Rebecca Dussault at the Boulder MT Tour.

I supported CXC athlete Natalia Naryshkina for the 51km classic marathon. I had tested and skied on the Noque trails the day before and found that once in the woods, conditions were perfect for hardwax. I arrived at the start in Ishpeming early to set up the tent using the Toko van as a wind block. Fellow Toko Tech Team member Mike Young and I prepared several test skis. The start area had received an inch of new snow while the second half had gotten a light mist overnight. In typical U.P. fashion we knew that the tracks in the second half of the race would glaze and therefore need more kick. The start area was open and the little snow from overnight was drying out from the stiff winds so we skied out a few km’s from the start to test. I first double checked with glide. I had put straight JS Red over HF Red on a pair and JS Red/Yellow Mix of HF Red on another. The straight JS Red was the call. We worked through the kick wax next. Straight Nordic Red just couldn’t hang on with the glazing tracks and straight Nordic Yellow and Nordic Red/Yellow mix as too grabby. We settled on two thin layers of Nordic Yellow short under foot with 3 covering layers of Nordic Red, being careful not to mix the layers but to cover the yellow. Natalia arrived at about 8 with her skis for the 9am start. Waxing someone’s skis you don’t know is tough, especially when they are the favorite to win. She had some kind of kick on the skis but didn’t know what in a vaguely marked kick zone. I quickly took the wax off and sanded the bases followed by a thin layer of Base Green Binder heated in with my torch and corked smooth. I put two thin short layers of Nordic Yellow on and covered it with only two layers of Nordic Red to start. I gave the skis to Natalia to test. I told her to ski out a few km’s to make sure she got in the woods where the tracks were glazing. She came back and the skis were grabby. Too long, I quickly scraped off the first inch of kick wax and corked smooth the transition. After another test run the skis were much better but not bomber kick. One more layer of Nordic Red did the trick, “perfect” she said. I then corked in a quick speed layer of JS Red to make sure she had maximum glide for the first few kms. Mike and I hung around at the start helping people with too much or not enough kick get their skis to a happy place. After everyone was off I went to the finish and wait to see how Natalia would go. She blazed the woman’s field, winning by 4min! She said the kick was great the whole way! Holding up through several icy lake crossings.  Congratulations to Natalia and to all of the Noque participants.Ben Lund, Toko Tech Team

 

Noque: Report from the Winner

I did a pre-layer of Toko HF Blue.  Then I put a layer of Toko HF red on top.  For fluoro I used JetStream Red Powder ironed in.  Then 2 layers of JetStream Red Block corked on top of that.  For kick I had a green klister binder with a little Nordic Basewax Green and then covered it with a blue wax.

Santi Ocariz winner of the Noque 51km Classic race

Alaska Ski for Women: A Great Event!

The Alaska Ski for Women is North America’s largest women-only cross-country ski event. This is a partner event where women of all ages and abilities come out to Nordic ski approximately 2.4 miles (4K), many in colorful costumes while raising funds for local non-profit organizations that help stop the cycle of domestic abuse against women and children.  The event is held on Super Bowl Sunday which is a day that has seen much domestic abuse against women.  There are skate, classic, and duathlon races as well as a fun costume race which had a total of 1200 participants this year!  Toko has provided on site wax service to the participants for the last 12 years.  We are grateful for this event!

Wax volunteers on Super Bowl Sunday supporting the Alaska Ski for Women

Rossignol Tech Rep Ira Edwards "manning up" .

Cute Costume

Alaska Toko Rep Patrick McGownd assisting.

 

 

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Patrick Johson (MID) crushes the 10k skate; behind him, Jordan Buetow (Bates) races to sixth.

The third weekend of EISA qualifiers were combined with NENSA’s  TD Bank Eastern Cup races and held at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont.

The collegiate competitors topped the combined field on each day of individual start races, with only three Eastern Cup competitors cracking into the top ten.

The podium saw no new faces this weekend, as Middlebury’s Patrick Johnson took both men’s races, Dartmouth’s Sophie Caldwell won the 5k classic race, and UVM’s Caitlin Patterson topped the 10k skate.

In the J2 race,  Julie Kern (CSU) and Cullen Brown (Durango, CO Nordic) won their respective events on both days of racing.

Stadium at Trapps Family Lodge in Stowe, VT

An overnight snowfall Friday evening added to an already solid base on the homologized race trails at Trapps and light flakes continued into the morning, clearing for the first day’s races and remaining open to sunshine for the weekend’s events.  Typical of Trapps, early morning stillness turned to subsequent gusts throughout each day, which kept the air and snow feeling cooler than the reported mid-twenties temps.

Saturday’s classic track set up solid overnight for the women’s mid-morning 5k.  Some of the late morning racers were not so lucky; the sun ‘s effect appeared just prior to the start of the men’s race and left many racers with slick skis.

Sophie Caldwell is cheered through the stadium by father Sverre Caldwell

Annie Hart (DAR)

After a double victory last weekend in Jackson Sophie Caldwell continued her winning streak by topping the women’s field with a time of 15:48.  Her closest competitor and main rival, Caitlin Patterson, finished second by 7.4 seconds, a time which was only .7 seconds ahead of third place finisher Annie Hart (DAR).

UVM then paved the next three positions, as Amy Glen, Anja Gruber and Lucy Garrec took fourth through sixth respectively.   Clare Egan of the Green Racing Project took seventh.  Erika Flowers  (DAR) earned 8th place while Annie Pokorny (MID) took  9th.  UNH’s Tristan Ramey and Elizabeth Guiney took 10^th and 11^th.

The  10k race was also an individual start, but the times for the top three men told a story of an embattled sprint finish.  Johnson was in a heated race around the two-lap course with Sam Tarling of Dartmouth and Franz Bernstein of UVM.  It took the three men just over 28 minutes to cross the line within 2 seconds of each other.  Tarling clocked in a mere .3 seconds behind Johnson, Bernstein’s time a slight addition of 2.3 seconds.

Dartmouth’s Eric Packer and Gordon Vermeer took fourth and fifth places, Fritz Horst (UVM) took 6^th, Justin Freeman (racing for Holderness Nordic and the only non-collegiate racer in the top-ten) took 7^th, Per Lindgren (UNH) was  8^th, Ben Lustgarten (MID) was 9^th, Dylan Grald (UVM)  placed 10^th, and Erik Lindgren (UNH) finished 11^th.

Franz Bernstein (UVM)

Sunday’s skate races were both 10k events.

Caitlin Patterson (UVM) photo: Lincoln Benedict

In the women’s race Caitlin Patterson took back the top spot from Sophie Caldwell, clocking a time of 28:16. Caldwell finished in a time of 28:27, and the next four places finished within 15 seconds.  In third was Caldwell’s teammate Erika Flowers, who sprawled across the line in sheer exhaustion.  Fourth place went to Clare Egan, the only top woman outside the collegiate field.  Fifth and sixth went to UVM’s Lucy Garrec and Amy Glen.

The times in the men’s race were just as tightly contested – except for the top spot.  Patrick Johnson did not just win the men’s skate, he tore apart the field.  Second through 10^th place was spread by only 28 seconds, but Johnson managed to gap the entire field by 42 seconds in an event which took just over 24 minutes.

In second place was Sam Tarling of Dartmouth, while third and fourth went to UVM’s Franz Bernstein and Alex Howe.  Mathieu Fortin of Lavall University (Quebec) took fifth, just one second over sixth place Jordan Beutow of Bates. Patrick Caldwell, a J1 racer from Stratton Mountain took an impressive 7^th place in the midst of an experienced field.  Eric Packer of Dartmouth placed 8^th, and 9^th place held a tie between Ben Lustgarten (MID) and Justin Freeman (Holderness).

Sam Tarling (DAR) and Ben Lustgarten (MID)

Dartmouth won the team scores for  both classic races and the men’s skate race, while UVM took the women’s skate race.   Dartmouth won the overall combined team score, adding up 916 points to UVM’s 735. Middlebury was third with 729.

Collegiate Results

Eastern Cup and Combined Results

Athletes collide during the freestyle sprint heats at U.S. Nationals this January.

A sprint qualifier can be defined as the preliminary stage of a sprint race in nordic skiing. In a race against the clock, competitors leave the starting gate at intervals and go as hard as they can for anywhere between 1 and 1.8 kilometers. The top 30 in most internationally sanctioned competitions, and sometimes a lesser number in other events, move onto the quarterfinals to face off against five other athletes at a time for the right to advance to the next round.

Sprint races progress in this manner all over the world; on the World Cup, in Continental Cups, in the collegiate circuit, and sometimes at small-scale high school races.

In the winter of 2009, the term “sprint qualifier” took on another meaning. The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) introduced a sprint race to the SuperTour that was truncated at the qualifying round; medals were awarded to skiers who clocked the fastest qualifying times, and the athletes’ entire day was done in a matter of two to four minutes. No longer just a prologue, the qualifier became a race all its own.

At the time, the trial run was met with mixed reviews. Athletes felt robbed of the chance to develop head-to-head sprint skills. Coaches acknowledged the challenges the organizers faced in putting on full heats, but agreed that the format was not ideal. Canadians who occasionally dabbled in the SuperTour simply didn’t understand it.

Qualifier-only sprints started with a trial run in West Yellowstone, Mont. that first winter, but have since spread to three other stops on the SuperTour in 2012. What began as confusion is now ranting fury — some still fail to understand why the experimental format was deemed a success and allowed to proliferate.

To begin to answer that question, we start with that first time qualifier-only sprints were held in the U.S.

When the format was first conceived of prior to the 2009-2010 season, then-USSA Nordic Director John Farra intended for it to do two things. First and foremost, the decision to leave out the heats from the West Yellowstone sprint was a philosophical one. Farra believed it to be the right move for U.S. skiing at the time, and today stands by his decision.

“We still don’t have enough Americans, in my personal opinion, who can qualify, period,” said Farra, who has since left USSA to become the High Performance Director for Paralympic skiing, in a phone interview in December. “That’s a problem. For me, at this point in our development, there’s an argument for getting athletes in more races where they’re just throwing down… I think it works on a gear all Americans need to keep working on.”

Secondly, it put an additional sprint race back on the calendar in the first period of the SuperTour where, at the time, there was only one in Bozeman, MT. It would not be the first time sprint races were held in West Yellowstone. Regular sprints, complete with heats, were held on the Rendezvous trails up until 2007, but according to Farra, coaches complained that the trails were too narrow and the altitude too punishing for a full sprint day.

One of the jobs of the Nordic Director is to select skiers at the end of the Period 1 to send to the World Cup. With an additional sprint thrown into the mix, Farra’s theory was that the overall points leader would have to be a decent sprinter and distance skier to earn those coveted European start rights.

Rankings of the best distance skiers and sprinters on the domestic circuit are often very similar, however. For example, at the end of Period 1 this winter, the women’s SuperTour sprint leader, distance leader, and overall leader were all one person: Jessie Diggins (CXC/USST).

On the men’s side, overall leader Mike Sinnott (SVSEF) had two top-5 distance results along with his two sprint wins and one second.

The sprint qualifier has also been accused of having another motive. It was introduced in the season leading up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, and it’s been suggested that the qualifier, in squeezing another race into a short time frame, was a grab for better FIS points to boost the U.S. quota for the Games.

Farra said this was never the case. Points are always based off the qualifier, so heats would have no effect on FIS points either way. Additionally, as Farra pointed out, “you can only ‘boost’ the points if you have a quality field in the race.”

Jessie Diggins (CXC/USST) racing in the qualifier-only West Yellowstone freestyle sprint this November.

With his idea for a modified sprint in mind, Farra went to the West Yellowstone Chief of Competition at the time, Sara Hoovler, with the proposal.

From the organizer’s perspective, the introduction of an additional race in West Yellowstone brought with it organizational and financial burdens, which became the main point of negotiation.

“As an organizing committee we were pretty maxed out,” said Hoovler, who is now a school teacher in the area. “We couldn’t put on another full-scale race.”

When Farra brought the proposal to the organizers, they agreed to try out the additional sprint as long as it didn’t come with a significant extra cost—specifically, as long as it didn’t require coming up with the additional prize money. At $3,900 per race, prize money is one of the single most expensive components of hosting a SuperTour.

“Purses for these races can sink the entire event,” said Dan Cantrell, Hoovler’s successor as the West Yellowstone race director.

He estimates that between all the major costs involved with putting on the SuperTour every year—notably prize money and gas for grooming—the event runs the Yellowstone Ski Festival around $20,000. When the weather is especially uncooperative, the number goes up as tents and space heaters are brought in, or the Pisten Bully has go over the course multiple times.

With the introduction of homologation standards this year, any argument for heats became moot—the venue simply doesn’t have the terrain to meet the standards on a traditional sprint loop. For the race to count as a SuperTour complete with FIS points, there needed to be a certain amount of total climbing.

The only sprint course West Yellowstone could come up with that met the standards is a point-to-point 1.5 k, which ruled out the possibility for heats. For timing and officiating purposes, heats have to start and end in the same stadium.

“We were able to FIS homologate West for a sprint qualifier only. That’s a big deal, otherwise we don’t sprint there,” said Farra.

The other option would be to hold the fall SuperTours at locations that could homologate a sprint loop, but choices are limited by the reliability of snow anywhere else in the country in late November, and the number of venues willing to take on a SuperTour.

With the advent of homologation standards looming for 2011, Cantrell also had to account for the cost of the trail work necessary to get the courses up to standard. In addition to sitting on National Forest land, the Rendezvous Ski Trails occupy endangered grizzly bear habitat. Every time the ski trails are modified, the Forest Service requires an environmental impact assessment.

“To put it in perspective, the improvements from this year, with the connectors and homologation, was about a three year process,” said Cantrell. “We had a bulldozer out there two weeks before Thanksgiving.”

With these demands on the race organizers in mind, Farra was loath to push West Yellowstone to take on significant extra cost in adding a sprint qualifier to the schedule.

“We weren’t prepared to make the organizer come up with the prize money,” said Farra.

Since USSA strategically thought it was important to hold a sprint in Yellowstone, the organizers were excused from the obligation to hand out the prize money for sprint qualifiers. The exception is laid out in the USSA Rulebook—none of the sprint qualifiers on the SuperTour schedule this year award the usual purses to the top six finishers.

Since 2009, Yellowstone’s sprint qualifier has become two. In the second and third years of its existence, the opening day of the SuperTour was a double-header. The “SuperTour Sprint Showdown” starts with a skate sprint qualifier, and ends one hour later with a classic sprint. Each of the two races is an opportunity to earn points, but the single winner of the Showdown and recipient of the $250 purse is calculated from the combined times.

The first running of the Showdown at West Yellowstone, on the whole, was a success in the eyes of the organizers and USSA. There were a few kinks to work out—the flow of athletes from the finish back to the start was congested, and cold weather made the trek an uncomfortable one for athletes still just in spandex—but overall, organizers felt good about the trial run.

For her part, Hoovler thought the number of participants in the sprint qualifiers as reason to look positively at the outcome.

“We saw a lot of junior skiers, just getting some race experience, and also master skiers that weren’t competing for FIS points but challenging themselves,” she said. “I was very shocked at the amount of racers that participated.”

When West Yellowstone still had sprint heats in 2007, 42 women and 51 men participated. In 2009, 61 women and 67 competed in the qualifier-only version. In 2011, more athletes competed in the freestyle sprint than the classic, but the totals in the freestyle qualifier were 60 women and 92 men.

Amongst elite skiers, the sprint qualifier was met with some complaints about the absence of heats. Despite this feedback during the season, Farra said the format wasn’t a major issue at the spring USSA meetings, and he saw no reason not to keep experimenting with it.

“This is not a new topic,” Farra emphasized. “There’s been at least two springs for people to say, ‘Hey, this is ridiculous.’ I don’t remember there being significant discussion about that.”

The release of the 2011-2012 SuperTour calendar saw the addition of sprint qualifiers to three new venues: in Bozeman, Mont. one week after West Yellowstone; in night-sprint form at the Tour de Twin Cities, which took place just two weeks ago in Minneapolis, Minn.; and as a prologue to the upcoming 5/10 k classic on day one of the Owl Creek Chase in Aspen, Colo.

In the negotiating phase of calendar planning prior this season, Farra proposed the addition of sprint qualifiers to each of the new hosts. As with West Yellowstone, at each location, the investment that new homologation standards required already had organizers strapped for cash and volunteer power.

Austin Weiss, the Race Director for the Aspen SuperTour and Owl Creek Chase, agreed to add the sprint qualifier to the schedule on February 11 in order to make the entire weekend a more attractive package to racers. Weiss said the Aspen organizing committee was never asked if they could hold a full sprint with heats. He indicated that it would be a challenge, as heats require a separate day of racing, but didn’t rule it out as a possibility in the future.

“Logistically, everything is possible,” said Weiss. “It’s biting off a bit much—it’s not out of the question, but it’s something that the organizing committee would have to consider.

“The other benefit of a sprint qualifier is that it doesn’t require that much more work on the part of organizers.”

The race director in Minneapolis had a similar view.

John Munger, the director of the City of Lakes foundation, which hosted the first three races of the Tour de Twin Cities, pointed to the challenge of putting on a number of high-profile events within a short timeframe.

“It takes a long time to do sprints and lots of volunteer power,” Munger said in a phone interview. “We’re doing the Mayor’s Challenge, the IPC Paralympic World Cup, and the City of Lakes Loppet all within about two weeks.”

This is the compromise Farra sought to strike as he set about adding more sprints to the SuperTour last spring: give skiers more opportunity to develop their sprinting ability without pushing organizers to the point where they wouldn’t hold sprints at all. Just as in West Yellowstone, he saw qualifiers as the best solution.

“It’s a fine dance between what athletes and coaches want, and what we think organizers can do,” said Farra.

The financial burden of the additional race was also lessened at the new sprint venues. As with the two independent sprints in West Yellowstone, none of the three new sprint qualifiers come with the normal win payout, which adds up to $3,900 between both men and women (1st – $750, 2nd – $500, 3rd – $250, 4th – $200, 5th – $150, 6th – $100).

“Imagine if you push Bozeman, and we say, ‘Come up with four grand,’ and they say, ‘Sorry, can’t do it.’”

According to Dragan Danevski, director of the Bridger Ski Foundation, the additional prize money would have been more than they could afford, and was a point of negotiation when Farra asked them to hold a sprint qualifier in the spring.

“It would be nice if we could have $100,000 in prize money, but I said, ‘Look, in this economy, in this situation, we are lucky to have SuperTour races even with [some] money,’ sad Danevski in December.

“I had to make the decision that we would no be able to do three races and have prize money for three.”

The financial compromise has not gone unnoticed by the athletes, particularly those who have repeatedly placed in the top six in the SuperTour sprints thus far.

“I don’t understand it,” said Mike Sinnott (SVSEF), who was first and second in the two sprints in West Yellowstone and won the freestyle sprint the next week in Bozeman.

“It’s unprofessional in my opinion.”

In Sinnott’s view, the $250 check he won as the Sprint Showdown champion in West Yellowstone should have been a bonus.

“I think it’s pretty clear in the rules that you get $750 for a win,” he said.

Caitlin Gregg (CXC) has similarly excelled in sprinting this winter. She began with a fourth and first in West Yellowstone, a second-place in Bozeman, and a third in Minneapolis. Like Sinnott, she believes the sprint qualifiers should have prize money.

“If any race requires a registration fee and awards points…there needs to be prize money,” Gregg wrote in an email in December. While she understands that qualifier-only sprints, as a format, are easier on race volunteers than full heats, she believes that leaving out their prize money altogether undermines sprinting development in the U.S.

“It seems as though there was once a push to hold more sprints and team sprints on the circuit and suddenly (ironically coinciding with some of the best results ever for U.S. skiing, which came from sprints and team sprints internationally), the U.S. has decided to reduce the opportunities domestically for sprinters to develop,” said Gregg.

“Without prize money, sprint specialists or those who are competitive in both distance and sprint races would be loosing a large percentage of potential earnings that could allow them to continue competing on the SuperTour domestic circuit.”

As a solution, she proposed getting a title sponsor to help fund the SuperTour purses in the future.

If USSA is adamant about adding more sprints to the SuperTour, and has found race committees unable to produce the extra prize money, would USSA ever contribute their own cash to the pot to make up for it?

Given the state of its budget, “No way would USSA pay,” said Farra. “The SuperTour has never been funded by USSA… Given the state of the union at USSA, it’s highly doubtful that any prize money will come from them.”

Farra empathizes with the opinion of the athletes, but notes that contesting the sprints are still worth something.

“While I agree—I would be disappointed not to benefit from that prize money— World Cup qualifying is still up for grabs,” he said.

But for many athletes on the SuperTour, not even that is enough. Without heats, some don’t feel sprint qualifiers to be a valuable format.

Pat O’Brien (CGRP), who placed second in the night sprint qualifier two weeks ago in Minneapolis, believes the heats are critical to developing competitive sprinters.

“While I agree that it is important for US skiers to be able to qualify well (and make the heats), the real test to me is how well an athlete skis rounds,” said O’Brien. “It doesn’t matter how fast you are in the qualifier if you can’t move out of the quarters. Skiing well in a group is a skill that you only can develop through practice.”

“Cutting full sprints out of the schedule and replacing them with just qualifiers undermines this development.”

His teammate Tim Reynolds (CGRP) suggested an alternative format for heats that would be less demanding on organizers, and in cases like Minneapolis where there were fewer numbers, make more sense.

“You don’t have to take 30 onto the heats… I think you can adapt the format to the field size,” said Reynolds, pointing to the Madison, Wisconsin SuperTour as an example. In the past, the Madison event has taken on eight skiers from the qualifier on to the heats, which reduces the number of rounds to two semis and one final.

“Heats are a valuable experience,” said Reynolds.

If dissatisfaction with sprint qualifiers is as widespread as the vocal skiers would make it seem, then Farra agrees that USSA should go back to the drawing board.

“It’s part of being progressive,” said Farra. “How we’ll be a better ski nation is being open-minded to trying different things.”

“My memory is that we are still testing this concept. Until coaches come back in the spring and say, ‘This doesn’t work, we need to stop’—until that happens, we’re still testing it.”

If athletes really want to see qualifiers scaled back next year, Farra encourages them to go to the USSA spring meetings, or make sure their views will be represented at them.

“The USSA Congress really does work,” he said. “It’s amazing how many coaches go out of their way in the spring and engage in dialogue when they don’t want to be thinking about skiing.

“Athletes need to be able to remind their coaches, ‘This is what we’d like to see; this is how the SuperTour could be improved… Everybody is working their butts off, but it’s only going to get better if people bring their ideas forward.”

Billy Demong leading the chase group in the 10 k Gundersen competition in the Nordic Combined World Cup on Sunday in Val di Fiemme, Italy. Photo: Fiemme2013

When Friday didn’t go according to plan for all of the Americans on the Nordic Combined World Cup, they were happy to have Saturday to shoot for better results.

When the team sprint went better on the second day of competition in Val di Fiemme, Italy, with the two U.S. teams cracking the top 10, the four members were even more excited for Sunday. If trial and error told them anything, they figured they’d have foul-proof tactics for Sunday’s 10 k Gundersen start.

First, they concentrated on the jumping hill. Led by Bryan Fletcher in ninth, the crew posted a solid set of results with Billy Demong and Johnny Spillane ranking a respective 17th and 18th in the jumps and Taylor Fletcher jumping the 33rd best out of more than 50 athletes.

Relying on racing skills they had refined throughout the season, all four Americans went on to make the top 20. Demong skied the fastest 10 k of the day for third overall – his best World Cup result in two years. His previous best was a victory in Val di Fiemme in January 2010. He went on to win Olympic gold that year.

Bryan Fletcher tied a career best of seventh in the World Cup on Sunday with the 18th fastest time. His brother, Taylor, demolished his previous personal best of placing just outside the top 20, notching 14th overall. He skied the fifth fastest on the day, and Spillane was 19th despite recovering from a stomach bug.

Japan's Akito Watabe celebrates as he wins the Nordic Combined World Cup competition in Val di Fiemme, Italy, on Sunday. Billy Demong (USA) at right and Mikko Kokslien (NOR) at left battle for second. (Photo: Fiemme2013)

Japan’s Akito Watabe won Sunday overall in 28:27.8, setting a fast pace early on that Demong and Mikko Kokslien of Norway, who started 17th and 14th, respectively, did not try to reckon with. Instead, the two joined forces near the start, and skied into the race.

“Him and I like to ski a pretty similar race,” Demong said. “When we’re both skiing well, it’s controlled to start and just gets harder and harder throughout the race. [We] don’t go out crazy, just ski negative splits.”

Kokslien, who was part of the winning team sprint on Saturday, went on to outsprint Demong for second place, edging him by 0.9 seconds. Kokslien finished 3.0 seconds behind Watabe, and Demong said they were both surprised to see him in the stadium at the end.

“Honestly [Watabe] was so far in front of us at 5 k that we kind of just mentally let him go,” Demong said. “He had a minute and 20 seconds on us at one point so we were like, whatever, he’s gone.”

Demong said that was a smart strategy on his part. He was also impressed with his own tactics.

“I started off this weekend a little anxious and went out Friday and blew up,” Demong said of finishing 18th in the penalty race. “[I] went out hard, pulled away from the mass start [and] about 500 meters into the race, gapped off the field. Basically by 2 k was about ready to go back to the hotel.”

Although worn out from Friday’s race, he was more patient Saturday and helped secure sixth in the team sprint with Bryan Fletcher. On Sunday, Demong said he was recovered and ready to go, but wanted to again be patient. Skiing relaxed and controlled, he found himself in the hunt for a podium on the last lap.

“I started pulling away from the group without even knowing it,” Demong said. “Then [I] kind of had that confidence that, ‘All right, all I’ve got to do is go hard from here on out and not kill it,’ and we were left to fight it out, just Mikko and I.”

Bryan Fletcher hung with a group of 10 for most of the race and aimed to conserve energy for the end. With about 1 ½ kilometers to go, Bryan said six or seven remained in the chase for fourth place.

“It was definitely a challenging race and sitting in and not doing any work was a huge advantage for me in the end,” Bryan said. “I had a little bit fresher legs and more energy when the pace picked up .”

Taylor said he started near Austrian Mario Stecher, who helped him set a strong pace. The two skied together, and Taylor edged him for 14th by half a second.

“I felt awesome,” Taylor said. “I started dropping the guys behind me and catching more people. That’s a big energy boost so I just kept it going.”

U.S. head coach Dave Jarrett wrote in an email that the team was “psyched” with its collective performance to wrap up long weekend. “We want to keep the momentum rolling.”

“I’m pretty excited with our results this weekend,” Bryan said. “We had some chances and we didn’t take advantage of all of them but it’s there and the momentum’s going in the right direction.”

“To get a podium is great, but I think it’s even better to have the depth of the team,” said Demong, who added that he and Taylor Fletcher have a cumulative time bet for the season.

Going into Sunday’s race, Taylor was 5.5 seconds ahead of Demong, it terms of net time for all the World Cup races. Demong said he beat him by 10.3 seconds, putting him 4.8 seconds ahead.

“So we’re neck and neck,” Demong said. “And we’ve got six races left.”

On Monday, the team planned to fly back to the U.S. to train for two weeks before returning to the World Cup in Klingenthal, Germany, on Feb. 18. They opted to skip next weekend’s races in Kazakhstan.

Sunday’s overall results

Kershaw celebrating at the podium ceremony after Saturday's 15 k freestyle in Rybinsk, Russia. Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus.

There was plenty going on the nordic world this weekend, and the action started early, with sprints in two countries on Thursday: the FIS World Cup held its first-ever Moscow city sprint in Russia, while the IBU biathlon World Cup hosted its own sprints in Oslo, Norway. Both circuits took a break on Friday, while the skiers traveled to remote Rybinsk, Russia for mass start and skiathlon races on Saturday and Sunday. Biathlon competition resumed in Oslo, while the nordic combined circuit hit Val di Fiemme, Italy, Friday through Sunday.

North Americans turned in strong results at every venue, with a win by Canada’s Devon Kershaw in the Rybinsk mass start, sprint qualifier victories in Moscow by Kershaw and U.S. skier Jessie Diggins, a podium in Val di Fiemme by American Billy Demong, and top-ten finishes by American biathletes Tim Burke and Lowell Bailey, Canadian biathlete Brendan Green, U.S. nordic combiner Bryan Fletcher, U.S. cross-country skier Kikkan Randall, and Canadian skier Alex Harvey. Whew! That’s not even counting finishes in the teens….

Domestically, the focus was marathons in the U.S., with the Boulder Mountain Tour in Sun Valley, Idaho on Saturday and the City of Lakes Loppeton Sunday in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Canadians gathered in Cantley, Quebec for Eastern Canadian Championships, hosted by the Nakkertok Ski Club.

And it was easy to get buried in all the race writeups, but we also had reporting on Holly Brooks‘ wrist injury, Kristin Størmer Steira‘s weight problems, and Drew Goldsack‘s concussion.

Here’s your guide to all the action!

FIS Cross-Country World Cup, Russia

Thursday, Moscow freestyle sprints:

men’s race report | women’s race report | U.S. women’s report | U.S. men’s report | Canadian report | results

Saturday, Rybinsk 10/15 k freestyle mass start:

men’s race report | women’s race report | U.S. women’s report | Canadian report | men’s & women’s results

Sunday, Rybinsk 15/30 k skiathlon:

men’s race report | women’s race report | U.S. men’s report | U.S. women’s report | Canadian report | men’s & women’s results

IBU Biathlon World Cup, Oslo, Norway

Thursday 7.5/10 k sprints: men’s race report | women’s race report | men’s & women’s results

Saturday 10/12.5 k pursuits: men’s race report | women’s race report | men’s & women’s results

Sunday 12.5/15 k mass starts: men’s race report | North American men’s report | women’s blog post | men’s & women’s results

FIS Nordic Combined World Cup, Val di Fiemme, Italy

Friday penalty race: blog post | results

Saturday team sprint: blog post | results

Sunday large hill: race report | results

CCC Eastern Canadian Championships, Cantley, Quebec

Friday sprints: men’s race report | women’s race report | results

Saturday 10/15 k skate: men’s race report | women’s race report | results

Sunday 15/30 k pursuits: men’s and women’s race report | stage results | overall minitour results

Boulder Mountain Tour, Sun Valley, Idaho

blog post | results

City of Lakes Loppet, Minneapolis, Minnesota

blog post | results

German biathlete Andrea Henkel skiing her way to a mass start win in Oslo, Norway on Sunday. Photo: NordicFocus/Fischer.

Alysson Marshall (l) and Emily Nishikawa (r) of the Alberta World Cup Academy and Senior Development Team leading the 10 k freestyle pursuit at the NorAm Western Canadian Championships in Canmore, Alberta, on Jan. 22. Photo courtesy of Angus Cockney.

The art and appeal of racing usually boils down to the unexpected. One can guess who will win, pick the favorites and anticipate the moves, but nothing is ever over ’til, well, it’s over.

In two entirely different pursuit races Sunday in Cantley, Quebec, the odds and work ethic played out for the Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA). In the men’s 30 k classic pursuit, Graeme Killick and Jesse Cockney set out to aidi teammate Kevin Sandau in his quest for the NorAm lead and World Cup racing opportunity that came with it.

As it turned out, Killick won and Sandau successfully held off Brent McMurtry of the Pierre-Harvey National Training Centre (CNEPH), placing second in the last race of the three-day Eastern Canadian Championships. McMurtry, who was third, previously led the NorAm circuit and was also looking to secure a few World Cup starts this season.

Five of the Academy’s men placed in the top 6, with Jesse Cockney in fourth, Pate Neumann in fifth and Gerard Garnier in sixth.

In the women’s 15 k classic pursuit, four Academy athletes swept the top 4, and most guessed the win would go to either Alysson Marshall and Emily Nishikawa. Both AWCA athletes, they started more than a minute ahead of their next closest contender. Eventual third-place finisher Kate Brennan, also of the AWCA, said the start was almost comical as the rest of the women watched them take off then stood around and waited to go.

Race Favorites

With a NorAm mini-tour title and World Cup trip at stake, Marshall and Nishikawa strategically skied together for most of the race, waiting for the best opportunity to make a move. Neither could have predicted a minor slipup near the finish would make the difference.

With slightly less than a kilometer to go, Nishikawa found herself on Marshall’s heels. A moment later, Nishikawa was on the ground, trying to catch her breath and make sense of what just happened.

Nishikawa had crashed at a high speed on the final downhill, and while she wasn’t sure what happened, she knew the win was out of reach. Marshall skied away and locked up the victory and NorAm leader’s spot by 29.2 seconds. She needed to beat Nishikawa by at least 4 seconds to do so.

Alysson Marshall (r) leads her teammate on both the Alberta World Cup Academy and Senior Development Team, Emily Nishikawa, in the 10 k freestyle pursuit at the NorAm Western Canadian Championships in Canmore, Alberta, on Jan. 22. Photo courtesy of Angus Cockney.

Marshall said she looked back shortly after Nishikawa fell and could not see her. At that moment, she knew she had won with the chase group nearly 2 minutes behind.

“I still had gas left,” Marshall said in a phone interview from the airport, where she was getting ready to fly to Latvia via Frankfurt and join a few other Canadians on the OPA/Scandinavian Cup circuit. She would stay in Europe and compete in the World Cup for a few weeks, starting at Feb. 17-18 in Poland.

“I was ready for the last sprint and I think I probably could have gotten it [without Nishikawa falling],” Marshall said. “But at the same time, I didn’t really know.”

Nishikawa said she was fine after the crash, but had to sit down at the finish after salvaging second place.

“I was aiming to go into a wider track, and I think Alysson was aiming for the same track,” she said. “I think I got a pole in the rib. I winded myself pretty bad. That happens all the time in racing; it’s kind of unfortunate.”

Other than that, Nishikawa said she felt good, attacking on the climbs and responding to Marshall’s pushes on the downhills and flats. Starting 4 seconds behind Marshall, she caught up to the pursuit leader on the first climb and let Marshall lead the first of three laps. Nishikawa said she was ahead for most of the second and third laps, and remembered AWCA program director Mike Cavaliere calling out to them on the last hill: “Here’s where the race begins!”

A few moments later, it ended for Nishikawa. Even if she had finished within a second or two of Marshall and beat her time, Nishikawa would have secured the NorAm regional spot. Regardless, she was looking forward to the U23 World Championships in Turkey, which she would leave for next Saturday.

With a few World Cup experiences of her own, Kate Brennan held off AWCA teammate Brittany Webster by 1.4 seconds for third. She also edged Sara Hewitt (CXC) by 3.8 seconds for her best NorAm result in three years and career-best in a NorAm distance race.

“I think I finally figured out pacing. I’ve been having trouble with that all year,” Brennan said. “I grew up in the Ottawa area so I was kind of coming back to my home trails and had lots of people cheering for me so that was fun.”

Webster skied the fastest 15 k of the day to climb her way out from ninth place to start to finish fourth. In two NorAm starts this season, she has placed fourth in both.

Working Together

Men's 30 k classic pursuit podium on Day 3 of NorAm Eastern Canadian Championships in Cantley, Quebec: Graeme Killick (center) in first, Kevin Sandau (r) in second, and Brent McMurtry (l) in third. Photo courtesy of Mike Cavaliere.

In preparation for the men’s race, the AWCA athletes and coaches met Saturday night to discuss tactics, according to Cavaliere.

Sandau was trying to make it back to Europe after starting his season on the World Cup circuit this year, and it was critical that the men starting around him helped him out.

For Killick, the first out of the gate after winning Saturday’s 15 k freestyle interval start, he would have to see how his problematic hip flexors felt during the classic race. Sandau started 7 seconds behind, and Cockney was next out 8 seconds later.

If the three worked as a team, they figured they could hold off McMurtry, who started just over a minute after Sandau. With World Cup starts on the line after he placed an uncharacteristic 11^th on Saturday, McMurtry would likely be hungry.

“We wanted to make sure they kept pushing each other and didn’t let Brent get any encouragement,” Cavaliere said. “We needed those guys not to let their guard down.”

Within the first 5 kilometers of the race, McMurtry had already put the pressure on, narrowing the gap to about 46 seconds. They still had five laps to go.

“Brent skied so strong today; he was clawing back time just skiing alone,” Sandau said. “The whole race I had the Jaws theme song in my head. It was one of the scarier races in my career.”

With the three AWCA teammates skiing together in the lead, Sandau said they took turns leading, each setting a fast pace in an effort to permanently drop McMurtry.

“We knew that we should take advantage of our starting positions and work together to maintain that gap,” Sandau said. “It would be stupid not to unless one of us was feeling phenomenal.”

Killick said he fed off the teamwork as each skier used their strengths to pull them ahead.

“Jess was amazing on the double pole, even on the climbs, and Kevin and I [pushed] on the climbs,” Killick said. “Through the race, I was trying to do my part. I was sort of strung out in a few places when Jess and Kevin would go up the front and start hammering the hills and flat sections, but I was able to recover well in the draft.”

According to Cavaliere, the coaches told Cockney that he could help set a fast pace for half the race and drop out around 15 k. That way, the sprinter could help Sandau without having to worry about recovering for the team’s training camp in Italy in a few days and stiffening up during the long flight on Monday.

As Sandau, Killick and Cockney opened the gap to almost a minute on McMurtry at the midway point, Cockney had done his job, but decided to finish the race. Before then, Sandau said he was a little worried Cockney might ski away from him. He told Cockney how well he was skiing as they entered the stadium near the end of the third lap.

“He spent all he had at 12 k,” Sandau said of Cockney, who hung in to place fourth. “He just kind of sacrificed himself. I owe a lot of today’s race to Jess.”

Cavaliere joked that they gave Cockney the George Hincapie Award, referring to the American cyclist known for helping Lance Armstrong win the Tour de France seven times.

While Sandau didn’t win, he did what he needed to.

“Priority number one was to beat Brent,” he said. “It would have been good to win overall, but Killick got the little push at the end. … I was ecstatic to be up there with him. He’s obviously in some good shape.”

Killick said he was similarly happy to feel strong enough to stay with Sandau. The two traded leads until the shortly before the stadium finish, when Killick stayed in front on the last hill.

“I just turned it on the last little climb [and] put in my best sprint after 30 k,” Killick said.

There, he edged Sandau for his second victory in two days. Saturday’s marked his first career NorAm win. Killick said it was a good indication of what kind of shape he was in before U23 Worlds in two weeks.

The third man to finish, McMurtry had a different experience in Sunday’s pursuit. For all but the first 2 k, when he skied with teammate David Greer, McMurtry skied alone. When he passed other Academy skiers, many of them refused to help him gain ground on Sandau. McMurtry didn’t blame them.

“Honestly, I knew that it would take a minor miracle [to catch Sandau and win],” McMurtry said. “It’s a race that I really enjoy. I like 30 k and I like classic so I just sort of focused on skiing my own race. After 20 k, I heard they were working together pretty seamlessly. I knew that I couldn’t catch them at that point.”

According to lap splits on Zone4.ca, McMurtry came as close as 44.2 seconds from Sandau around 10 k. He later lost time, but regained about 9 seconds around 20 k. Regardless, he was 54 seconds back. Disappointed he didn’t set himself up better for the pursuit, he was glad to win the time trial.

“It’s like a little bit of a consolation prize,” McMurtry said. “If nothing else, I think I was quite a bit stronger relative to those guys. Skiing 30 kilometers by yourself is pretty tough.”

Women’s results

Men’s results

Kershaw celebrating his victory in Saturday's 15 k freestyle. Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus.

Canada has been producing consistent world-class results for several years now on the World Cup, and seeing them at the top of results sheets weekend after weekend is almost expected at this point. Because they’ve repeatedly raised the bar this season, anything slightly below that mark seems like an off day. And with raised to the top of the podium with Kershaw’s win in Saturday’s 15 k, matching it was a tall order.

Kershaw and Harvey worked their way through the middle of the pack through the first 15 k on classic skis, and after the change to skate skis, began to look like they’d be challenging for the podium again. They hovered right near the front of the pack for most of the second half of the race. Kershaw took 27 extra points for winning the sprint at 21.4 k and taking second in the last preem at 26.5 k. Harvey was also right in the mix, taking fourth at 21.4 k.

When the leading Russians quickened the pace on the final lap, however, the duo couldn’t quite respond.

“The day went OK,” said Canadian National Ski Team head coach Justin Wadsworth.

“I mean two in the top 10 isn’t bad, but we were hoping for more.”

Though they may have fallen shy of their own expectations, their performances moved them up in the overall World Cup standings. Kershaw’s sixth-place finish, when combined with the preems, earned him 67 World Cup points on Sunday, bumping him past Marcus Hellner (SWE) and into third in the overall standings.

Sergey Turyshev (RUS) and Maxim Vylegzhanin (RUS) leading the 30 k skiathlon. Alex Harvey (CAN) sits just behind. Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus.

The day before the skiathlon, Kershaw’s plan for Sunday was to stay near the front and out of trouble.

“You have to try and conserve energy and ski relaxed in the pack because you need that energy for a sprint finish,” he said.

On the final lap, the lead pack consisted of five Russian skiers up front—Tobias Angerer (GER) and Kershaw were the first athletes to break the sea of blue. Around ten more skiers were still in contact behind them, but after 80 minutes of racing, the final lap saw the field start to string out.

Ilias Chernousov (RUS) and Vylegzhanin were the ones to successfully break away on the final uphill, but after the top two, places three through 16 finished within a 10.4-second window.

According to Wadsworth, those places were pretty much determined before the athletes entered the stadium

“It was a bit tactical for sure, at least with our guys not wanting to do too much early, and then trying to be there for the finish, but it stretched out quite a bit going into the last climb and there was just no chance to move up,” he said.

Harvey described the final hill as crucial for positioning, as a fast descent fed into the subsequent uphill.

“It was more of a ski speed kind of thing since it was a long downhill going into the last climb,” Harvey wrote in an email.

“The Russians had amazing skis, so did the Germans.”

The preceding 27 k or so had certainly been a tactical race. After a fast classic portion, the transition to skate skis brought a significant drop in pace.

“Once we got skating, the pace died and everybody was looking at each other, just like in any other mass start for the men!” said Harvey. “So overall, pretty tactical.”

Harvey’s eighth-place finish moved him from eight to sixth in the overall World Cup, 198 points behind Kershaw. Despite racing three times in four days, he felt strong on Sunday, particularly in the skate portion, where he moved up from 12th at the exchange.

“Skiathlons could be my favorite race format,” said Harvey.

Babikov, who was looking for a little redemption on Sunday after falling in the 15 k the day before, skied the classic portion well, and was eighth at the second preem.

During the second half, he lost contact with the main pack, and finished 19th.

“On the skating part I didn’t feel as good as I felt yesterday, maybe acclimatization kicked in,” said Babikov, who arrived in Russia four days ago after two weeks spent at home in Canada.

Overall, the Canadian mens’ performance in Russia, which began in Moscow on Thursday with Kershaw’s third place finish in the freestyle sprint, can perhaps best be summed up by his tweet on Sunday afternoon: “Pretty decent little Russian trip for Canada. 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th. #decent. Biggest thanks for all the congrats, twittterotti!”

Men’s results.

An aerial view of the shooting range during the first stage of the mass start. Photo: NordicFocus/Fischer.

Some things get better with age and U.S. biathlete Tim Burke, for now at least, appears to be one of them.

On Thursday, he placed 15^th in a World Cup sprint in Oslo, Norway, in an effort he said was marred by bad ski choice. On Friday, he celebrated his 30^th birthday – and then the fireworks began.

After moving up to sixth in Saturday’s pursuit, he notched another top-ten finish on Sunday when he placed eighth in the 15 k mass start.

“After yesterday’s race I felt very confident that I could be up there again today,” Burke said.

It showed: Burke relaxed at the beginning of the race, leaving the range in 15^th position after the first bout of shooting. But once he got rolling, he was right in the thick of things. Burke cleaned the second prone stage, bringing his total to six clean stages in a row after shooting perfectly in the pursuit.

Confidence in hand, he moved towards the front, at times leading the main chase pack.

“I felt totally in control on the skis today,” Burke told FasterSkier. “It was no problem to follow the others, and I actually thought about going to the front to push the pace, but I did not want to get overly aggressive before standing.”

It turned out to be a good instinct. Burke ended up with three penalties, two in the initial standing stage and one in the final stage.

Burke on course at Holmenkollen. Photo: NordicFocus/USBA.

“I felt very relaxed with my shooting but I struggled a little with the back wind in both standing stages,” he said. “My biggest problem in standing shooting is that I tend to rock forward sometimes so when the wind picks up from the left side like today, I really have to fight.”

Despite his shooting errors, however, Burke was able to attack on the trails and maintain a good position. He never again dropped lower than 12^th, and had the fifth-fastest ski time overall, including the second-fastest closing loop.

Saturday’s pursuit had been a record for Burke, in that it was his first clean sheet in a four-stage race. After that effort, he had said that “I guess it just took me [30 years] to figure out that avoiding the penalty loop makes racing much easier!”

Regarding his penalties on Sunday, Burke told FasterSkier, “As far as avoiding the penalty loop like yesterday… now that I am 30 I also forget things pretty fast.”

Burke led a slew of North Americans into the top fifteen: Canada’s Brendan Green and Jean Philippe Le Guellec finished 10^th and 12^th, and American Lowell Bailey placed 14^th.

His teammate, Bailey, also spent time at the front of the race, skiing in second place on the second loop before collecting four penalties over the course of the last three stages.

“I’m happy with a top-fifteen of course, but I’m definitely a disappointed in my last shooting stage,” he told FasterSkier. “I missed my last two shots and that really hurt. I just wasn’t able to pull it together for the last stage. It’s really frustrating, but also motivating – I know I can be in the running for the podium!”

Bailey early in the race, leading eventual second-place finisher Andreas Birnbacher of Germany. Photo: NordicFocus/USBA.

Green had faced equipment malfunctions in the pursuit, and was looking forward to a more relaxed day in the mass start. Unfortunately, he wrote in an e-mail, he didn’t get it.

“As ridiculous as this sounds, things did not go smoothly again,” Green explained. “This time my equipment worked perfectly fine, but it was my back today that was giving me problems.”

Back pain is a recurring problem for the Canadian, who suffered from a herniated disk in July; after a flare-up in December, he considered flying home and ending the first period of racing early. On Sunday, Green said that he actually didn’t feel much pain during the race – “I guess I was pretty pumped full of endorphins” – but as soon as he finished, his back seized up.

“By the time I made it back to the wax room it was getting hard to walk,” Green said. “Fortunately I was able to see a German doctor to try and bring some relief. We fly back to Canada tomorrow, which I’m pretty scared about now, but I’m hoping I can make it back without too much discomfort.”

Like Burke, Green started in the middle of the field, and was skiing in the teens for most of the race. He accrued just two penalties and gradually moved up from the 19^th-place position he held after the second stage. After cleaning his last stage, the jets turned on, and Green shot from 12^th into 10^th while laying down the fifth-fastest closing loop.

“I’m definitely pumped with the result!” Green wrote. “I had my best skiing of the week and was solid on the range which paid off with a good result that I’m happy about. The last loop was a tough fight, and it’s always nice when you can make up a position or two.”

Le Guellec was almost with him at the finish: in the middle of the race, the Quebec native was skiing in fifth and sixth position, and even after missing a shot in the final stage he was sitting in eighth. But Le Guellec did not have enough gas in the tank, and lost four spots over the final three kilometers.

Still, the 10^th and 12^th place finishes represented one of the best days for Canada in recent memory, and added to Green’s personal-best tally here in Oslo: his previous best was a 14^th-place finish, and this weekend he placed 9^th, 10^th, and 13^th.

Biathlon Canada High Performance Director Chris Lindsay told FasterSkier that his athletes have been on a roll all season, and that they have all been feeding on their teammates’ success.

“I feel strongly that the momentum we have been building this year has helped all of our athletes,” Lindsay said. “We are very pleased with the success of our athletes, and the [IBU Cup] athletes, at this point in the season. We are seeing career-best performances at the World Cup, IBU Cup, and Youth Olympic Games levels and I am confident that this will continue into both the World Junior Championships and World Championships in the next month.”

Lindsay’s team will be skipping the next World Cup weekend to head home for a training block, and Green said he was ready.

“Now I think it’s definitely time to return home and let everything recover fully before World Championships,” he told FasterSkier.

As for the Americans, they head with the rest of the World Cup to Kontiolahti, Finland. The venue is expected to be frigid, with the entire area under a cold-weather warning, overnight lows of -15 Fahrenheit and windchill factors almost that severe during the day.

Burke, however, thinks he can stay red hot.

“I am looking forward to Kontiolahti, because I feel like I am in a good flow now,” he said.

Full results

Complete race report

Vylegzhanin on his way to victory in Rybinsk, Russia on Sunday in the 30 k skiathlon. Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus.

Rybinsk is like Russia’s version of Holmenkollen—perhaps not with quite as many spectators, but its fans were no less enthusiastic about the World Cup this weekend, and turned out in admirable numbers despite the cold to cheer on the national team. On Saturday, Russian skiers fell short of topping the podium in front of the home crowd, but that changed in a big way in the 30 k skiathlon on Sunday. Not only did Russia claim the top two spots, they took four of the top five and nine of the top 12.

Maxim Vylegzhanin (RUS) delivered victory in Rybinsk, besting teammate Ilia Chernousov by six seconds on the twelve-lap course, and in a photo finish for third, Tobias Angerer (GER) broke up the Russian pack by outsprinting Eugeniy Dementiev (RUS). Petr Sendov (RUS) was 0.6 seconds behind in fifth, adding to Russia’s dominating showing.

“This victory was very important for me because I couldn’t get to the podium in Rybinsk before,” said Vylegzhanin in a press conference following the race.

“Something was always wrong either with skis or my shape. This time everything worked perfectly.”

The Rybinsk crowd. Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus.

From the moment the gun went off, Russia pushed the pace. On the second lap, the top ten men were all in blue. In an interview with Skisport.ru after the post-race press conference, Vylegzhanin said that his team definitely used their numbers (15-strong out of 56 competitors) to their advantage, consciously using team tactics to try to break open the race in the classic portion.

Vylegzhanin’s strategy was to wear his competitors down in the classic leg, as he considers it his stronger discipline. There were four intermediate bonuses available on Sunday, at the 6.5, 11.5, 21.4 and 26.5 k marks. At the sprint preem at the 11.6 k mark, Vylegzhanin was in third behind Konstantin Glavatskikh (RUS) and Dmitriy Japarov (RUS), but the pack wasn’t worn out yet, holding at around 30 skiers strong.

In the exchange zone at the halfway point, Vylegzhanin had the lead and the front group had diminished to 19. As Kris Freeman (USA) described afterwards, the beginning of the skiathlon played out much faster than usual with the sprint bonuses, which were an added feature this year.

The pace slowed once the skate leg got underway, and Vylegzhanin hovered in the top 10. The relaxed tempo helped his chances in the end, he told Skisport.ru.

In the first skate preem at 21.4 k, Saturday’s winner Devon Kershaw (CAN) made a break to win 15 extra points, and continued to ski near the front for the rest of the race.

Japarov and Italy’s Roland Clara attempted to break away shortly thereafter, but the pack reeled them back in, and as the group came through the stadium for the second to last time, Sedov set the pace, with four other Russians in the front.

Chernousov made a move to take over on the last uphill before the stadium, but Vylegzhanin reacted, and the two put distance on the rest of the field. Chernousov still led as the stadium came into sight, but Vylegzhanin overtook him on the corner before the final straightaway and won by a six-second margin.

Vylegzhanin said later that he had not particularly expected Chernousov to be the one to make the break at the end, but thought that everyone probably envisioned the last hill to be the spot where someone would try to make their move. With this in mind, he was ready to react to Chernousov’s surge.

Vylegzhanin also told the Skisport.ru reporter that, though he was pleased with his first World Cup win of the season, it would have been more meaningful if so many Red Group skiers hadn’t been absent.

Chernousov described his break as an attempt to repeat a nearly-successful identical move in Saturday’s 15 k, where he was just beat at the line by Kershaw.

“I was really exhausted in the last three laps and tried to relax and use the same tactics as yesterday in the last uphill,” said Chernousov.

Though he missed the top spot, the Russian was satisfied with his second podium in Rybinsk this weekend.

Vylegzhanin and Chernousov put a comfortable gap on the rest of the field, but Angerer fought Demetiev for third, the only non-Russian in the top five. Demetiev’s fourth-place finish on Sunday was his first result back on the World Cup since the end of his two-year doping ban.

“I’m happy to be on the podium again,” said Angerer. “Rybinsk becomes a very special place for me, I do not really know what is exactly special… I always feel well here.”

“I tried to push hard and worked in front together with Roland Clara in the free technique part but at the end the Russians were too strong today.”

Men’s results.

Vylegzhanin (r) in front during the classic portion of the skiathlon next to Sergey Turyshev (RUS). Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus.

Svendsen racing the FIS World Cup openers in Sjusjøen, Norway this winter. Photo: flyingpointroad.com.

When Germany’s Andreas Birnbacher left the shooting range for one more three-kilometer loop in Sunday’s mass start race, there was little doubt that he’d be beaten to the finish line.

Yes, Birnbacher was leading. And yes, he was wearing the red bib denoting that he led the discipline standings on the World Cup circuit. There was just one problem: Emil Hegle Svendsen of Norway was right on his shoulder.

Just one day earlier, Svendsen had laid down a spectacular sprint in the final meters of the pursuit to secure second place, leaving Russia’s Evgeniy Garanichev looking as if he was standing still. Svendsen knew, the spectators knew, and even Birnbacher knew – with a weapon like that in the Norwegian’s arsenal, Birnbacher didn’t stand a chance.

“I realized that I could not outsprint Emil,” Birnbacher said in a press conference after the race. Instead, he tried to protect at least a second-place finish: “I went as hard as I could so no one could come up from the back and take my spot on the podium.”

Birnbacher leading a pack early in the race. Photo: NordicFocus/Fischer.

With Garanichev and teammate Dimitry Malyshko charging hard behind them, it was a smart move. Birnbacher led the way up the huge climb to the top of the course, down the winding descent, and up the excruciatingly steep Gratishaugen hill. As the pair approached the stadium, the noise became deafening as the crowd awaited the move that they knew was coming.

Anticipation mounting, Birnbacher and Svendsen tucked along the flat next to the ski jump, and began up the last, small climb behind the shooting range. Then, at the top of the climb just before a sharp right turn, it happened – Svendsen went.

“I knew I had him,” Svendsen told Norwegian broadcaster NRK after the race.

And he did. Putting in a powerful burst, Svendsen left Birnbacher far behind and cruised to his first victory of the weekend and the 27^th of his career, much to the delight of the crowd and of King Harald of Norway, who was on hand to watch the race. By the time he crossed the finish line just 250 meters later, Svendsen had six seconds on the German.

Now Birnbacher knows how Maxim Vylegzhanin, Petter Northug’s habitual foil, feels as he races towards defeat. Perhaps, too, he can talk to countryman Axel Teichmann about how to overcome the despair of being trailed by the world’s best sprinter; on Saturday, Svendsen told the press that he had carefully studied Northug’s moves from the 2011 World Championships in Oslo.

Despite missing out on another mass start win, Birnbacher was actually happy with his race. He said in the press conference that he hadn’t known whether to start or not because he’d been feeling sick.

Simon Fourcade leads brother Martin in the mass start. Martin Fourcade finished 5th and Simon 19th. Photo: NordicFocus/Fischer.

“It was really a tough race for me, I was hit by something,” he told the German Zeit newspaper. “After the second lap I was beginning to think that I would have to quit because it seemed to be going so badly. But I decided against it.”

Birnbacher did have one thing he could lord over his Norwegian rival: clean shooting. In three mass start races so far this season, Birnbacher has missed only a single shot out of 60 taken, and his second-place finish today is his worst showing.

So while Svendsen may have won, but he can’t touch the German’s marksmanship.

“Birnbacher hit everything, so I had to work harder,” said Svendsen, who had two penalties. “After all, it’s been almost 700 days since I’ve hit all the targets in a race, and that’s something I’m not proud of.”

And clean shooting is important. Despite being without a doubt one of the fastest skiers on the circuit, Svendsen has won just three times this season; his first win, in a pursuit in Hochfilzen, Austria, came, like today, despite having more penalties than his closest competitors.

Svendsen, who took over the World Cup lead, said he knew he had to shoot better. But today he was all smiles, raising both arms in victory as he crossed the finish line. His performance was rewarded with a meeting with King Harald himself, which Svendsen said made him “more nervous than shooting.”

While Svendsen had won three previous World Cup races at Holmenkollen, the king had never been in attendance. Today, that changed.

“I was so nervous that I don’t remember what we talked about,” Svendsen laughed after the meeting.

Garanichev dropped Malyshko to claim third place, wrapping up the best weekend of his career. After winning the sprint on Thursday, the young Russian picked up two bronze medals.

“Before the season, I thought I might be on the podium sometime this year,” he said in the press conference. “But I did not expect something like this. I am very happy about my results here.”

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