Kuitunen continues in golden bibs In the classical technique mass start race, Virpi Kuitunen of Finland took the Stage victory by beating her competitor Charlotte Kalla by 4,5 seconds. Kalla fell during the first round and couldn’t manage bonus seconds at the two intermediate Sprint bonus points. Claudia Nystad from Germany took the third place in the 7th Stage. Said Kalla “I am not satisfied with the beginning of the race, but the last part...
Canadian Devon Kershaw was forced to withdraw from the Tour-de-Ski with an illness. Devon was off to an excellent start, ranked 16th overall despite falling during the sprint heats and, according to him, not racing at his highest level in the distance events. You can read a detailed account of the challenging decision to withdraw on
The FIS Tour de Ski, Stage 4, Nove Mesto. The Golden Bib changed hands yesterday in the Women's 10k Pursuit race. Charlotte Kalla ended up at the top of the list, while Marit Bjoergen fell to 9th in the overall standings. On the men's side, Lukas Bauer took back the Golden Bib in the 15k pursuit race. Today's stage 5 brings a switch to classic: the women and men will race a 10K and 15k...
Charlotte Kalla, SWE (Tour leader) In the summer and autumn I never thought that I would be wearing the golden bib during the Tour. Yesterday evening we had a singing competition (Sing star) at the hotel — Sweden against Norway. Sweden won, maybe because the songs were Swedish. My plan for the race today was to go out quite hard, but with control. I wanted to make my own race and not stress too much....
Aino-Kaisa Saarinen skied the 10K classic loop in the fastest time today in 28:55.7, finishing 2.6 seconds ahead of teammate Virpi Kuitunen. Therese Johaug (NOR) finished third, 13.3 seconds back. Kuitunen now wears both the golden and silver leader bibs. By claiming 20 bonus seconds – at the 2.2K mark and the finish – Kuitunen now leads the tour by 25 seconds. Charlotte Kalla, at the top of the ranking after yesterday's Stage 4 race,...
Lukas Bauer (CZE) now leads the Tour de Ski by 2:07.3, after winning today's 15K individual start classic race by 27.8 seconds, and earning 25 bonus seconds as well. Jens Arne Svartedal (NOR) finished second, rising to 6th in the overall standings, and Nikolai Pankratov (RUS) finished third, leaving him in 19th place overall. Tord Arle Gjerdalen's (NOR) 18th place finish has lifted him into 2nd overall, and Pietro Piller Cottrer (ITA) remains in third....
On The Women's Side: Ariana Follis (ITA) jumped up to second in the Tour de Ski overall classification with an impressive victory today in the Freestyle Sprint in Prague. Follis won the 1km qualifying time trial then led all the way through the semi-final and A-final to win ahead of Pirjo Muranen (FIN) and Marit Bjoergen (NOR), the Norwegian taking enough bonus seconds to hold onto her overall lead in the Tour. The 450m loop...
PRAGUE, CZE—Canada’s Devon Kershaw was poised to reach his goal of moving into the top-10 in the overall standings of the Tour de Ski after the third stage, but ran into some tough luck in Sunday’s skate-ski sprint race through the downtown streets of Prague, Czech Republic. The 25-year-old Kershaw, who advanced into the head-to-head heats with the fastest 30 athletes after qualifying in fifth spot, snapped his pole and fell while making his move...
OBERHOF, Germany – Demong lost a photo finish to Norway's Magnus Moan. It's Demong's third podium of the young season and he moved into third place overall in the standings. Moan edged Demong by one-tenth of a second for his seventh win. Johnny Spillane (Steamboat Springs, CO), 32nd after two rounds of ski jumping on Oberhof's 140-meter hill, moved up 11 places during the race to finish 21st in the so-called individual competition. “From the...
Marit Bjoergen (NOR) won the Tour de Ski Stage 2 Pursuit in Nove Mesto today with an incredible burst of speed to catch and sprint past Charlotte Kalla (SWE) in the final straight. Justyna Kowalczyk (POL) took third place, 7 seconds back in what was an exciting contest amongst the best female cross country skiers in the world. The winner of prologue Kuitunen (FIN) started steadily, holding her time gap over Saarinen (FIN) and Kowalczyk...
Lukas Bauer (CZE) made it back to back victories today in Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski, winning the men's 15km Pursuit in convincing style in front of the home crowd in Nove Mesto in the Czech Republic. The 30 year old skied four solo laps of the 3.75km course to win by 47 seconds ahead of a very large bunch sprint. After such a dramatic women's pursuit, what would happen with the men?...
Arianna Follis (ITA) was the winner in the Tour de Ski freestyle sprint race, held on a 450m course in Prague's famous old town. She claimed victory after posting the fastest qualification time, ahead of the Tour favorites Marit Bjoergen (3rd place) and Virpi Kuitunen (fifth place). Pirjo Muranen (FIN), finished 2nd, earning her first individual podium finish at the World Cup level since January 2005. Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland took fourth, equaling her best...
Bauer started in the first spot of the men's 15km freestyle pursuit, 6 seconds ahead of Axel Teichmann (GER). This lead stretched to 42 seconds by the finish, and Bauer had his second victory in as many days. The next 30 skiers grouped into a large pack, all finishing within 20 seconds. Two swedes emerged from the pack to claim second and third – young Marcus Hellner and veteran Anders Soedergren respectively. The largest climb...
Norweigan Bjoergen skied up from the fourth position to take the victory in the second stage of the Tour de Ski. Bjoergen started 21 seconds behind yesterday's winner, Virpi Kuitunen (FIN) and edged young Swede Charlotte Kalla. Justyna Kowalcyzk (POL) took the third spot behind Kalla. Kalla posted the fastest time for the day – 25:47.9. Sabina Valbusa (ITA) was just behind, with Bjoergen third. Said Bjoergen, “this was great, I was fast on my...
Editor's Note: The results viewable directly on both the FIS and Tour de Ski websites are incorrect, reporting inaccurate times. The actual results are viewable on these sites as official PDFs. The links at the bottom of this article go to the correct results. Last year's Tour winner Kuitunen started the 10-day event off where she left off last year, winning the women's 3.3km prologue by .7 seconds over teammate Aino Kaisa Saarinen. Justina Kowalcyzk...
Italy Women Confortola, Antonella Follis, Arianna Genuin, Magda Moroder, Karine Valbusa, Sabina Men Checchi, Valerio Di Centa, Giorgio Pasini, Renato Piller Cottrer, Pietro Santus, Fabio Zorzi, Cristian Schwienbacher, Freddy Follis is in good form this season and likely the main overall contender amongst the Italian women, although Valbusa is an experienced campaigner and can't be discounted. Follis excelled in the Sprint events in the 2006/2007 Tour, taking two podium finishes, but also skied a very...
All is set for the start of the 2007-2008 Tour de Ski. Snow conditions are good, the weather is stable and waxing is expected to be relatively easy. The Stage 1 Prologue is a short interval start classic race, 3km for women and 4.5km for men. A new starting system is being used for the first time. The athletes are seeded according to World Cup ranking, with the leaders going off last – the same...
All photos are by Torin Koos. He also shared the following – Two weeks before Rybinsk I saw Kikkan ski faster than I have ever seen any girl ski. Ever. Kikkan was doing a speed session with the 2006 Olympic Sprint Champ, just kind of skiing away from her when dialing it up to ten-tenths effort. 'Wow,' I said aloud. Justin Wadsworth added, 'I just don't see how anybody can beat her if she skis...
RAMSAU, Austria (Dec. 16) – Bill Demong (Vermontville, NY) turned in the second-fastest 7.5K race Sunday and moved up 14 places in a World Cup hurricane start sprint event. He was sixth behind Germany's Bjoern Kircheisen, who couldn't catch Demong as he won his third World Cup in a nordic combined individual competition a week ago. In the hurricane start, skiers form a coil at distances behind the jumping leader based on a handicap formula...
RYBINSK, Russia (Dec. 16) – Kikkan Randall (Anchorage, AK), who posted the first U.S. women's World Cup cross country podium last January, produced the first U.S. women's victory Sunday, winning a sprint in Rybinsk. She defeated world champion Astrid Jacobsen of Norway in the final meters of a 1.2K freestyle course for the first American win since Bill Koch in 1983. “Last year [when she was third], I was too tentative to make a move...