Blowing & Drifting

Forecast: Significant blowing and drifting, with the possibility of heavy accumulation in rural areas.

Falun and Done

The last events of the 2006-2007 World Cup season went off without a hitch on the storied courses of Falun, Sweden - trails which feature the infamous "Killer Hill," a 700-meter long steep that, true to form, was important in every race this weekend.

With the overall and distance titles already decided for both men and women, the pursuits on Saturday had little meaning beyond some prestigious wins and maybe creating some motivation for off-season training. On the men's side, World Cup overall and distance champion Tobias Angerer skied at the front all day, first as part of a characteristically big lead pack and then as the destroyer of that pack. Showing the form that made him the far-and-away winner of this season's overall championship, and the first repeat champion in years, he used his ruthless kick to accelerate away from the other three skiers who tried to follow. Behind Angerer, the ageless Swede Mathias Fredriksson eked out the silver with a fantastic lunge, making the crowd very happy and relegating the rising French skier Emmanuel Jonnier to the bronze.

The women's race, too, saw a big pack get winnowed down over the last lap, until, on the last ascent of the Killer Hill, the group fell apart and just three racers went for the line. Of them, the veteran Katerina Neumannova (Czech Republic) was expected, as she was racing her last World Cup event and has long displayed exceptional skill at the pursuit. With her, though, were two surprises, both wearing the red and white of Norway: the two-time World Cup champion Marit Bjørgen and the youngster Therese Johaug, who races with a kind of tireless naïvete. Inside the last 500 meters, Bjørgen showed the form that has been absent almost all year, and accelerated away for the win. Cannily holding off Johaug to take second, Neumannova waved to the appreciative crowd (she had planned to grab all her medals from friends on the sidelines and ski in carrying them, but chose instead to vie for the win). Johaug took a promising third place - nearly matching her stunning silver in the women's 30km at the World Championships. With new World Cup champion Virpi Kuitunen playing no part in the race, Bjørgen's victory was an indication that she still can do it - after all, she finished second in the overall rankings: only in Norway is that considered a poor season.

As team events, the relays on Sunday were almost entirely about national pride - with host Sweden having the most at stake. After a tight first leg, the women's race fractured midway through the second lap, with Virpi Kuitunen showing her peerless classical technique to create a massive 13.4 second lead. Finland's third leg was similarly fast, and as the anchor leg, Aino Kaisa Saarinen, took over, they seemed staked to an insurmountable lead with Germany, 14.6 seconds down, secure in second. But then Claudia Künzel-Nystad, the German anchor, took to the trails. In the first half of her leg, she cut Saarinen's lead almost in half. Künzel-Nystad caught Saarinen on the final approach to the finish, a brutally long, steadily uphill straightaway, and swept past to take the win by 9/10ths of a second. Sweden's main team took third, almost half a minute down, to save some home-snow face.

The men's relay included some similar come-from-behind feats. At the second exchange, halfway through the race, eight teams - fully half the field - were within four seconds of the lead, with Russia being the only favorite to be apparently out of it, 35.8 seconds down after an atrocious second leg. After the the third leg, six teams were still within four seconds of the lead - but the Russians were still way out of it. Having watched all of those teams' anchor-leg skiers hit the course ahead of him, Russian anchor Maxim Vylegzhanin burst onto the tracks and used every meter of his 10km leg to move up the field. By the halfway point, he had caught the frontrunners, skiing together in an unwieldy eight-team lead pack. Heading up the Killer Hill, Vylegzhanin audaciously attacked the group, and only Petter Northug of Norway I and Emmanuel Jonnier of France could follow. The trio quickly gapped the field and settled into a cat-and-mouse game to choose positions for the final sprint. Northug, possessesor of the world's best finishing kick, finally made a move, veering left and then right to come around his competitors and zoom to a narrow half-second victory. Vylegzhanin, riding a crest of adrenalin, hawked Jonnier at the line to give Russia the silver.

All in all, Falun provided a satisfying end to the season - and now there are only about 200 days to the start of the 2007-2008 season!