Sundling Seizes Drammen, Denying Skistad on Home Snow

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The snow was trucked in, the rock band was playing near the finish, and Norwegian children cheered from second-story windows along the course. On a rare midweek World Cup race day in Drammen — a small city just southwest of Oslo where the sprint course loops through the streets, wraps around an old fountain, and finishes on the snow-covered steps of an iconic church — Jonna Sundling of Sweden took home another World Cup sprint victory.

Sundling won the women’s classic sprint, going stride for stride with Norway’s Kristine Stavaas Skistad before pulling away in the final meters. Switzerland’s Nadine Faehndrich, racing her final classic sprint before retirement, earned the bronze.

It was Sundling’s fifth individual World Cup victory of the season and the latest chapter in an intensifying rivalry with Skistad that has captivated ski fans, especially Scandinavian ones, for the last few seasons. From the World Championship final in Trondheim last year to the Olympic final in Milano Cortina, Sundling, with the rest of the Swedish sprinters, and Skistad have been locked in a tactical chess match. On Thursday in Drammen, it was Sundling who played the final move.

Qualification and Quarterfinals

Sweden’s Linn Svahn, the reigning Olympic sprint champion, posted the fastest qualification time at 2:41.87 — nearly three seconds clear of Sundling’s 2:44.39. But qualification speed, as World Cup sprinting always reminds us, is only the entry ticket.

Two Americans advanced to the heats. Jessie Diggins, the overall World Cup leader wearing the yellow bib in what she called a “full circle moment,” qualified 17th in 2:50.91. Rosie Brennan, seeded 28th, also made the top 30.

Diggins chose Quarterfinal 1 alongside Sundling and Skistad — a loaded heat. Skistad took the win with Sundling second via a photo finish, just 0.18 seconds separating them. Diggins fought hard for third, advancing as a lucky loser after finishing just 0.22 seconds behind Sundling.

Brennan’s day ended in the quarterfinals. Racing in Heat 3, she bobbled heading into the downhill and lost the draft, which was a costly moment on a course where the slipstream effect was enormous all afternoon. She finished fifth in her heat.

“I was happy to get a chance in the rounds, but the conditions were very tough,” Brennan said. “They salted the course, and it was skiing great in the qualifier and then got really icy for the rounds. Anyway, I bobbled into the downhill and lost the draft and then just don’t have the power I need to pass that many people up the finish stretch, so I was disappointed to not be more in the mix.”

Meanwhile, Svahn survived a scare of her own… as her quarterfinal rounded the fountain that anchors the bottom of the course behind the start gates, five of the six athletes ended up in a pile and Svahn seemingly had the most bodies and equipment to navigate as she got back out on the course, but somehow recovered to advance. The Olympic champion’s troubles, however, were only beginning.

Semifinals

The two semifinals told entirely different stories, and the contrast between them shaped the final.

In Semifinal 1, Skistad took the win with Sundling second, just 0.20 seconds back. Both advanced automatically. Behind them, Svahn finished third and would not advance.

Semifinal 2 was a different race entirely. Johanna Hagstroem and Ane Appelkvist Stenseth pushed the pace from the gun, stringing the field out over the first climb. But on the long downhill, the draft did its work. Faehndrich and Laura Gimmler of Germany surged past, using the slipstream to slingshot into the lead.

Faehndrich won the heat decisively. Gimmler was second. The fast overall times meant Hagstroem would advance along with Stenseth, who just out-lunged Diggins for fourth and the second lucky loser position.

For Diggins, the day ended in 10th. But she left Drammen at peace.

“This was really cool because the Drammen area was my first ever World Cup start and it was a skate sprint,” Diggins said. “So it’s kind of a very full circle moment to close it out with a classic sprint here as the last classic sprint of my career.”

She had tried something new in the heats, sitting in the draft instead of going to the front, a departure from her usual aggressive approach. “Normally, because literal strength is not my strength, I usually just try to go really, really hot and try to go off the front,” she said. “I was like, nope, I don’t think that’s gonna work for me here with the crazy draft and slingshot effect. I was taking a lot of notes in warm-up, and in the quarterfinal, I had the smallest tuck of my life. It was just really fun to try to believe in myself as more of a pure sprinter and to try to be a little more tactical.”

She acknowledged she ran out of power in the semifinal, but had no regrets. “I still felt like I executed my plan to the best of my ability, and that’s always a cool feeling.”

The Final

Six women lined up for the final: Sundling and Hagstroem for Sweden, Skistad and Stenseth for Norway, Faehndrich for Switzerland, and Gimmler for Germany. Svahn and Maja Dahlqvist, the Olympic gold and bronze medalists in the sprint classic, were both absent.

On the opening climb, Skistad sat behind Sundling in a familiar posture — patient, conserving, waiting for the right moment. As Kikkan Randall mentioned on the broadcast, Skistad almost never leads into a downhill. She baited Gimmler into taking the front position, then tucked into her slipstream.

Coming off the descent and around the final hairpin, Faehndrich made her bid, surging past Gimmler and into third. But the race was between the two women everyone expected.

Sundling and Skistad skied side by side on the final climb, and what followed was a scene that encapsulated their rivalry. Stride for stride, shoulder to shoulder, neither yielding a centimeter. Sundling’s transition from double pole to striding was fractionally sharper — she carried more momentum through the final meters — and she crossed the line with a small advantage.

“It is usually very tight in Drammen, but today it was extremely tight,” Sundling said on air afterward. “Till the last meter. I was like, okay, I need to continue all the way over the finish line. It was tough, but I’m happy that I was the first person over the line.”

For Faehndrich, the bronze was a fitting farewell. The 30-year-old Swiss racer, who announced her retirement this season, now sits third in the sprint World Cup standings at 700 points — just behind Hagstroem (708) and within striking distance of leader Dahlqvist (720) heading into the final sprint of the season in Lake Placid next weekend.

Looking Ahead

Diggins continues to lead the overall World Cup standings with 1,961 points, 275 points ahead of Sweden’s Moa Ilar, a margin that appears insurmountable with four races remaining. The distance globe, too, seems firmly in her grasp. But the sprint crystal globe race is wide open: Dahlqvist, Hagstroem, and Faehndrich are separated by just 20 points at the top of the standings, and the final sprint in Lake Placid could decide everything.

For Diggins, there’s another milestone ahead — she’s only a few nights away from sleeping in her own bed before racing in front of an American crowd at the World Cup Finals. “Very, very, very excited about that,” she said.

The World Cup moves to the historic Holmenkollen venue in Oslo on Saturday for the Women’s 50 k Freestyle Mass Start, before the season concludes in Lake Placid, New York, March 20-22.

 

Drammen Women’s Classic Sprint QUALIFICATION RESULTS

Drammen Women’s Classic Sprint FINAL RESULTS

 

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