Sweden and France for the win at Dresden city team sprint

Today, the robotron ski arena was the place to be in Germanys city of Dresden as team Sprint was on the busy programme of the city sprint weekend.

SEMIFINALS

The womens heat one was reigned by the Swedish Sprint experts Maja Dahlqvist and Linn Svan who both stood on the podium of yesterdays individual Sprint. They qualified into the finals with ease in a time of 15:37.79together with Team Germany 1 team with Sofie Krehl and Anne Winkler. The second heat of the womens team sprint included the top favourites who turned up the speed for the entire heat. Team Norway 1 with Olympic Gold Medallist and five times World Champion Maiken Caspersen Falla was teamed up with Julie Myhre who started for her 6th World cup race. The Norwegian team won their heat with a time of 15:29.45 for a total of 12 laps before the Swiss team 1 with Laurien van der Graaff and Nadine Fähndrich. As the two fastest teams of each heat as well as the six fastest teams qualify for the finals, the teams in the second heat profited from the fast pace set by their front runners. Additionally qualified for the finals were thus team USA, Sweden 2, Russia 1 and 2, Norway 2 and Czech 1.

The key to success in the mens semi finals heat one was found by Team France 1 with Jay Renaud and yesterdays winner Lucas Chanavat who finished with a time of 14:05.64 before team Italy 1 with Federico Pellegrino and Stefan Zelger. The remaining teams rested unsure about their direct qualification and had to await the times of the second heat. Team Sweden 1 with Marcus Grate and Johan Haeggstroem finished with a time of 14:17.08 and Norway 1 with Haavard Solaas Taugboel and Sindre Bjoernestad Skar crossed the finish line at 14:17.13, letting them both qualify directly into the finals. With this time frame, the teams from the faster heat one Norway 2, Russia 1, France 2, Slovenia and Switzerland 2 as well as team Great Britain from the second heat qualified for the finals.

FINALS

The ten teams of the womens finals represented 7 nations. Sweden and Norway alternated the lead but were constantly being chased by the athletes from Switzerland. Again, each skier had to tackle 6 laps and saved their strength for the final stretch. In the back of the group, the athletes from USA and Germany slowly made their way to the leading positions with the hope to ensure a good position for the deciding final stretch of the race. Maja Dahlqvist finally was the game changer and set the fast pace towards the final exchange. Nadine Fähndrich from Switzerland set herself in the chasing position behind Linn Svahn from Sweden. The two teams set off for the final sprint in the final lap and spectacularly crossed the finish line - separated by only 0.09, Maja Dahlqvist and Linn Svahn celebrate the victory before Nadine Fähndrich and Laurien van der Graaff. In third position follows Team Sweden 2 with Evelina Settlin and Linn Soemskar.

The mens final started out calm but the athletes still set their focus on the top-spots in the group. The Norwegian teams made sure the pace kept on getting faster and thus triggered the Frenchmen to react in order to keep their leading positions. Along with the front-runners, also the Swedish and Russian teams kept up with the pace, ending in a spectacular finish sprint where both Norwegian teams lost their top positions and had to give way to the winning French team Chanavat and Renaud who take the win 0.09 seconds before Sweden 1 with Haggstroem and Grate and third placed team Russia 1 with Retivykh and Krasnov.

Click here to find all the results.

Next on the #fiscrosscountry World Cup:

Message from Nove Mesto na Morave, CZE

Due to the current snow conditions in Nove Mesto, the programme of the FIS Cross-Country World Cup weekend of the 18th and 19th January 2020 will see a minor adaption.

In order to ensure an ideal and save usage of the course and its profiles, the techniques will be swapped from Saturdays and Sundays competitions. Thus, Saturdays 10km/15km competitions will be held in Free technique and Sundays 10km/15km pursuit will be held in Classic technique.

Click here to find the full programme for the upcoming World Cup weekend.