The men's and women's mass start races at Rybinsk were exciting affairs that culminated in the usual sprints but nonetheless put some surprising faces on the podiums. In the women's 15km, Katerina Neumannova (my pick to win) launched an attack late in the race and dropped everyone except Riitta Liisa Roponen, a rising Finnish skier. Roponen won the sprint by 1.4 seconds and led three Finns into the top five, with Aino Kaisa Saarinen in third and Virpi Kuitunen (maintaining her World Cup distance and overall leads) in fifth. Finishing fourth by less than a second, Russian Evgenia Medvedeva barely missed delivering a podium spot to the Russian crowd.
The men's 30km race was, as usual, controlled by a large lead group; today, they had to fight through a heavy snowfall. Just after the halfway point, French racer Jean Marc Gaillard attempted to fracture the pack with a long solo breakaway, but after building a substantial 12-second lead, he was pulled back (eventually finishing fifth). With 2500 meters to go, 10 racers were still within seven seconds of the lead, including, tellingly, four Russians and, surprisingly, three Frenchmen. In the sprint to the line, Russian Alexander Legkov - fresh off his stunning come-from-behind second place in the Tour de Ski - edged out Emmanuel Jonnier, a reliable French racer who finished half a second back to take second (his first-ever spot on the podium in an individual World Cup event), and Tobias Angerer, who took third. (Angerer half-complained after the race that he and other athletes had had to walk 4000 meters to the stadium due to heavy traffic on the road to the venue.) Legkov's win put him slightly ahead of Angerer in the distance World Cup standings, but the German kept his lead in the overall.
The distance races shuffled the rankings in the distance and overall World Cup standings, and Sunday's sprints promise to do more of the same. My picks mix competing desires to see some home-snow victors and to see American racers, returning to the World Cup after many weeks at home, do well.