Well tomorrow sees yet another mass-start distance race. It’ll be 30km for the ladies and 50km for the gents. This is the last race where the athletes can grab full points. The races in Falun will have points cut in half due to its “mini-tour” idea. A new change to the 50km, “For the first time in Cross-Country history, intermediate sprint points will be distributed during a long distance competition, where the top three racers crossing these points will be awarded World Cup points (15 -10 -5 points). The ladies will have 3 times the chance to win World Cup points at intermediate sprints during the race while for the men it will be 5 times. At the end of the race, the winners will be awarded the normal 100 World Cup points. It will surely become an interesting fight for the World Cup points in which also team tactics can help to be successful.” br /br /Basically the same concept we saw in the Tour de Ski, but they are using World Cup points now instead of seconds. This is a great time for those chasing Majdic and Cologna to try to close the gap or even overtake (in the case of Northug and Cologna) the Overall Title. Unless something strange occurs tomorrow I see Northug taking another victory in the only way he knows how; out sprinting the other athletes with less than a kilometer left.br /br /I’m guessing the women’s race will start to string out after 10km and a group of 10-15 will ski the last 20km dropping a skier here and there. The mens race will probably be 30 athletes in the pack with 5km. Even with Sodo’s valiant effort to break the group they will stay together because nobody else is willing to share the grunt work. Ultimately, Sodo’s lack of sprinting capabilities will be his weakness and fall out of model contention. br /br /Here are my predictions for the races tomorrow.br /br /
