The World Cup season is now over for another year and the athletes get a well deserved break before they resume preparations for Vancouver 2010. Today showed great excitement with the hunter style pursuit as Kowalczyk and Cologna attempted to wrap up the overall titles for the year.br /br /span style=”font-weight:bold;”Women/spanbr /br /Kowalczyk had a substantial lead going out on the 10km race and had no intentions of letting anyone get near to hear. There was a chase group that bunched together at the 2km mark, but it was stretched going up Morderbacken to the 2.8km mark; led by Kalla and Johaug. Majdic attempted to stick into the back of a Steira/Kristoffersen train but was unable to and got stuck in no-man’s land for the majority of the race.br /br /The second lap saw Kowalczyk ski by herself but was able to maintain her lead. Johaug was able to pull away slightly from Kalla, but only slightly. The main chase pack consisted of Nystad, Sachenbacher-Stehle, Steira, Roponen, Muranen, and Olsson. They came to the base of Morderbacken for the second time and the spectators saw Johaug and her incredible tempo put a sizeable gap inbetween her and Kalla while Steira was cutting into the gap between her and Kalla. Johaug took an impressive 21 seconds out of Kowalczyk’s lead between the 2.8km and 7.8km time checks and could actually see her in the far off distance at the top of Morderbacken. In the last 2km, Steira caught Kalla and shadowed her until the final stretch. br /br /The finish saw Kowalczyk predictably cross first and crumple into a heap of tears and joy. Johaug was equally exhuberant crossing in second and Kalla was thrilled to hold of Steira for the last podium spot for the World Cup Finale. br /br /However, it was a Norwegian sweep for the fastest times on the day.br /
