The women's 15km mass-start race was over by the first time check, with Finns Virpi Kuitunen and Aino Kaisa Saarinen beginning a long breakaway that took them all the way to the finish. Kuitunen, after capturing 30 seconds of bonus time at the intermediate sprints, won the race by 40-some seconds over Saarinen and more than a minute over Marit Bjørgen, the only racer who tried to track down the Finns. The win extends Kuitunen's lead in the general classification, 1:39 over Saarinen (a surprise in second place overall), more than 2 minutes over pre-tour favorite Bjørgen, and 2:40 over Petra Majdic. Despite her bad back and preference for the classical technique, Kuitunen must be considered the favorite to win Sunday's "final climb" stage and thus to take the overall win. No female skier in the world has better form right now.
In the men's 30km, the field hung together until the 7.5km mark, with 16 racers within five seconds of the lead. There, Russians Sergei Shiraev and Sergei Novikov tried to break away, but were swallowed up after the sprint preem at 12km. From there, a big group traded the top positions, with favorite Tobias Angerer doing more than his share - even after getting tripped up with Finn Sami Jauhojärvi late in the race. Just after that critical incident, the Norwegian team took control, slowing the pace to permit their members to recover and prepare for a presumptive sprint finish. The final sprint started early, perfectly setting up Norwegian Eldar Rønning to take the win ahead of Ivan Alypov, a Russian who had come from far down the field to get into the lead group, and Jauhojärvi , a classic-style specialist realizing his best-ever result. Norwegians Tor Arne Hetland and Frode Estil finished fourth and sixth, bracketing Angerer, whose vaunted finishing kick failed him. Going into Sunday's last stage, Angerer maintains his lead in the general classification, 15 seconds up on Norwegian Simen Østensen (seventh today) and 35 seconds on Petter Northug (eighth today, the fifth Norwegian in the first 10). Though only those three skiers are within a minute of first place, another five are within two minutes.
The final climb has almost literally loomed over the whole Tour de Ski. The stage promises to be a strange one. Unlike most distance races, which involve multiple laps and a stadium finish, this stage will send the skiers out along the route of the famed Marcialonga ski marathon and then 4000 meters up the Alpe Cermis, a slope with more than 400 meters of vertical drop - appropriate for its usual purpose, downhill skiing.
The climb is the longest continuous uphill in World Cup history, and like summit-finish stages in the Tour de France, it promises to cause havoc in the field. The slope will present a grueling physical test, so much so that the tour organizers, cognizant of the arduousness of the tour, shortened the stage after Saturday's races. Vegard Ulvang, a Norwegian ski racing hero and one of the masterminds of the Tour de Ski, said earlier in the week, "this uphill was a little more extreme than we expected." But the physical challenge will be matched by a psychological one: the top 30 men and the top 15 women will start the stage according to their position in the overall standings, so that Kuitunen will have a 1:39 head start over Saarinen, 2:09 over Bjørgen. On the other hand, Angerer will have just 15.2 seconds on the course before Østensen starts to chase, and just 38.4 seconds before speedy and ambitious Northug does. Even a supremely strong and versatile racer like Tobi Angerer may not be able to hold such a narrow lead. But as he said after Friday's sprint races, "it is the same for everyone so the best will win.”
For the women, the gaps are significant enough that I doubt anyone can overcome them to upset the general classification. For the men, I expect Simen Østensen to fall out of the top three and for Frode Estil, a consummate big-race man, to erase most of his 83-second gap, jumping from seventh onto the podium. Unfortunately, many of the really exceptional climbers and skaters, such as Katerina Neumannova and Kristin Steira on the women's side or Anders Sødergren and Pietro Piller Cottrer on the men's side, are simply too far off the lead to affect the podium. My picks:
Women: 1) Kuitunen; 2) Bjørgen; 3) Saarinen
Men: 1) Angerer; 2) Northug; 3) Estil