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Just how do these athletes keep doing this? There have been 32 World Cup races so far this winter—plus an exhausting week of World Championships—and we ski fans get in the habit of watching them race their hearts out week after week. To call these skiers “endurance athletes” is an extraordinary understatement.
Still, it seems like a bit of an over-commitment that FIS would schedule a Team Sprint for Saturday in Lahti. Team Sprints are an exhausting and athletically costly event that still manages to hang around as a bit of an afterthought. The winners do not receive World Cup points for their efforts (maybe there’s some prize money, but not much), yet they still line up to race with competitive flair, even on a day before a fair number of them will face the season’s final 50 kilometer marathon. These athletes must truly love to ski . . .
Women’s Team Sprint
One thing can be said of the Women’s field in this season’s World Cup: they are absolutely unafraid to go. Sweden’s teams set the early pace in Saturday’s Team Relay, followed by Finland, Switzerland, and Norway. The field stayed together through the Leg 1 in a frenzied production of speed. That’s the way these Women’s fields seem to race the World Cup—flat out. It’s hard to believe they can keep up this level of effort through the entire World Cup season. Frankly, their levels of effort—and their degrees of courage—are simply amazing.
In the penultimate leg, Finland’s Jasmin Kahara emerged at the front of the group. hoping to give a lead to newly crowned World Cup Sprint winner, Jasmi Joensuu. Joensuu has shown that she has some of the greatest speed of any competitor in the World Cup field, but she definitely races best at the front. If Joensuu could take the final handoff with a lead, she would be very difficult to catch. But Kahara was overtaken at the critical hairpin turn on the final climb by Sweden’s Hagstroem who managed to separate herself from the Swiss and the Italians just before the final exchange.
The final leg looked much like a World Cup Sprint final—though one closely contested by fifteen teams—as two-time Team Sprint World Champion, Maja Dahlqvist (SWE), led Switzerland’s Nadine Faehndrich. The field had not been shattered, and the leading duo were followed closely by Joensuu, Kristine Stavaas Skistad (NOR), and Coletta Rydzek (GER) whose fast skis led down the final slope in what would be a repeat of her win in yesterday’s Freestyle Sprint. Rydzek was followed closely at the line by Dahlqvist and a photo finish for third narrowly decided for Faehndrich of Switzerland.
That’s the way these World Cup women race . . . wire to wire, fully ablaze, even after an endlessly long and exhausting season. Absolutely incredible.
Women’s Team Sprint RESULTS
Men’s Team Sprint
Switzerland’s Janik Riebli led the field through much of Leg 1, followed closely by USA’s Ben Ogden. The first exchange was a bit rough, but the contenders filtered through to the front where Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo (NOR) set the pace on Leg 2. He was definitely the skier to mark, so the pace settled into one in which everyone could keep their eye on the famous Norwegian.
Klaebo’s partner, Even Northug, doesn’t generate the same level of respect and awe as Klaebo, so the field drove forward to absorb Norway while they could. But Northug would have known that he had only to keep Norway in contention, to give Klaebo a position in the final lap in which he could see the front.
Through another pair of laps, and it was once again Northug being absorbed by Riebli and Ogden. The penultimate leg had the potential to become burly as many teams jockeyed for position. With so many athletes and skis and poles in play, that’s when World Cup ski racing can transition into bumper cars. Ogden found himself on the wrong end of that, tangling with other skiers and going down. But the fracas allowed USA II’s Kevin Bolger to get away with Finland I and Norway’s Northug as they entered the stadium for the final exchange.
By the time the field hit the critical hairpin, Klaebo was gone, accelerating up the final hill and diving down into the stadium. The best sprinter on the fastest skis—no one was catching Klaebo as he coasted across the line for the win. The rest of the field sorted itself out behind him as Switzerland I’s Valerio Grond claimed second ahead of France I’s Jules Chappaz who outsprinted JC Schoonmaker (USA) for third.
“It was like chaos out there!” laughed Northug. “But it was fun to go. (The first leg) was like seven seconds between the fifteen best teams in the race, so we knew it was going to be very tight!”
“At the end, I had some power left,” said Klaebo. “So it was really fun . . . we will celebrate tomorrow, that’s for sure.”
Celebrate, indeed. Like the rest of those who raced today and will race again tomorrow, Klaebo continues to show that the racers of the 2025 World Cup are definitely not afraid to race. They obviously love to ski, and we do so love watching them do it.
Men’s Team Sprint RESULTS
John Teaford
John Teaford has been the coach of Olympians, World Champions, and World Record Holders in six sports: Nordic skiing, speedskating, road cycling, track cycling, mountain biking, triathlon. In his long career as a writer/filmmaker, he spent many seasons as Director of Warren Miller’s annual feature film, and Producer of adventure documentary films for Discovery, ESPN, Disney, National Geographic, and NBC Sports.
