The cross-country races at Lahti turned out not to be quite the Kuitunen-dominated events which I predicted, but Virpi did wrap up the overall World Cup title by winning Saturday's freestyle sprint in fine fashion. Trailing her teammate Riita Liisa Roponen, as they entered the final straightaway, Kuitunen found that gear that no one else has and blew past Roponen to take a clear win; Anna Dahlberg (Sweden) finished third. In the small final, American Kikkan Randall wound up seventh on the day. The men's sprint final was an all-Norway affair, with Petter Northug winning easily ahead of Jens Arne Svartedal and Eldar Rønning. (Northug's win was his first sprint event gold medal - a forbidding suggestion of future dominance at every distance up to 30km.) (Video of the men's and women's sprint finals) Kuitunen's win ends the reign of Norwegian "skiqueen" Marit Bjorgen, who had the overall title in each of the two previous seasons and the sprint title every year back to 2002-2003.
With the World Cup title in hand, Kuitunen had little motivation for Saturday's 10km individual-start race. (video of the distance events) Despite it being run in her preferred classical technique, she hardly showed up, and finished twelfth. Estonian Kristina Smigun, who has had terrible form all season (even at Worlds, where she is usually contends for a medal), crushed the field to win by nearly 30 seconds. Olga Savialova finished in silver, a second up on German Viola Bauer, who took her first-ever podium spot.
Unlike the women's distance event, the men's 15km race had high stakes: German Tobias Angerer could have sealed his second straight World Cup overall title with a win. As it happened, Angerer finished third, leaving open the exceedingly slim possibility that Russian Alexander Legkov might overtake him by winning all four remaining events. Angerer missed second place by just six tenths of a second, permitting Eldar Rønning to take the silver medal, his second podium spot of the weekend. Ahead of everyone was newly minted 50km world champion Odd-Bjørn Hjelmeset, who skied consistently to take the win by 26 seconds. Clearly enjoying incredible form, it's not inconceivable that Hjelmeset might win three straight events (four, including the 50km at Worlds). His sprinting ability must make him a strong contender to win Wednesday's classical-technique sprint in Drammen, Norway, and his endurance ability must make him the favorite to win the prestigious 50km race at the Holmenkollen course in Oslo on Saturday.
Though no American male cross-country racer did well at Lahti, we did enjoy some success on the nordic combined (jumping and cross country) side of the extravaganza. American Bill Demong followed up his silver at the Sapporo World Championships by winning Friday's competition. In tenth after the jumping phase, Demong outskied everyone in the 15km cross-country race to win the event handily.