Watch in live on-line on FasterSkier.com: The 2004/05 World Cup season concludes with 15 and 30-kilometer mass-start pursuit in Falun, Sweden on Saturday. Scott, Renner, Freeman, Grey and other North American will be on the starting line. Three skiers can win the men’s overall title while hometown favorite Anders Sodergren feels good and will give everything to fight for a victory in the season finale.
The Swedish Ski Game in Falun is the final stop for this season’s World Cup. Sweden needs a victory following poor results at Worlds and the firing of their head coach earlier this week.
– I will fight and give it everything I have in order to win, says Sweden’s Anders Sodergren to Skidsport.com
Sodergren was fifth in the 50-kilometer classic in Holmenkollen, Norway last week. He also placed fifth in the pursuit at Worlds, less than three seconds from gold.
– I’m in good shape and skiathlon/pursuit suits me perfect. I hope to find that little extra and am looking forward to this race. I have been very close several times this season, but have come up short at the end. I have to hit it right at some point, laughs Sodergren.
His teammate Mathias Fredriksson is at this point the best Swede in the overall World Cup with an eight place.
Axel Teichmann of Germany is still the overall World Cup leader after 19 out of 20 competitions. He is 36 points ahead of the Norwegian Sprint King Tor Arne Hetland and 82 points ahead of French skier Vinzent Vittoz. It’s unlikely that Hetland based upon this season’s previous races can place high enough in a pursuit to threaten Teichmann's lead. Vittoz on the other hand has the capacity to win and capture the necessary 100 points to pass Teichmann and claim the title.
It’s at this point unclear if Teichmann is back in shape and if he will race.
Marit Bjorgen has already claimed the women’s title after a fantastic season.
Beckie Scott’s 4th place finish in the pursuit at Worlds and 5th place in the 10-k skate two weeks ago in Finland are the best North American distance results this season
The weather forecast calls for sunny and —2 Celsius. The snow conditions are reported to be great.
Complete World Cup standings can be found at http://www.fis-ski.com
Watch the races live on-line at FasterSkier.com. Look for that option on the right hand side of the homepage. It looks at this point that the races will start at noon European time on Saturday or 6 am Eastern standard time. We will try to update this, as we get closer.
