Eldar Ronning, Sunday’s sprint World Cup winner is only first alternate on the Norwegian sprint team for the upcoming Oberstdorf Worlds. He is going back to Norway and expects to be out training in his hometown Trondheim when the sprint race happens in Oberstdorf.
Eldar Ronning won the prolog by almost 3 seconds and won his first ever World Cup victory on Sunday.
He doesn’t hope that anyone on the Norwegian team gets sick, but will be ready to travel to Oberstdorf on a short notice. At this point he is not planning on watching the race on television. He says it more likely that he will be out training during the sprint finals in Obersdorf.
He doesn’t have any problem with how the Norwegian team was selected but added that he believe that he could have been a factor at Worlds.
Ronning's best World Cup race this season was a sixth place from Nove Mesto.
The four selected Norwegian sprinters for Oberstdorf are Trond Iversen, Tor Arne Hetland, Odd-Bjorn Helmeset and Jens Arne Svartedal.
Hjelmeset was second (qualified 13th) in Sunday’s World race while Norway’s biggest sprint hope Jens Arne Svartedal failed to qualify (23rd) after the prolog.
Tor Arne Hetland was 9th.
Ola Vigen Hattestad won the B-final and ended up 5th overall, is not a member of the Norwegian World Championship squad.
FULL RESULTS: http://www.fasterskier.com/racing1922.html
Source: Langrenn.com and various newspaper reports.
