The women's sprints similarly narrowed the field, but also put both Marit Bjørgen and Virpi Kuitunen back into contention after they had each slid down the general classification with relatively weak results in the two midweek stages at Oberstdorf, Germany. Suffering from a bad back for the past few weeks, Kuitunen broke a pole in her quarterfinal heat, then exhibited considerable sisu by clawing her way back to the field and into one of the "lucky loser" spots for the two fastest racers who didn't finish first or second in their heats. From there, she went on to win the final, 4/10ths ahead of Bjørgen, and jumped back to the top of the GC, 28 seconds up on the Norwegian and 34 seconds up on Petra Majdic. Three other racers, including former GC leader Kristin Steira, are within a minute of Kuitunen.
In both the men's and women's races, the bonus seconds for finishing in the top 30 were, as expected, important in shaking up the standings; up to 45 seconds of additional free time is available in the sprint "preems" midway through Saturday's events in Val di Fiemme, Italy, mass-start distance races run in the classical style over 15km for the women and 30km for the men.
The Tour de Ski will culminate in an appropriate place: Val di Fiemme has a storied recent history in the World Cup, having hosted numerous 15km and 30km mass-starts and pursuit races as well as the 2003 World Championships. The stadium at Lago di Tesero is one of the jewels of the circuit, and the distance tracks are unusual in that they run past beautiful stone buildings and other structures - making a viewer think that one of an incautious racer might literally hit the wall. Of the recent victors at Val di Fiemme, though, only Marit Bjorgen (2004 pursuit) and Katerina Neumannova (2006 freestyle 15km) on the women's side and Tobias Angerer (2006 freestyle 30km) on the men's are vying for Tour de Ski titles. Thus, my picks for Saturday's penultimate races:
Women's 15km classic-style mass start: 1) Kuitunen; 2) Bjorgen; 3) Majdic
Men's 30km classic-style mass start: 1) Angerer; 2) Frode Estil (Norway - my sentimental favorite); 3) Sami Jauhojärvi (Finland)
Beyond their venue and the fact that Saturday's races will determine the start order for Sunday's hillclimb, the races will be especially interesting for two other reasons. First, the German team has been accused of cheating at the men's 15km race in Obsertdorf: race oragnizers apparently cleared newly-fallen snow from the tracks just before the passage of the three Germans who ended up on the podium. Second, the difficulty of the Tour de Ski has caused a number of high-level racers to drop out, reducing the chances that the Germans can pursue any serious team tactics in the men's race. If any teams still can do so, it will be the Norwegian women (three in the top 10 of the general classification) and the Russian men (two in the top 10, three in top 15).