Tour de Ski - Oberstdorf Stage 5 preview

PREVIEW Ladies' 10KM FREESTYLE – Thursday 4 Jan 2018

• Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (NOR) won the 10km classic and the 10km pursuit in Lenzerheide and could become the second athlete after Marit Bjørgen (NOR) in 2014/15 to win the opening three distance events of a Tour de Ski campaign.
• The last athlete to win three Tour de Ski distance events in a row was Therese Johaug (NOR), who won the last two of the 2014/15 edition and the opening distance race of the following season.
• Heidi Weng (NOR) has recorded a top-four finish in each of her last 13 distance World Cup races, since a sixth place in the 10km free in Ulricehamn on 21 January 2017.
• Weng has reached the podium in six of her last seven distance World Cup races, with a fourth-place finish in the 10km free in Davos on 10 December 2017 as the only exception.
• Weng's last distance World Cup victory came on 8 January 2017, when she triumphed in the 9km pursuit in Val di Fiemme (Tour de Ski).
• Jessica Diggins (USA), who finished third in the 10km pursuit in Lenzerheide, is looking for her third distance victory in the Tour de Ski. She won the 5km free in Toblach in both 2015/16 and 2016/17.
• Diggins and Weng could both join Østberg as the only athlete to have won a distance race in each of the last three editions of the Tour de Ski (incl. 2017/18).
• Krista Pärmäkoski (FIN) could claim her second Tour de Ski podium spot in an individual freestyle distance race after her second-place finish in the 5km free in Toblach on 6 January 2017.
• The only woman from Germany to have claimed a top-three finish in a Tour de Ski distance event on home snow was Claudia Nystad (GER), finishing third three times and winning once, the 2.8km free in Oberhof on 27 December 2008.

PREVIEW Men's 15KM FREESTYLE

• Dario Cologna (SUI) won the 15km classic and the 15km pursuit in Lenzerheide and could become the third athlete to win the opening three distance events of a single edition of the Tour de Ski after Sergey Ustiugov (RUS) in 2016/17 and Petter Northug (NOR) in 2009/10.
• Cologna has won a total of seven distance events in the Tour de Ski, one more than Martin Johnsrud Sundby (NOR) and only trailing Northug (11).
• Only Northug (24) has claimed more top-three finishes in Tour de Ski distance events than Cologna (21).
• Sundby is still looking for his first World Cup victory of the season (sprint classic in Oberstdorf not included). His last win came on 11 March, when he won the 50km classic in Oslo.
• Sundby is the only man to have won a World Cup event in each of the previous six seasons (incl. relay/team events).
• Sundby is on 29 individual World Cup wins (incl. Tour stages and overall Tour wins) and needs one more victory to join Gunde Svan (SWE, 30) and Vladimir Smirnov (KAZ, 30) in third place on the all-time list. Only Northug (38) and Bjørn Dæhlie (NOR, 46) have won more.
• Sundby has claimed 42 World Cup victories (individual, relay/team, Tour stages, overall Tour), only trailing Dæhlie (46) and Northug (47).
• Ustiugov has finished in the top-two in six of his last eight distance events in the Tour de Ski. Ustiugov won the last two distance stages in Oberstdorf.
• Only Ustiugov (4), Sundby (4) and Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (NOR, 4) have won more distance World Cup events since the start of 2016/17 than Maurice Manificat (FRA, 3).
• Manificat won the 9km pursuit in last season's Tour de Ski and could become the first athlete from France to claim multiple distance wins in the competition.
• Manificat's tally of nine distance World Cup victories is a joint-high for athletes from France along with Vincent Vittoz (FRA).

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