Women's Freestyle Sprint
With an impressive victory in the Stage 6 Sprint in Asiago Charlotte Kalla (SWE) is now neck and neck with Virpi Kuitunen (FIN) in the Tour de Ski overall standings. After six races Kuitunen leads by just two tenths of a second. The 9th fastest in the qualification, Kalla had no problems through the heats and led all the way in the A-final to win ahead of Korosteleva (RUS) and Kowalczyk (POL). Kuitunen was knocked out in the semi-final and finished 11th after the B-Final, scoring just enough bonus seconds to hold onto both the gold bib of the Tour leader and the silver bib of the Sprint leader.. Follis (ITA) the fastest qualifier finished 4th, which left her in 2nd place in the Sprint rankings just 2 second behind Kuitunen.
Men's Freestyle Sprint
After controversial tactics in the semi-final Petter Northug (NOR) won the A-final for the Stage 6 Sprint in Asiago in Italy. Nikolay Chebotko (KAZ) lunged in for second place ahead of Hetland (NOR) and Zorzi (ITA). Fastest qualifier Gjerdalen (NOR) was unlucky in the final straight, however still managed to improve his claims on a Tour podium spot by pulling back over 40 seconds on the race leader Bauer (CZE).
Technically Northug may have broken no rules in the semi-final, however definite team tactics were at play in the semi-final as Northug swerved to block Di Centa from overtaking while his team-mate Hetland led the race. Di Centa immediately expressed his dissatisfaction with the manoeuvre, and took it up again with Northug directly after the heat, which Hetland and Northug won. Northug reacted to Di Centa's verbal complaints by pushing the Italian in the chest a couple of times, before he was dragged away from the melee by Hetland.
Source: FIS
