlier was definitely better.

    “It was really warm out there … snowing, raining so the course was breaking down,” Sargent explained on the phone after Sunday’s race. “It was pretty soft in the morning when we were testing and then by the final it was shin-deep slush.”

    Vying for a top-two finish to guarantee themselves a spot in the 10-team final, the two American squads came through the final exchange alongside each other in first and second. Bjornsen handed off to Caldwell for the last lap, and Sargent tagged Brennan.

    Sargent explained she had been in second heading into the descent toward the stadium on her last semifinal loop, trailing Poland’s Justyna Kowalczyk closely to make sure she caught her draft. She passed Kowalczyk, and Bjornsen passed Sargent after following her in similar fashion.

    “Sadie and I went into the exchange after our last lap in one and two, so that was pretty fun to be there together,” Sargent recalled.

    Sophie Caldwell (USA) shows her cornering skills in Val Mustair (SUI). (photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
    Sophie Caldwell (U.S. Ski Team) racing Jan. 6 at the Tour de Ski freestyle sprint in Val Mustair, Switzerland, where she placed seventh. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)

    After getting tagged in first, Caldwell explained that Germany’s Denise Herrmann and Poland’s Sylwia Jaśkowiec “took off” at the beginning of the final lap and left her struggling to keep up.

    “They formed a little gap and I wasn’t close enough to take advantage of their draft on the [downhill],” Caldwell wrote in an email. “Unfortunately, I think I was leading a little train of my own, so people could hop into my draft.”

    One of those people was Brennan, who shot past Caldwell to take third in the heat. Caldwell finished fourth, and the top three teams from their semifinal advanced to the final based on time. (The top-two teams in each automatically advance, then the next six-fastest times.) Seven of nine teams in the first semifinal made the final as well.

    “Today was a tough day with the weather and snow conditions, with each lap getting slower than the one before,” Bjornsen explained in an email after her team placed 11th overall. “Since we were in the second heat, our strategy was to go as hard as we could, because we knew making lucky loser positions were going to be tough just the way conditions were working.”

    One hundred meters out of the start in the semifinal, someone skied over Bjornsen’s ski.

    “I found myself lying in the snow,” she recalled. “I worked hard to catch back up, but Soph had to finish closing the gap. From there we had two great laps in the mix. I tagged off in the front of the pack, and Soph did a great job holding on. … As we predicted, lucky loser time was tough to catch, so sadly, Soph and I weren’t able to catch the finals.”

    Sargent, Brennan Sixth in Final

    Meanwhile, Sargent and Brennan moved on, which both Caldwell and Bjornsen, Brennan’s APU teammate, were excited about.

    “I have believed that Rosie is skiing at the same level as us [U.S. Ski Team women] since the start of the season,” Bjornsen wrote. “It was just so exciting and wonderful for her to feel and show that today! It brings tears to my eyes to see everything she has gotten through this year, and here she is on the World Cup, challenging the strongest skaters in the World.”

    “We both skied our last laps with everything we had and it turned out to be just enough,” Brennan explained. “I had no expectations for this race so I psyched when we were finding it possible to easily ski in the front of the pack.”

    In the final, she resolved to stick with the pack and see what happened toward the end of the race.

    Sargent said she was pleasantly surprised to feel better during the final than the semifinal.

    “I guess you’re always excited for another chance to race again,” Sargent said.

    She expected to feel tired and “on flooded legs” by the last lap, but the goal was to keep pushing.

    Out of the start, Sargent put the U.S. in fourth at the high point of the course, at the turnaround before the downhill. She came through the first exchange in fourth, half a second behind Sweden’s Ida Ingemarsdotter — the eventual winner (with teammate Stina Nilsson).

    Brennan kept them within three seconds of Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg in first after her first lap, tagging Sargent in sixth. One lap later, the U.S. was back to fourth, 2.2 seconds from Poland in first and among the nine teams within 5 1/2 seconds of the lead.

    “I tried to move up and ski towards the front of the pack more because in the beginning of the semifinal, I was in the back and felt like I was stuck in traffic for the first couple laps,” Sargent explained. “So I tried to get a little farther forward in the final and it was just really fun to be in the mix.”

    On Brennan’s second lap, Østberg in first led Nilsson and Poland’s anchor, Jaśkowiec, as the three pulled away. By the tag, they were just over a second ahead of Germany in fourth, Finland’s first team (Anne Kyllönen and Krista Parmakoski) was 4.7 seconds back in fifth, Finland’s second team (Aino-Kaisa Saarinen and Riika Sarasoja-Lilja) was 5.3 seconds behind in sixth, and Brennan 5.9 seconds back in seventh.

    “The second lap was the hardest for me,” Brennan said. “I think the pace turned up a bit and I started questioning how much my legs had in them.

    “The final was definitely faster paced, there is a lot more on the line,” she added. “It was super slushy and there were trenches around every corner. I think in general, there wasn’t one section that was really good for me or really bad, it was more about putting together a good lap, skiing each section as best as possible and trying to lose as little as possible.”

    When Sargent set out on her final lap, she focused on cutting down the gap ahead of her and catching the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-place teams.

    Germany’s Hanna Kolb fell off the pace and into seventh, while Sargent moved into sixth, 8.4 seconds behind the leaders and 1.2 seconds behind Kyllönen in fifth.

    On the last lap, Herrmann brought the Germans back into contention and led the pursuit of Sweden, Norway and Poland. While there was a three-way sprint for first, Germany finished 16.5 seconds back in fourth, Finland’s first team was another 1.1 seconds back in fifth, and Brennan anchored the U.S. to sixth, 18.1 seconds out of first and half a second behind Parmakoski.

    Sargent said both she and Brennan were “really happy” with their result in the first-and-only team sprint before the freestyle team sprint at World Championships.

    “[Rosie] just got over here and hasn’t raced a team sprint since 2009 … and she was just skiing really well all day and had some awesome finishes on both of the heats,” Sargent said. “So I was really impressed with her — first team sprint, first weekend on the World Cup this year and just to be right in there the whole time.”

    “I was really impressed with her — first team sprint, first weekend on the World Cup this year and just to be right in there the whole time.” — Ida Sargent on teammate Rosie Brennan

    “I surprised myself by having a little bit of finishing speed in both the semi and the final so I am happy I was able to pull together 3 solid laps each race even if none of them were outstanding,” Brennan wrote.

    Finishing sixth, the two landed in the money, which Sargent said is always a goal. Moreover though, she wanted to make the final.

    “We did that and after that, everything was just a bonus,” she said.

    “Those guys skis great, actually all the U.S. athletes skied really good,” U.S. Ski Team Head Coach Chris Grover said on the phone. “Despite some crashes, everybody skied super well, so that was really exciting.”

    Hamilton Crashes on Last Lap

    Simi Hamilton crashed out of contention on the last lap of the men’s first semifinal, and he and Andy Newell, of the first-seeded U.S. men’s team, placed 10th in the heat for 19th overall. The top six teams from their semifinal advanced to the 6 x 1.5 k final.

    “Simi and I did a good job of staying up front,” Newell, the team’s scramble leg, wrote in an email. He tagged Hamilton in fifth for the final lap.

    “It’s our goal not to ski any harder than we have to until the last laps,” Newell added. “I felt I was able to pace well and did my best to chase down Russia on the last lap and tag Simi in a strong position.”

    Positioning himself in the draft behind Nikolay Morilov of Russia’s second team and Canada’s Lenny Valjas on the final downhill, Hamilton went down in a pileup with France’s Baptiste Gros, who had been around third at that point.

    According to Grover, Gros face planted on the last rise after the fast downhill into the stadium. Sweden’s Emil Jönsson clipped Gros and spun around, getting tangled with Hamilton, who was on his way down the hill as well.

    “[Simi] face planted right into the bridge basically,” Grover said. “He is OK, but he is definitely sore.”

    “He was in a good position to move on as [lucky loser] since our heat was a but faster,” Newell explained. “If it wasn’t for the crash I think we would have advanced for sure.”

    While the bad luck and resulting missed opportunity to practice a final was disappointing, Newell wrote that they were looking forward to World Championships and putting together a competitive freestyle team sprint there.

    “I was feeling pretty good today and think I have regained a bit of my strength and fitness that I was missing during the [Tour de Ski],” Newell added. “I think this is the best my skating has felt for a while and it was fun to be able to accelerate and ski with power.”

    Bjornsen, Gelso Miss Top 10 in 11th

    The second U.S. men’s team, with Erik Bjornsen and Matt Gelso, the SuperTour leader from the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation, narrowly missed advancing to the final after placing fifth in the second semifinal. The top four moved on.

    Bjornsen started them off in 11th of 12 teams, and Gelso skied up to ninth by the second exchange. One lap later, they were up to seventh, and Bjornsen came through the exchange in fourth on his last lap.

    “Once the racing started it was super fun,” Gelso wrote in an email after his first World Cup race in Europe and second team sprint of his career, since racing one at Spring Series about six years ago.

    “Erik and I both moved up some places on our second laps, then he moved really well on his third lap,” he added. “For much of the race it was a pack of guys so moving places within the group was more about position when the pace surged than it was about what place you would finish in.”

    They had wanted to position themselves in fourth or fifth “as most times the top 4 qualifies for the final,” Gelso wrote. “We did not want to lead but we also didn’t want to sit on the back of the pack as once small gaps form in front of you it is really hard to close them down.”

    After getting tagged in fourth just ahead of fifth place, Gelso set out to chase down three leaders. He stayed within a few seconds of them, but lost contact on the short, steep downhill before the wall-of-a-climb before the stadium.

    “They really turned it on and put some more time into me and the fifth-place guy behind me [Italy’s Federico Pellegrino] passed me,” Gelso noted. “At this point I was fifth and got over the top of the wall and down into the finish as fast as I could for fifth in the heat.”

    He explained that both he and Bjornsen were happy with their race and 11th overall.

    “We both skied strong and smart and were able to mix it up with some of the best sprinters in the world,” Gelso wrote. “We would have liked to make the final but we still feel good about our result, that we had a good showing, and that we accomplished many of our goals for the day.”

    Bjornsen was pleased that he posted the fastest time on the last lap, but wished he would have had more confidence to make a move earlier in the race.

    “I think I could have brought us in at the front of the pack which would have really turned some of those Norwegians heads,” he wrote. “I’m very happy with the way my teammate Matt skied, he just got over here and he was in the mix. It’s a bummer we didn’t get to the finals. I was ready to make some more fast laps…next time!”

    Bjornsen added that he’s starting to feel more confident in the event, one of the rarest World Cup formats.

    “For some reason I always surprise myself in the team sprint discipline, I’m starting to wonder if it’s a race built for me,” he wrote.

    According to Gelso, Bjornsen persuaded him to race the team sprint this weekend.

    “I was actually planning to only ski the individual sprint here but once I got over here I talked to [Bjornsen] and he said how fun the team sprint was and how it was like a distance race,” Gelso wrote. “I also thought it would be a better prep race for next weekend in Russia.”

    The Americans will head to Rybinsk, Russia, on Wednesday for the next World Cup races starting on Friday. There, they’ll meet up with Jessie Diggins and Liz Stephen, who took the weekend off to recover from the Tour de Ski and train in Seiser Alm, Italy.

    At the end of the day and Otepää World Cup weekend, Grover summed it up as “some more tough days. … Of course, there were a lot of crashes out there so we weren’t the only ones that had a rough go of it,” he said.

    “I was happy to see that everybody was putting together some good legs out there and some of our best team sprinters weren’t here,” Grover added. “Athletes like Kikkan [Randall] and Jessie on the women’s side. So when it comes time to [make] World Championships [selections], were are going to have some hard decisions to make, that is for sure. It is a good problem. It is nice to know that you have four or five women that could fill that spot and potentially at least three men and maybe more.”

    “We have a really strong team,” Sargent said of the women’s team. “We have the defending world champions [Randall and Diggins] in the skate team sprint. We have a lot of girls that can be top 10 in a skate sprint or top 10 in a skate distance race so I think there’s a lot of awesome combinations on our team, and it’ll just depend on who’s skiing fast at that point.”

    — Matt Voisin contributed reporting

    Final results: women | men

  • Ustiugov Powers Russia to Otepää Team-Sprint Win; Canadian Men Eighth

    Ustiugov Powers Russia to Otepää Team-Sprint Win; Canadian Men Eighth

    Alexey Petukhov (r) tags Sergey Ustiugov during the men's 6 x 1.5 k freestyle team sprint final on Sunday in Otepää, Estonia. The two went on to win by 0.4 seconds over Norway. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    Russia’s Alexey Petukhov (r) tags Sergey Ustiugov during the men’s 6 x 1.5 k freestyle team sprint final on Sunday in Otepää, Estonia. The two went on to win by 0.4 seconds over Norway. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    If the preceding women’s team sprint proved anything on Sunday it was that Norway could be beaten. Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov had all the motivation he needed after breaking a pole in the individual classic-sprint semifinal the day before at the World Cup in Otepää, Estonia.

    Sunday’s 1.5-kilometer course was the same course the used for the individual men’s classic race. It included two steep climbs that would be good places to attack if teams were looking to gain separation from the pack.

    Ten teams advanced from the semifinals to the 6 x 1.5 k freestyle team sprint final: Noway I (Anders Gløersen/Finn Hågen Krogh), Norway II (Ola Vigen Hattestad/Pål Golberg), Russia I (Alexey Petukhov/Sergey Ustiugov), Russia II (Andrey Parfenov/Nikolay Morilov), Italy (Dieter Nöckeler/Federico Pellegrino), Switzerland II (Roman Schaad/Gianluca Cologna), Canada (Jess Cockney/Lenny Valjas), Finland I (Matias Strandvall/Risomatti Hakola), Poland (Maciej Kreczmer/Maciej Strega), and Estonia I- (Raido Rankel/Peeter Kummel).

    Cockney and Valjas make the exchange after completion of a lap - www.nordicfocus.com. © Laiho/NordicFocus.
    Canada’s Jess Cockney (r) tags and Lenny Valjas during the men’s 6 x 1.5 k freestyle team sprint final on Sunday in Otepää, Estonia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    At the start of the final, the first two laps went out at a relatively leisurely pace. There weren’t any real attacks; any attempts were quickly countered and a pack reformed.

    The lead rotated between Russia’s Petukhov, Norway’s Gløersen, and Switzerland’s Schaad. At times, Poland’s Kreczmer was up front driving the pack, but Russia and Norway were always close behind. Canada’s Jess Cockney was near the back, but still in contact with the entire group.

    On the third lap before the third exchange, Petukhov and Gløersen continued to lead the pack. Norway’s second team was close, with Hattestad sitting in third position. Midway through the second downhill, Petukhov picked up the pace and attempted a small attack off the front. Gløersen was able to respond and bridge up to the Russian, and two other teams caught up by the exchange.

    There, at the halfway point, Gløersen tagged Krogh 0.3 seconds ahead of Norway II, and Russia was 0.6 seconds back in third. Russia’s second team was another 0.1 seconds behind in fourth, and Switzerland trailed by 1.2 seconds.

    As the laps went by, it took the top skiers less time to complete them. Eventually a team was going to make an attack and it all depended on who could counter and when. The attack finally happened on the fifth lap. Petukhov initiated it and Gløersen immediately responded to match his pace. The attack opened up a sizable lead heading into the final exchange. Russia came through 0.6 seconds ahead in first, Norway was second, and Russia II as the next-closest team was 7.2 seconds back in third.

    Sunday's podium in the men's World Cup 6 x 1.5 k team sprint: (from left to right) Norway I's Finn Hågen Krogh and Anders Gløersen in second, Russia I's Sergey Ustiugov and Alexey Petukhov in first, and Italy's Dietmar Nöckeler and Federico Pellegrino in third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    The Otepää World Cup men’s 6 x 1.5 k team sprint podium: (from left to right) Norway I’s Finn Hågen Krogh and Anders Gløersen in second, Russia I’s Sergey Ustiugov and Alexey Petukhov in first, and Italy’s Dietmar Nöckeler and Federico Pellegrino in third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    As Russia and Norway skated away and battled for first and second place, the fight for third place was just as intense. Italy, Switzerland, Russia and Norway’s second team were all in position for the final podium spot. Italy had the biggest deficit to regain, coming through the exchange 12.2 seconds back in sixth.

    After a clean exchange to start the final lap, Ustiugov and Krogh still remained squarely in the lead. Ustiugov had fresher legs as a result of crashing out of Saturday’s semifinal; Krogh reached the classic-sprint final and placed fifth.

    The pair skied together, each taking a turn leading. At the start of the last climb, Ustiugov attacked and it proved to be the winning move. His surge created enough separation from Krogh to build a gap he carried to the finish line. Ustiugov took the win for Russia in 19:39.1, and Krogh finished 0.4 seconds later in second.

    Russia's Sergey Ustiugov (in blue) works to hold off Norway's Finn Hågen Krogh (in red, behind) in the final meters of the men's freestyle team sprint, while Russia's Alexey Petukhov welcomes his teammate and the win.
    Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (in blue) works to hold off Norway’s Finn Hågen Krogh (in red, behind) in the final meters of the men’s freestyle team sprint, while Russia’s Alexey Petukhov welcomes his teammate and the win in Otepää, Estonia.

    Italy’s Pellegrino skated a strong last lap to close down almost a 12-second deficit at the start of the lap to outsprint Norway II, Russia II and Switzerland II for third place, 12.9 seconds after Ustiugov.

    “It feels amazing to win in Otepää,” Petukhov told FIS after the race. “We like it here very much. The atmosphere was great both in the stadium and at the track. Sergey was very strong today. We were a great team.”

    Pellegrino also was extremely happy after rising from sixth to third on the final lap. “It’s fantastic to be back on the podium,” he said. “It is incredible to share the podium with Dietmar. It is great for the Italian Cross-Country Skiing”

    Cockney, Valjas Take Eighth

    A tight group of competitors round the final curving descent into the stadium during the World Cup freestyle team sprint in Otepää, Estonia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
    A tight group of competitors, including Canada (back left), round the final curving descent into the stadium during the World Cup freestyle team sprint in Otepää, Estonia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    Canada finished eighth place, 22.8 seconds behind Russia. It was the first time Cockney and Valjas have raced together in a team sprint in Europe. They previously teamed up for a 10th-place finish at a World Cup in Quebec City two years ago. That was the last time Valjas made the final in a team sprint.

    On Sunday, they qualified with the third-fastest time in the first semifinal to earn a spot in the final. Six teams from that heat advanced to the 10-team final.

    “I was definitely eager to forget about yesterday’s race, and put up a good result this morning,” Cockney said in a Cross Country Canada press release, referring to his 61st place in the classic sprint. Valjas also missed qualifying in 45th on Saturday.

    “Personally I felt like I skied calmly and made good decisions tactically to help us – especially in the semifinal,” Cockney added.

    In the final, Cockney attempted to get closer to the leaders early on the first hill, but was stuck in seventh before the second climb. Regardless, he was within 1.8 seconds of the leaders at the first exchange, tagging Valjas in eighth.

    Valjas maintained the time back on the second leg but slipped one position, handing off to Cockney in ninth and 1.9 seconds out of first. At that point, all 10 teams were within two seconds of the lead.

    The Canadians found themselves in 10th at the third exchange, 3.9 seconds back, and had fallen nearly 10 seconds off the pace on the fourth lap.

    Cockney skied them up to eighth on his final time around, 16 seconds out of first, and Valjas held their position to the finish with the fourth-fastest anchor leg, crossing the line 22.8 behind Ustiugov.

    Neither Cockney nor Valjas could be reached by email for comment.

    — Alex Kochon contributed reporting

    Results

  • Canadian Nationals: Foothills Tops Both Men’s and Women’s Team Sprints

    Canadian Nationals: Foothills Tops Both Men’s and Women’s Team Sprints

    Foothill Nordic's Jess Cockney (r) and Phil Widmer (Canmore Nordic), after colliding in the finishing straight of Saturday's freestyle team sprint final at 2013 Canadian Nationals in Whistler, B.C. Cockney went on to win with teammate Brent McMurtry, defending their 2012 national title, while Widmer and Russell Kennedy settled for fourth.
    Foothill Nordic’s Jess Cockney (r) and Phil Widmer (Canmore Nordic), after colliding in the finishing straight of Saturday’s freestyle team sprint final at 2013 Canadian Nationals in Whistler, B.C. Cockney went on to win with teammate Brent McMurtry, defending their 2012 national title, while Widmer and Russell Kennedy settled for fourth. Knute Johnsgaard (l) took silver with teammate David Greer for Whitehorse.

    WHISTLER, B.C. – On a sunny day at Whistler Olympic Park, the men put the cap on an exciting first day of Canadian Nationals with a collision and crash in the final 50 metres of the 2×3 1-kilometre freestyle team sprint.

    Whitehorse divides and conquers to take second and third in Saturday's freestyle team sprint at Canadian Nationals in Whistler, B.C.
    Whitehorse divides and conquers, with Graham Nishikawa skiing around a fallen Phil Widmer (Canmore) on the right and Knute Johnsgaard at left, to take second and third behind Foothills’ Jess Cockney (far right) in Saturday’s freestyle team sprint at Canadian Nationals in Whistler, B.C.

    Four teams entered the final straight together with Phil Widmer of Canmore Nordic in the lead. At the start of the pine-bough lane markers with 50 metres to go, Widmer and Jess Cockney of Foothills Nordic chose the same lane.  Widmer fell, leaving Cockney to defend his national team-sprint title with partner Brent McMurtry. Skiing for different Whitehorse teams, Knute Johnsgaard and Graham Nishikawa split around the fallen Widmer and lunged for the line.

    A year after winning at Canadian Nationals in Quebec, McMurtry and Cockney claimed the team victory in 15:32.03. Johnsgaard finished in 15:33.00, taking silver with partner David Greer.  Nishikawa was 0.31 seconds behind to take bronze with teammate Colin Abbott.

    Widmer recovered to take fourth with Russell Kennedy, 11 seconds after Cockney.  Raphaël Couturier (Skibec) led the second pack another 5 seconds back in fifth with teammate and Canadian National Team biathlete Marc-André Bédard.

    When asked what made the difference, Cockney had a one-word answer: “Brent.”

    “Brent skied so strong on his last leg and gave me such a huge lead,” Cockney added. “All the other guys were gassed after catching up to me.”

    Johnsgaard had a similar view. “I felt really strong. I just didn’t quite have the finishing speed that Jess had in the final,” he said.

    Cockney skied the last leg with a clear tactic in mind.

    “I didn’t feel that strong so I held the lead as long as I could and made sure to tuck in behind Knute and Phil on the downhill into the last 300 metres,” he said. “With the headwind, it was good to tuck behind someone else.”

    Nishikawa also took a strategic approach to the final. A big crash and a broken pole on his first lap of the semifinal put him well off the back of the pack. While Abbott was able to finish the job of rejoining the group, the energy they spent qualifying in second in the fastest heat would come back to haunt them.

    An exhausted top three after Saturday's freestyle team sprint final at 2013 Canadian Nationals in Whistler, B.C.
    An exhausted top three after Saturday’s freestyle team sprint final at 2013 Canadian Nationals in Whistler, B.C.

    In the final, the first-leg skiers went out hard on their third and final lap.

    “Brent attacked and dragged Colin,” Greer said.  “I got around a couple of people and ended up coming in second.”

    “I finally caught the top three teams at the corner with a hundred to go and then they all started their sprint,” Nishikawa said.

    Asked about the crash, he said, “It took a lot of energy to get there so I just had my head down trying to sprint.  I saw some tangles and then I was in a lunge for second as well. It happened fast so I don’t really know what happened.”

    Johnsgaard, who also was in a good position to see the collision, didn’t think any penalties would come of it. “I think it is part of racing,” he said.

    The jury agreed and took no action.

    The women’s 2×3 1-kilometer team sprint was also exciting, but without the finishing-straight fireworks.  On the final lap, Foothills’ Marlis Kromm opened up a gap to send Heidi Widmer off with a sizable lead. Their finish time of 15:17.1 was nearly 10 seconds ahead of Hardwood’s Erin Tribe, who shared silver with Mary Thompson.

    Heidi Widmer (Foothills) leads Anne-Marie Comeau (MSA) in the semifinal of Saturday's freestyle team sprint at 2013 Canadian Nationals in Whistler, B.C. Widmer and her teammate Marlis Kromm went on to win the final.
    Heidi Widmer (Foothills) leads Anne-Marie Comeau (MSA) in the semifinal of Saturday’s freestyle team sprint at 2013 Canadian Nationals in Whistler, B.C. Widmer and her teammate Marlis Kromm went on to win the final.

    Zoe Roy and Michaela Howie teamed up for Rocky Mountain Racers and won the sprint for bronze. Roy finished just over a second ahead of biathlete Julia Ransom (Canmore), who partnered with Kathryn Stone.

    Anne-Marie Comeau (Mont St. Anne) took over from Camille Pépin and quickly moved from fifth to second on the final leg , but a crash on the top hairpin put her back in fifth, six seconds out of the medals.

    Kromm and Widmer were very happy with their result.

    “We were junior challenge girls here [in Whistler at 2008 nationals] and won the relay here so it was really fun to come back,” Widmer said.  “It’s a great start to the week and Mother Nature has been really great today.”

    Both saw the race as tactical. “We wanted to start in control, ski the first couple of laps with the pack and try to save some energy and make our moves in the second half of the race,” Kromm said.

    “It is a long week of racing at nationals,” Widmer added. “The team sprint is important, but you have to be aware of your energy for the rest of the week.”

    The silver medalists said the race was “definitely tactical.”

    “You had to hold on to a spot and pick when to move up and make sure you had something for that last lap,” Thompson said.

    “It was really refreshing that the sun was shining and the skis were fast,” Tribe added. “It was a great day.”

    Results: men | women

    Women's freestyle team sprint podium at 2013 Canadian Nationals, with Marlis Kromm and Heidi Widmer of Foothills Nordic in first (c), Erin Tribe and Mary Thompson of Hardwood in second (l), and Michaela Howie and Zoe Roy of Rocky Mountain Racers in third. (Photo: Peggy Hung)
    Women’s freestyle team sprint podium at 2013 Canadian Nationals, with Marlis Kromm and Heidi Widmer of Foothills Nordic in first (c), Erin Tribe and Mary Thompson of Hardwood in second (l), and Michaela Howie and Zoe Roy of Rocky Mountain Racers in third. (Photo: Peggy Hung)
    2013 Canadian Nationals men's freestyle team sprint podium: (Photo: Peggy Hung)
    2013 Canadian Nationals men’s freestyle team sprint podium with Purebread Bakery baguettes in hand. Jess Cockney and Brent McMurtry of Foothills Nordic took first (c), Knute Johnsgaard and David Greer of Whitehorse were second (l), and Whitehorse’s Colin Abbott and Graham Nishikawa placed third (r). (Photo: Peggy Hung)