Kikkan Randall might have been the only North American to appear in the final of today’s sprint in Milan, Italy, but several other women joined her in the heats, with pretty much across-the-board success; two had personal-best finishes. For Canada, both Perianne Jones and Chandra Crawford skied their way into the semifinals. After the heats were drawn, it seemed that the team had bad luck; both women were placed in heat five, making it unlikely...
The narrow, winding sprint course through Milan’s Parco Sempione was not good to the North American men on Saturday. While three of them made the heats, not a single one advanced to the semifinals, done in by the narrow course which left little room to maneuver. “It was really tight from the gun and with such a monotonous course you’re not going to get a lot of shifting around,” said American Simi Hamilton, who finished...
So far this season, Sadie Bjornsen has been on a quest to make the heats in a World Cup sprint. And while her silver medal with Kikkan Randall in the team sprint in Dusseldorf, Germany was more than she had expected, she still hasn’t crossed her original goal off the list. Today in Milan, Italy, Bjornsen came the closest she’s ever been to the quarterfinals, finishing 31st in the qualifier. That put her just 0.14...
For cross-country ski fans, a sprint in Moscow’s Red Square might sound too good to be true. But it just might happen next winter. According to Jurg Capol, the cross-country race director at the International Ski Federation (FIS), two new city sprints, in Milan and Moscow, are on the preliminary World Cup calendar for the 2011-2012 season. And while the exact location of the Moscow event hasn’t been decided, there’s a chance that cross-country skiing...