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Tag: World Cup Win

  • First Report: Caldwell Does What She Considered Unthinkable

    First Report: Caldwell Does What She Considered Unthinkable

    Sophie Caldwell became the second U.S. woman to win a World Cup race on Tuesday at Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski in Obertsdorf, Germany. The U.S. Ski Team member won the classic sprint ahead of Norwegians Heidi Weng (l) and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (r), the latter of which leads the Tour de Ski standings.
    Sophie Caldwell (c) became the third U.S. woman to win a World Cup race on Tuesday at Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, Germany. The U.S. Ski Team member won the classic sprint ahead of Norwegians Heidi Weng (l) and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (r), the latter of which leads the Tour de Ski standings.

    Note: This is an initial post about American Sophie Caldwell’s World Cup victory on Tuesday at the Tour de Ski in Obertsdorf, Germany. Stay tuned for more in-depth reports about the women’s and men’s classic sprints.

    Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that Caldwell became the third U.S. woman to win a World Cup.  Alison Kiesel (formerly Owen-Spencer) won the inaugural women’s World Cup event in December 1978 at Mount Telemark in Wisconsin.

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    OBERSTDORF, Germany — Sophie Caldwell saw the opportunity in the final roller of a hill in the women’s 1.2-kilometer classic sprint final on Tuesday and she seized it, overtaking the last Norwegian in her sights and holding off Heidi Weng by one-tenth of a second to win Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski.

    “It feels really good,” Caldwell, a 25-year-old member of the U.S. Ski Team, told FasterSkier in an in-person interview after the race. “It has been a while since I have been on the podium and that is the first sprint I have ever won. So I am psyched, I never thought it would come in a classic sprint so that was a pleasant surprise.”

    A native of Peru, Vt., and daughter of the Stratton Mountain School’s nordic director Sverre Caldwell, Caldwell has been on the World Cup podium once before — in a freestyle sprint in March 2014 in Lahti, Finland. There, she placed third after teammate Kikkan Randall, who won, and Slovenia’s Katja Visnar in second. Two U.S. women had never before shared a World Cup podium.

    On Tuesday, Caldwell continued to make U.S. history, becoming the third American woman, after Randall and Alison Kiesel, to win a World Cup race. Caldwell is also the first U.S. woman to win a World Cup classic sprint.

    No stranger to sprint finals, she had reached the finals (thus placing in the top six) in two of the last three sprints (all of which were freestyle) before Tuesday. The only one she missed, she did so by just one place in seventh in Toblach, Italy. She has now placed in the top seven in four consecutive sprints.

    “I knew I had some really good skis today and my strengths are usually tricky downhills because I didn’t like to snowplow and I don’t get freaked out by them,” Caldwell said of Tuesday’s classic sprint.

    “I was probably the last person who woke up this morning and thought this would happen,” she told FIS media coordinator Jeff Ellis (Randall’s husband) in a post-race interview. “I’m thrilled.”

    “We know Sophie is among the best downhill skiers in the world,” U.S. women’s coach Matt Whitcomb said. “These conditions today are like, growing up in New England, skiing through slob it’s no big deal. She got to the tops of climbs and attacked over them rather than backing off, and that was a big difference-maker today. But what really stood out was that she was climbing with the best of the world today.”

    Caldwell stayed on her feet all day, even in the final when Sweden’s Ida Ingemarsdotter came close to nicked her skis. Ingemarsdotter began to snowplow on a washed-out descent, which caused problems in several heats — including those of Caldwell’s U.S. teammates Ida Sargent and Jessie Diggins. In the final, Caldwell scooted around the snowplowing Ingemarsdotter and moved into third behind Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg — the overall Tour de Ski leader — and Weng. She proceeded to pick both Norwegians off to take the win.

    Earlier in the day, Sargent avoided a crash in the first women’s quarterfinal to place third in that heat. But finishing 10.36 seconds behind Østberg as the winner of that quarterfinal, Sargent did not advance to the semifinals.

    Neither did Diggins, who got hung up in a snowplow snafu by Sweden’s Hanna Falk on that same downhill in the fourth quarterfinal. The back of Falk’s skis caught Diggins and both went down. Diggins finished fifth in that heat, 26.22 seconds behind Norway’s Therese Johaug, who won that quarterfinal. Falk crossed the line 50 seconds back in sixth.

    At the end of the day, Sargent placed 15th and Diggins 21st. Also for the U.S., Rosie Brennan again narrowly missed qualifying in 35th, Sadie Bjornsen did not make the quarterfinals in 44th, along with Liz Stephen in 49th, and Caitlin Gregg in 53rd.

    In terms of overall Tour standings after four of eight stages, Diggins ranks 10th (+4:33.4), Bjornsen slipped out of the top 10 to 13th (+4:53.7), Caldwell is up to 14th (+5:23.7), Stephen is 25th (+6:22.1), Caitlin Gregg 39th (+8:12.6), Brennan 42nd (+8:33.1), and Sargent 45th (+8:47.3).

    Racing continues in Obertsdorf on Wednesday with the women’s 10 k classic mass start and men’s 15 k classic mass start.

    “[I] plan on racing tomorrow as long as … I have had a bit of a race hack, so as long as that doesn’t get any worse,” Caldwell said.

    (Her boyfriend Simi Hamilton had to skip Tuesday’s sprint and thus withdraw from the Tour due to illness.)

    “I plan on racing tomorrow and then probably dropping out,” she continued. “There is a small chance I would do the 5 k in Toblach [Italy on Friday], but kind of taking it a day at a time. I won’t go past Toblach.”

    Results | Tour standings (after Stage 4)

  • Randall Takes World Cup Victory; Bjoergen Left Out in the Rain UPDATED

    Kikkan Randall has now recorded three medals in five skate sprints.

    But if the enigmatic American sprint star is tired, she sure isn’t showing it, as she blasted to her first World Cup victory of the season Saturday, in a skate sprint in rainy Liberec, Czech Republic.

    Randall took advantage of fast skis, an advantageous situation, and a strong finishing kick to secure the win, crossing the line 0.5 seconds ahead of her closest competitor – enough time to raise her arms in the arm to celebrate before crossing the line.

    “I just thought about getting through one round at a time,” Randall said in an interview with FasterSkier following the race, “it was pretty cool to be able to have the time to enjoy the win.”

    After finishing 21st in the grueling Tour de Ski, which ended less than a week ago, Randall started her day hot – she qualified third, 4 seconds back of the winner, Marit Bjoergen (NOR). Randall then cruised through her quarter-final looking comfortable, dispatching top Italian sprinter Arianna Follis easily.

    In her semi-final, Randall drew some tough competition, including Slovenia’s Petra Majdic, who won both sprints during the recent Tour de Ski and Hanna Falk (SWE), who qualified just ahead of Randall.

    Randall’s semi-final was the second of two, and all the skiers had watched the first one, and saw the unthinkable outcome – Bjoergen had finished third, getting caught up in traffic in the finishing lanes.

    “We definitely knew she had come third,” said Randall, “I think everybody was focused on laying down a fast time, because for sure she’s a tough competitor.”

    As a result, the pace was high but again Randall looked in control, and stayed out of trouble on the slick down hills, relying on her low tuck and a fast pair skis to move her up the field, and then skiing strong in the finish stretch to win the semi-final, and the skiers who finished third and fourth did so in a time fast enough to eliminate Bjoergen.

    “That downhill [the main one on the course] was bumpy, icy, it seemed to change every time you went down it, so you never knew what to expect,” said  Randall, “You just kind of had to be really solid on your skis and be aware of what was going on around you.”

    While Bjoergen was out, the final was not going to be a cruise – Falk, Majdic, and Norwegians Celine Brun-Lie and Maiken Caspersen Falla were all skiing well. After getting out to a good start, Randall made use of her quick skis again to move up on the downhill. Randall made sure to ski strong, but stay in second position, saving energy until the last uphill, where she hammered up and around the corner, and then dug deep and headed for the finish line.

    Randall crossed the line with room to spare, as Falk finished second, and Brun-Lie, a 22 year-old Norwegian who finished fourth in Dusseldorf rounded out the podium, leaving Majdic fourth.

    “I just felt so strong on that final stretch every time, and so it was great to come around Hanna [Falk] and feel strong and be unchallenged to the line,” Randall said.

    And there might be a reason Randall was not pressed as hard as she could have been going to the line, as Bjoergen, the fastest qualifier on the day by a large margin didn’t make the final. Randall herself would have liked Bjoergen to be in the mix.

    “Heading into Oslo it would have been nice to have another chance to race head to head with her,” said Randall. “Even if it would have cost me the win, I was feeling good today, so maybe I could have taken her on for real.

    According to United States Ski Team (USST) Head Coach Chris Grover, the sprint course Saturday was the exact same as the one Randall collected a silver medal on in 2009, when Liberec hosted World Championships.

    While the Americans weren’t specifically targeting Liberec for a good result, both Grover and Randall knew that it could be a good day.

    “She [Randall] is just in great sprint form this year,” said Grover.

    The conditions were set to make the race interesting as well. In the week leading up to the World Cup, Liberec was soaked with rain, making the surrounding hills bare, and the snow on course warm, and heavily salted by the race organizers, according to Grover.

    After ending the Tour de Ski just six days ago, Randall has had a very light week – two rest days, and two easy skis made sure she bounced back, and got rid of the “zombie” feeling she had after the Tour.

    As she is the only American woman currently on the World Cup circuit, Randall will skip tomorrow’s Team Sprint, and head back to the US for a solid training block in preparation for World Championships.

    “Last year I was at home 3 weeks leading into the Olympics, and I came on strong at the Olympics, and had a strong rest of the season after that, so I’m really confident in the plan we’ve developed for peaking,” she said, “I think the best is still to come.”

    While American Kikkan Randall was collecting her first podium of the season, the Canadian women quietly recorded a decent day of their own.

    Dasha Gaiazova qualified 12th, while Chandra Crawford, continuing her bounce back season and on a quest to regain consistent qualifying form, was 19th.

    “I feel happy,” said Dasha Gaiazova in an interview with FasterSkier after the race, “I felt really good in the qualifier.”

    Despite Gaiazova feeling confident with her skiing, she and Crawford were placed in the same quarter-final, a move that Gaiazova described as “a bit of a curveball.”

    The two Canadians were matched up with Hanna Falk (SWE) the second fastest qualifier of the day, and things went badly for Crawford on the first big downhill, as she got her tips tangled up and fell, dropping her immediately out of contention on the fast course, and ending her day in 26th position.

    Gaiazova stayed on her feet, but had to settle for third in the quarter-final, but as a result, finished her day 14th, her best placing thus far this season, and the Canadian has now qualified in three of the four World Cup sprint starts she has had this season.

    Gaiazova and Crawford are both fresh from North America – Gaiazova raced the NorAm in Thunder Bay, Ontario before hopping on a plane to Europe, where she and Crawford headed to Ramsau, Austria. The two took advantage of “bluebird sky, perfect weather, and perfecting skiing” and adjusted quickly.

    With just three techs and no coaches, the Canadians have a small crew, but Gaiazova said she was glad that the coaching staff was able to make it possible for the team to race in Liberec, and then moving on to the World Cup in Otepaa, Estonia, as well. Currently wax tech Yves Bilodeau is filling in as coach, which Gaiazova said was a fun change.

    “The first item on our pre-race meeting was whether or not we wanted to go out for pizza after our race today,” she said, laughing.

    Gaiazova and Crawford have already teamed up for a sprint relay medal once this season, a bronze in Dusseldorf, Germany. On Sunday they will combine forces once again, this time on classic skis, and their primary goal has already been achieved.

    “We wanted to make the final tomorrow, but there are only 13 teams, so they’re just running the final, not two heats,” Gaiazova said.