Today's prologue to the Tour de Ski was a short-distance classic-technique run through the hilly woods of a ski resort outside Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. Neither the 3.3 km women's distance nor the 4.5 km men's distance have been contested before at the World Cup level, so pre-race speculation centered on whether sprinters (accustomed to distances of 1500 meters or less) or distance specialists (accustomed to distances longer than 10,000 meters for women, 15,000 for men) would prevail.
As it turned out, the podium for the women's race went to members of that tiny elite of racers who are equally good at both sprints and distance races: Virpi Kuitunen (Finland) won, less than a second ahead of Aino-Kaisa Saarinen (Finland) and 1.9 seconds up on Justyna Kowalczyk (Poland). All-rounder par excellence Marit Bjorgen (Norway) finished fourth. In the men's race, distance specialist Lukas Bauer (Czech Republic) prevailed with a late surge that put him one second ahead of Axel Teichmann (Germany) and 2.3 seconds in front of Odd-Bjoern Hjelmeset (Norway), both great distance skiers and a creditable sprinters.
The top three finishers in each race earned time bonuses that will be valuable later in calculating the general classification and immediately in Saturday's shorter-than-usual freestyle pursuit races. Kuitunen will start six seconds up on countrywoman Saarinen, which means that she may decide to sit up, wait for Saarinen, and then work together to stay ahead of Kowalcyzk (starting 12 seconds back of Kuitunen) and the dangerous Bjoergen (starting at 21 seconds). Similarly, the six-second gap between Bauer, who trains with the German team, and Teichmann may dictate that they cooperate to break away; the next few starters are all classical-technique specialists who will have a hard time staying up with fast skaters like Bauer and Teichmann, who should be able to turn on the jets. The tactics will be fascinating to watch, as ski legend Vegard Ulvang points out in his TdS blog.