Sodergren Will Miss The World Cup Opener

FasterSkier · November 16, 2004

One of Sweden’s biggest hopes for top World Cup finishes and World’s medals, Anders Sodergren will miss the upcoming World Cup opener due to illness, reports Swedish SkidSport.com

Most everything has gone Sodergren’s way for a long time. All tests and time-trials have shown significant progress this summer and fall. He also won the recent time-trial in Bruksvallerna, but got sick immediately following the races. He is still not 100% and will not be on the starting line in next weekends World Cup opening races in Gallivare.

– He is almost healthy, but still weak. He doesn’t want to take unnecessary chances and will have to sit this one out, explains the Swedish coach Per Erik Ronnestrand.

He hopes that Sodergren will be back to normal for the Kuusamo World Cup races the following weekend.

The Swedish chances for a victory in Gallivare are significantly reduced without Sodergren on the starting line. The responsibility for a top result now rests on Mathias Fredriksson, that showed high class in Saturday’s 10-kilometer in Bruksvallerna. He won in a dominating way ahead of Lars Carlsson.

Source: Swedish SkidSport.com