It was another day of “Name the fastest Norwegian” at the World Cup today in Trondheim at today’s 1.6K classic sprint. The North Men showed once again that they can focus and conquer a specialty of their choice placing Olga Vigen Hattestad in first, Petter Northug in second and team mate John Kirstian Dahl in third place.
Hattestad: “It was again an amazing race today. I felt a bit tired but at the end I had enough power to make it. The next race will be in Stockholm – Stockholm was always a bit difficult for me and I didn’t have so good results but we will see. Afterwards I will continue to race in the World Cup Final in Falun – it will be tough for sure.”
Yuichi Onda took fourth in a terrific result for Japan. Overall World Cup leader Dario Cologna of Switzerland took fifth and Kalle Lassila (Suomiii!?) of Finland finished sixth.
Hattestad safely leads the sprint standings while currently third in the overall World Cup standings. High-Queen Petter Northug holds his second overall standing behind Cologna by 54 points, and is fourth in the sprint standings in a layered Norwegian beef-cake between a Hetland and a Dahl.
Northug, fasterskier readership’s new boy-toy, kept his usual blunt commentary to himself. “I’m satisfied with my second place. I had today a good ski and a good feeling, especially the last 200 m were good. I broke the tactic of the Swiss in the semi final but Super-Dario made it to the A final as a lucky looser. The 50 km will be interesting; I hope we both (Petter & Dario) will race on Saturday. The 50 km are long and this intermediate sprints are also very challenging. I think it will be difficult to go for all the points.”
Almost making the press, Dahl lamented his loss. “The podium is a good result but I hoped for the victory today. But at the end two of my team mates were faster and the race was 50 m too long for me,” he says. Don’t worry Johnny, April’s almost here.
For complete results visit www.fis-ski.com.
The next World Cup competition will take place on Saturday, March 14th with 30K and 50K classic races in the mass start format. “Intermediate sprints” will be included in the format for the first time ever.
