World Cup

Petra Majdic from Slovenia and the 21-year-old Mickael Devjatiarov (RUS) won the today’s classic style Royal Sprint race in Stockholm (SWE), where today for the fourth time a Sprint took place in front of the Royal Palace.

STOCKHOLM (March 21) – Andy Newell (Shaftsbury, VT), capping his best season of World Cup racing, was 13th Wednesday in a sprint around the royal palace – the final World Cup sprint of the season, lifting him into sixth place in sprint standings. Newell finished no lower than 14th in any of the eight sprints this winter, giving him the highest sprint standing of any U.S. skier since the sprints were added to the World...

Oslo, Norway — 30 and 50 kilometer individual-start classic World Cup race last Saturday. All photos by Jan Morten Frengstad Marit Bjœrgen is getting fluid at the start of the second lap. Aino Kaisa Saarinen won and celebrated her first World Cup victory. Marit Bjœrgen skied a good race considering a tough season. No one in the World has better diagonal technique than Odd-Bjœrn Hjelmeset. Just look at this photo. Odd-Bjœrn Hjelmeset jumped across the...

Aino-Kaisa Saarinen from Finland took the victory in the traditional individual start races in classic technique over 30 km at the Holmenkollen (NOR). Kikkan Randall (Anchorage, AK) was 38th in the women's race. For the 28-year-old Saarinen it was the first World Cup victory ever. She finished clearly 30.6 seconds ahead of her team mate and overall World Cup winner Virpi Kuitunen. Third place finisher from Slovenia Petra Majdic, was 48.6 seconds behind the winner....

Brayton Osgood, Zach Violett, and Marshall Greene are in Europe racing Continental Cups, and are currently preparing for the Norwegian Birkie. They were at the Drammen World Cup sprints and took these photos. They have a lot more photos from there and the rest of the trip at on their blog: www.xcoregon.org/blog

The traditional Holmenkollen races of 30 km and 50 km at Oslo (NOR) will take place on Saturday, 17th March 2007. This year, the Holmenkollen will serve as the first trial for a pit stop in a World Cup race. The pit stop will occur in the stadium area, giving the racers an opportunity to change skis. Here is some information on the procedure/rules: Each Pit Stop is min. 2 m wide — bigger nations...

Photos by Andy Canniff (Fischer USA) For complete story please see March 14 article: http://www.fasterskier.com/racing.php?id=4162

Andy Newell (Shaftsbury, VT) finished 12th Wednesday in the annual classic technique sprint World Cup race through Drammen, a village about 25 miles west of Oslo. Torin Koos (Leavenworth, WA) made it to the final heats, but was ousted in the quarterfinals to finish 15th. Norway's Boerre Naess won by a half-stride over Mats Larsson of Sweden. Trond Iversen third. Virpi Kuitunen of Finland edged out Petra Majdic of Slovenia and Aino Kaisa Saarinen (FIN)...

LAHTI, Finland (March 10) – Kikkan Randall (Anchorage, AK) finished seventh Saturday in a 1.2K freestyle World Cup sprint at the Lahti Ski Games while Andy Newell (Shaftsbury, VT) had the top U.S. men's result, finishing 14th in their 1.4K sprint. World Cup leader Virpi Kuitunen of Finland won the women's sprint with teammate Riitta Liisa Roponen, also on the gold-medal winning sprint team at the recent World Championships in Japan, taking second. Randall, who...

Kuitunen and Northug won in Lahti Virpi Kuitunen of Finland won the women’s freestyle World Cup sprint in Lahti on Saturday ahead of teammate Liisa Riitta Roponen. Anna Dahlberg (SWE) was third. Kikkan Randall, USA was 7. Chandra Crawford, Canada was 28. Petter Northug of Norway won the men’s sprint ahead of teammates Jens Arne Svartedal and Eldar Ronning. Top North American was Andy Newell in 14, place while Torin Koos was 21. Kuitunen finished...

The FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Sapporo (JPN) drew to a close last Sunday. The first independent Championships held in Asia, Sapporo 2007 presented the unquestionable season highlight for the FIS Nordic disciplines. In the 18 title events, 14 nations won medals. The medals table was led by Norway with a total of 16 medals, followed by Finland and Germany with eight and nine medals, respectively. “On behalf of FIS, I can only congratulate...

Truly a veteran of the Norwegian national team, the wiry Odd-Bjoern Hjelmeset showed today that he is skiing better than ever. Hjelmeset out-sprinted teammate Frode Estil for the World Championship 50km (classic) gold, while German Jens Filbrich powered his way ahead of his more-celebrated teammate Tobias Angerer to finish in bronze medal position, only 4.5 seconds from the win. Angerer was six seconds behind Filbrich with Lukas Bauer next in fifth, another 2.6 seconds behind....

Source: US Ski Team Article with photos: http://www.usskiteam.com/public/news.php?dId=3&sN=1&aId=2808 SAPPORO, Japan (March 4) – Kris Freeman (Andover, NH) ignored shoulder pain and muscled his way through softening snow Sunday to finish 12th in a 50K mass start classic technique “slushfest,” the final race of the 2007 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships. It was the the fifth top 20 of the season for Freeman, who injects himself with insulin up to six times a day to fight...

Source: US Ski Team SAPPORO, Japan (March 3) – Bill Demong (Vermontville, NY), starting 100 seconds back after jumping, out-sprinted Finn Anssi Koivuranta by two-tenths of a second Saturday to collect the silver medal in the nordic combined individual event at the 2007 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships, only the second medal in combined by a U.S. skier at the Olympics or World Championships. Germany's Ronny Ackermann, fifth after jumping and starting 34 seconds behind...

Everyone expected World Cup leader Virpi Kuitunen of Finland to fight for a medal in today's World Championship 30km mass-start classic race, and she did not dissapoint. Kuitunen out-dueled a super-fit and fearless Kristin Stoermer Steira of Norway for the gold medal. Steira finished 6.9 seconds behind to take the silver. The two had put an enormous gap on the rest of the field, as the crowd waited over a minute to see who would...

Superjunior Therese Johaug of Norway captured a stunning bronze in today's 30km mass-start classic race at the Sapporo World Championships. She fell in the start and was dead last, but surprised everyone by taking the lead after a few kilometers. It was actually Johaug that was responsible for breaking up the pack after about 10 kilometer. Johaug and Steira Source: Langrenn.com

The odds for the 50km men's race are up! The Germans are in shape and want to strike back after a very disappointing 4 x 10km relay. Tobias Angerer will not give an inch. Norway is on a roll and is flying high after winning the men’s relay. Vasaloppet champion and classic specialist Anders Aukland (NOR) has put all his eggs in one basket and prepared for this race for the past six weeks. He...

The last two events at the 2007 Sapporo World Championships are the 30km and 50km classic mass-start races. The women race tonight (11:30pm ET/tomorrow at 1:30pm Sapporo time), and the men on Saturday night at the same time. Women's Race: The big favorite among bookmakers at Nordicbet.com is Virpi Kuitinen of Finland, followed by team-mate Aino Kaisa Saarinen. Marit Bjorgen is third on the bookmaker list. The FasterSkier.com staff agrees with the top two picks...

Norway captured its 16th World Championship gold in the relay on Friday in Sapporo. Norway got exactly the type of race they had hoped for. They dropped Germany on the second leg, and after that the race was between Norway, Sweden and Russia. Everyone (In Norway, at least) knew that Petter Northug would crush the competition in the finish-sprint if he were to have one of his better days.