All smiles as Sundling sprints to second victory of the season

Jonna Sundling won the Coop FIS Cross-Country World Cup women's sprint free in Toblach, Italy, on Friday, earning her second podium spot this season.

The Swedish 28-year-old, who won the event in Livigno, Italy, two weekends ago, showed why she is the Olympic sprint champion with another strong display on Italian snow.

Sundling set off at a burning pace in the final and led the sprint from start to finish to win 0.65 before the runner-up, teammate Maja Dahlqvist, as Jessie Diggins claimed the last spot on the podium.

"It was a tough day but I had a really good body and it's better than last week," Sundling said, having had to settle for a seventh-place in the classic sprint at Les Rousses, France, last Saturday.

The sprint free specialist, who shared some laughs with Dahlqvist and Diggins at the victory ceremony, said she enjoyed the course in the Italian ski resort, at 1,200m above sea level, that calls for quick and action-packed racing.

"I like it because it's so fast, but when it's fast it's also easy to get (tangled in) with many skiers around you so you have to be careful, but I had a good day," Sundling said.

The 2021 sprint world champion now hopes to maintain her fine form to defend her title at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships starting in Planica, Slovenia, in less than three weeks.

"It feels like I'm in good shape and now I look forward to train a bit and then compete in Planica," Sundling said.

Sundling had been several metres before the rest of the field coming into the final stretch, making the race's biggest battle the one between Dahlqvist and Diggins for the second place. Dahlqvist had a little more left in the tank and managed to keep Diggins behind her with a 0.16 margin to claim her seventh podium spot this season.

With a tactically clever race, Diggins broke the Swedish dominance, showing that she will also be chasing medals in Planica. The two other Swedes in the final – Emma Ribom and Linn Svahn – got the fourth and fifth place respectively as Laura Gimmler from Germany finished sixth.

In the absence of overall World Cup No.1 and two, Norway's Tiril Udnes Weng and Finland's Kerttu Niskanen, Diggins, in third place, closed the gap to the top duo to get leader Weng within 205 points' reach.

In the men's sprint final free there was no skier leading from start to finish, but still a familiar sight this season as Norway's Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo waited for the right moment to take the lead and win.

With 300m to go of the race, the 26-year-old overall World Cup leader shifted gears and could raise his arm to celebrate his 61th World Cup victory before crossing the line, 0.56 seconds before compatriot Haavard Solaas Taugboel in second place.

Home hope Federico Pellegrino had sat in the back of the field until the last 300m, when he made a push to the front just before Klaebo went, finishing third.

"It was a tough sprint," Klaebo said after claiming his second sprint victory in Toblach, more than four years after his last win there, in December 2018.

"The course is a little bit different from what we have been doing earlier (this season). I haven't had my best days here in Toblach before, so I am really satisfied with finally climbing at the top of the podium again."

Klaebo took the outer tracks in the tight curves to make sure not to clash with a competitor, confident that he was fast enough to take those extra metres.

"I think it's a really fun course, especially to watch, I guess," he said.

"It's a really tight race and a lot of people are close to each other, but to race it's also a lot of fun, especially when you climb at the top (of the podium) for sure."

Friday's triumph makes it a total of three World Cup wins at the venue for the Norwegian Cross-Country ace, who also won a 15km classic pursuit in 2017. With the confidence from 14 victories this season, Klaebo will look to improve those figures over the weekend.

After winning his semifinal, Taugboel clashed into Italy's Valerio Grand and looked like he had injured his shoulder. But the Norwegian 29-year-old was fast determined not to let that stand in the way of his pursuit of a top-three finish and earned his career-fifth individual World Cup podium – the first this season – in a display of strength.

Norway's Erik Valnes got the fourth place before Lucas Chanavat from France and Sweden's Edvin Anger who, despite a strong start of the race, finished fifth and sixth respectively.

Click here for full results from the women's sprint free final and here for full results from the men's sprint free final.