Norway and Russia Golden in JWSC Relays

SOLDIER HOLLOW, UT (Feb. 5, 2017) - The 2017 USANA FIS Nordic Junior World Championships came to a close on the Olympic venue of Soldier Hollow with hotly contest relays under bright skies and warm temperatures. Sunday morning the Russian team took gold over France, with the USA women taking their first medal ever with bronze. In the afternoon, Norway and Russia battled right down to the wire before Norway picked up gold. France took bronze.

In the men’s relay under soft track conditions, Germany and France took the early lead on the first classic leg building a 10-second margin back to Russia and Norway. On the second classic leg, Norway and Russia setup their battle that would remain through the finish. A big gap built between Russia-Norway and the chasing French team, which skied alone the remainder of the two freestyle legs.

Coming into the stadium, it was a tight battle between Norway’s Thomas Helland Larsen and Russia’s Vladislav Vechkanov. Larsen found himself on the outside of the 180-degree turn into the final 100 meters. But he had strong momentum and made the pass to setup a finish spring. Larsen kept pace and made his move at the finish line to take the gold by four-tenths of a second.

In the women’s relay, Germany took a first leg lead with classic skiing of Antonia Froebel to hold a 17 second lead over Russia. That evaporated in the second classic leg as a race developed between Italy and Russia for the lead with Germany dropping well off the pace.

Moving into the skating legs, the lead group remained Italy-Russia with France, Sweden and the USA battling for third. On the final climb coming out of Cabin Hollow, America’s Hannah Halvorsen (Truckee, CA) of the Sugar Bowl Ski Team put on a quick charge to move the USA into third. She gave back the spot coming into the stadium fourth, handing off to teammate Katharine Ogden (Landgrave, VT) of Stratton Mountain School, bronze medalist two days earlier in the skiathlon.

While Russia and Italy battled for gold, Ogden made a move on France to take the lead, adding to her time to build a large gap coming into the stadium. Russia did the same over Italy, taking gold by 20 seconds over Italy with USA winning bronze just 26 seconds behind Russia.

QUOTES

Herman Meyer - Norway
It felt good to beat the Russians today. They have been so strong in the last two races. We know that Thomas (Thomas Helland Larsen, anchor leg) is really good in sprint finish so we were pretty confident when we say that he was there with the Russian in the final kilometer. I saw Thomas was really strong in the last hill but the Russians were with him into the finish so I was nervous but I’m really glad now.

Thomas Helland Larsen - Norway
We were thinking a lot about this before the race. We knew it would be Russia and Norway on the last leg. We were confident if we stayed with Russia we could take them. Russia’s machine is on the uphills, but they weren’t fast enough in the end.

My strategy was to just stay with the Russian. If I would just stay with him for one lap I would do it again for the next 2.5k and beat him at the end.

My plan was to be second into the last hundred meters. I felt I had control of the Russian at the turn. It was a little bit tricky. I had the outside but I was able to push through quite early.

It’s been amazing - we’ve been here for two weeks and enjoyed every day. Good weather, good tracks and good results.

WOMEN’S RELAY

Lidia Durkina, Russia
It was hard because this mountain is very difficult. But we are the best country and we lap all the world.

Polina Nekrasova, Russia
We are glad to come here and every day is like a holiday. We always came to the start in a good mood and were always excited to race here.

Anna Comarella, Italy
It is fantastic because we try many times to get to the medal stand so today is a very special day. We are so happy and it’s our first time we medaled in the Junior World Championships. The track and atmosphere were fantastic.

Hailey Swirbul, USA
I had a dream last night that we took the silver medal. But bronze is better than we’ve ever done in history and it’s fun to be a part of it.

We’ve taken a ton of motivation from the World Cup girls. All four of us have watched those races together. It’s important to feed off each other as a team. Our World Cup girls do that very well. They take each other’s positive energy and it spirals into more positive energy and into a good result.

OFFICIAL RESULTS

Ladies' Rel 4x3.3 km C/F

1 RUSSIA  34:45.3
NEKRASOVA Polina 
DURKINA Lidia 
ZHEREBYATEVA Anna
ISTOMINA Mariya

2 ITALY  +20.6
BELLINI Martina
COMARELLA Anna
FRANCHI Francesca
PITTIN Cristina 1998

3 USA +25.9
SWIRBUL Hailey 
KERN Julia 1997 
HALVORSEN Hannah 
OGDEN Katharine

Ladies RESULTS

Men's Rel 4x5 km C/F

1 NORWAY   49:36.1
MEYER Herman Martens 
HOPE Jon Rolf Skamo 
AMUNDSEN Harald Oestberg 
LARSEN Thomas Helland

2 RUSSIA +0.4
KAZARINOV Egor
KILIVNYUK Kirill 
RYBOCHKIN Yaroslav 
VECHKANOV Vladislav

3 FRANCE +1:05.4
COLLET Martin
LAUDE Camille
LAPALUS Hugo
CHAUTEMPS Arnaud

Men's RESULTS