Dresden's Top City Sprinters
Apr 20, 2022·Cross-Country
For the fourth World Cup weekend of the season, the FIS Cross-Country family moved from Davos to the German City of Dresden. The city in the heart of the Saxon region hosted the FIS Cross-Country World Cup for the fifth time and had always welcomed a great crowd of spectators along the course and during side events. However, with restrictions due to the pandemic, no spectators were allowed on site. The organizers proceeded to make the best out of the situation and nevertheless prepared a fantastic race course along the Elbe river bank.
Despite a relatively simple course profile, the track of Dresden awaits with not everyday challenges. Fast conditions for the prologue in the morning featured some very slippery parts, where athletes were challenged to stay on their feed and perfectly on their skis. Especially for the heats, the windy turns had to be tackled with special attention as this became the game changer for the top positions.
Individual Sprint Women
In the athletes line-up, the current Sprint World Cup leader Maja Dahlqvist was of course the woman everyone eyed with for the top spots. Indeed, the winning run of the Swede started last season in Ulricehamn (SWE) where she claimed her first ever individual World Cup victory. Ever since, the 27 year-old has not missed a victory in a World Cup sprint race. This quite remarkable achievement was tackled today from Maja’s team colleague of the Swedish Team.
With 26 year-old Jonna Sundling, a tough Sprint competitor reported back at the World Cup. The Swede had to step away from competitions after she had torn her ligaments in the thumb just before the season. “I am just happy to be back in the World Cup because first I thought that it will be January until I could race again. Racing to a second spot feels pretty amazing”, said Jonna who already had set the fastest qualification time.
The last spot on the podium was reserved for Anamarija Lampic. Despite positioning herself on the heels of the Swedish duo, Lampic could not pass the frontrunners. The Slovenian who won the Sprint World Cup last year was nevertheless thrilled to be back on the podium repeatedly after having reached a third place also last weekend at the Davos Sprint.
Individual Sprint Men
Among the Sprint experts in Dresden, it was time to shine for Håvard Solås Taugbøl. The Norwegian who is no former to the Sprint finals had recorded three individual Sprint podiums before but hit the top spot for the first time in his career at todays City Sprint in Dresden.
The 28 year-old recorded already the fastest time in qualification and managed to ski the windy course of Dresden in top position, keeping out of any potential trouble caused by contenders. As the track of Dresden demands constanct work and gives little time to relax, keeping the top spot throughout the heats saw Taugbøel get the best possible reward with today's victory.
The second place of today's showdown at Dresden City Sprint was taken by last year's winner, Federico Pellegrino from Italy. The Italian had raced to the best possible position for the final stretch towards the finish line but tumbled slightly shortly before, so that Taugbøl was given way to his maiden victory. Nevertheless, Pellegrino was proud of his achievement and that he proved to still be one of the worlds best Sprinters in the World Cup currently.
The Dresden City Sprint winner of 2020, Lucas Chanavat took the last spot on the podium. The French Sprinter had a difficult season start and was happy to be able to prove his performance in such an important period of the current Olympic season. Chanavat showed indeed a strong start into the competition and claimed his podium spot just a half a second before fourth placed Even Northug.
