Nordic World Championships - Sprints
The men's and ladies' (in the parlance of the international ski federation) sprints were staged today in Oberstdorf. The sprints are interesting as spectator events, being staged in a 16,000-seat stadium, and as counterpoints to the far longer races that comprise the majority of nordic competition, from 5km for women and 15km for men all the way up to 30km for women and 50km for men.
On the women's side, the first surprise came early: Marit Bjorgen had won all but one sprint race over the last 17 months, but today she failed to advance beyond the qualifying heats. Instead, Sweden placed three skiers in the final, accompanying one Canadian. (That four skiers race for the three medals is another nasty twist to the sprint races.) Emelie Oehrstig had won each of her preliminary heats, and swept to victory in the final by a whopping 1.3 seconds. She covered the 0.9km course in 2 minutes, 15 seconds - about 15mph. With Lina Andersson in second, Canadian Sara Renner finished third, giving her country its first nordic world's medal and winning the first medal by a non-European at these championships.
In the men's final, the racing was even tighter. Vassili Rotchev of Russia and Tor Arne Hetland of Norway (a former Olympic gold medalist in the sprint race) fought it out, with the Norwegian seeming to seal up the win by outclimbing and outdescending the Russian on the final hill. But Rotchev made up the distance on the runout to the finish line and poked his foot across in first place, two-hundredths of a second ahead of Hetland. The top pair averaged about 17.5 mph over the 1.2km course. Swede Thobias Fredriksson, the defending world champ, finished third, nearly 7 seconds back, while fourth went to Bjoern Lind, whose improperly-waxed skis made it impossible for him to compete with the top three.
(Fuller coverage of the races on Yahoo!, the Oberstdorf event website [men - women], and Eurosport.)
On the women's side, the first surprise came early: Marit Bjorgen had won all but one sprint race over the last 17 months, but today she failed to advance beyond the qualifying heats. Instead, Sweden placed three skiers in the final, accompanying one Canadian. (That four skiers race for the three medals is another nasty twist to the sprint races.) Emelie Oehrstig had won each of her preliminary heats, and swept to victory in the final by a whopping 1.3 seconds. She covered the 0.9km course in 2 minutes, 15 seconds - about 15mph. With Lina Andersson in second, Canadian Sara Renner finished third, giving her country its first nordic world's medal and winning the first medal by a non-European at these championships.
In the men's final, the racing was even tighter. Vassili Rotchev of Russia and Tor Arne Hetland of Norway (a former Olympic gold medalist in the sprint race) fought it out, with the Norwegian seeming to seal up the win by outclimbing and outdescending the Russian on the final hill. But Rotchev made up the distance on the runout to the finish line and poked his foot across in first place, two-hundredths of a second ahead of Hetland. The top pair averaged about 17.5 mph over the 1.2km course. Swede Thobias Fredriksson, the defending world champ, finished third, nearly 7 seconds back, while fourth went to Bjoern Lind, whose improperly-waxed skis made it impossible for him to compete with the top three.
(Fuller coverage of the races on Yahoo!, the Oberstdorf event website [men - women], and Eurosport.)
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