On Saturday Nov. 24th, Ruka, Finland will host the season opening World Cup race, a 1.4 kilometer classic sprint. It’s the eleventh time in a row Ruka will host the first World Cup sprint of the season.
The Ruka course is iconic with it’s steep stride-then-run decisive hill before the finishing straight. Former U.S. Ski Team member (USST) Andy Newell provides insight into how athletes race the Ruka classic sprint course.
In our course preview video, Newell contrasts how Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo literally ran away from the men’s field with how the USST’s Sadie Bjornsen played keen pack-skiing tactics to win her sprint heat during last season’s Ruka classic sprint.
And happy Thanksgiving.
Jason Albert
Jason lives in Bend, Ore., and can often be seen chasing his two boys around town. He’s a self-proclaimed audio geek. That all started back in the early 1990s when he convinced a naive public radio editor he should report a story from Alaska’s, Ruth Gorge. Now, Jason’s common companion is his field-recording gear.
