2005 December

Czech racer Katerina Neummanova thrilled the home crowd in Nove Mesto today, blowing away 2nd place finisher Julija Tchepalova (Russia) by 26.2 seconds in the 10km freestyle race. With World Cup overall leader Marit Bjorgen skipping the race to focus on training for the upcoming Olympics in Torino, Tchepalova closed to within 30 points of the overall lead. Kristin Stoermer Steira. Today's results also show that some familiar names are finding their way back near...

Things on the World Cup aren't like they used to be. Gone are the days when one could almost count on Bjorn Daehlie or Vladimir Smirnov (or Gunde Svan or Bill Koch) placing top three in just about every race. Whether it's the new head-to-head race formats, increased competition from many nations, or some other factor(s), today's World Cup results are getting more and more impossible to predict with even remote accuracy. Vincent Vittoz V2's...

FIS VIESSMANN World Cup Cross-Country in Nove Mesto na Morave (Czech Republic), Sprint , 30.12.2005 Lind and Sidko won in Nove Mesto Bjoern Lind (Sweden) and the 26-year old Alena Sidko (Russia) are the winners of the free style World Cup Sprint in Nove Mesto na Morave . For both it was the first World Cup victory. Alena Sidko finished the 1200 meter course shortly ahead of Anna Dahlberg from Sweden. The third place took...

After surprising everyone by winning the qualification round earlier in the day, Russian rocket Alena Sidko held on to advance through the quarterfinals and semis. In the women's A-Final, Sidko kept ahead of favored heavyweights Anna Dahlberg of Sweden and Claudia Kuenzel of Germany. www.fis-ski.com 1 1 1367021 SIDKO Alena 1979 RUS 2 4 1237817 DAHLBERG Anna 1976 SWE 3 3 1220648 KUENZEL Claudia 1978 GER 4 2 3485202 MATVEEVA Natalia 1986 RUS 5 8...

In today's freestyle sprint in Nove Mesto, Sweden placed three skiers in the men's A-Final with Bjoern Lind finishing just 0.1 seconds ahead of teammate Peter Larsson. The young Norwegian Johan Kjoelstad, who had his first World Cup victory last year in this same race, took a distant (+22.2) third today after dealing with some roughness from Mikael Oestberg who finished fourth. US Ski Team sprint specialist Andrew Newell was eliminated in his 6-person quarterfinal...

Today is a breakthrough day for US Ski Team member Andrew Newell, who put up the third-fastest time in the qualification round of the Nove Mesto freestyle World Cup Sprint. Swede Bjoern Lind continued his strong season with the fastest qualifying time, ahead of the young Norwegian rocket Johan Kjoelstad. www.fis-ski.com 1 23 1370707 LIND Bjoern 1978 SWE 2:24.32 0.00 2 25 3420131 KJOELSTAD Johan 1983 NOR 2:25.94 13.47 3 26 3530005 NEWELL Andrew 1983...

Source: Skidport.com The Swedish national team has struggled at the beginning of the season, but the 30-kilometer classic in Canmore last week gave signals that something is about to change. Mathias Fredriksson was one of the most active skiers in the front of the lead pack.

A collection of photos from the Canmore World Cup races by Frederic Brunet, from Quebec City.

Our present to you – lots (and I mean lots) of pictures from the World Cup races in Canmore! Here is an outstanding collection from Jon Nelson of Thunder Bay. Also see the photos by Frederic Brunet in today's other article.