Slind takes Tour de Ski lead after 'perfect' teamwork with Johaug

Astrid Oeyre Slind made it two triumphs in two days as she won the Women's 15km Pursuit Classic in Toblach, Italy on Wednesday, much thanks to a successful collaboration with runner-up Therese Johaug (NOR).

Slind had ended 2024 by winning New Year's Eve's 20km Interval Start Free, getting help from Moa Ilar (SWE) and Katherine Stewart-Jones (CAN) to come back from a 16-second deficit halfway through the race and beat leader Johaug by four seconds.

On New Year's Day, she started 2025 in the best way possible, this time joining forces with Johaug. The two Norwegian 36-year-olds pulled each other around the 15km track, helping each other to keep a high pace as many competitors struggled skating solo.

"The race was actually perfect. We had really good skis and Therese and I worked really well together today," Slind said.

Kerttu Niskanen (FIN) started the pursuit in third place, based on her result in Tuesday's 20km Free, and kept her position throughout the race. Having to do it all by herself, however, her initial 21 seconds to the leader had increased to 57.4 seconds at the finish line.

Slind and Johaug may be the same age, but their Cross-Country careers do not have much in common. While comebacking Johaug is one of the sport's most decorated skiers, Slind won her first Coop FIS Cross-Country World Cup race on 15 December.

A couple of weeks later, Slind, who turns 37 in February, had taken her third victory.

"I don't have words. Three times is a tradition, isn't it? So now I just have to keep it going," Slind said.

Slind had happily sacrificed the four-second lead she had earned on Johaug on Tuesday. Rather than trying to beat the three-time Tour de Ski winner, she knew she would benefit from the teamwork when the two endurance expert took turns to stay in front.

The victory means Slind takes over the golden bib as Tour de Ski leader from Jessie Diggins (USA), who finished sixth.

"It's the first time ever, I'm really happy with it,"

"Therese and I really maxed it out, working together all the way and getting an as big as possible gap to the rest for the rest of the Tour, so I couldn't have asked for anything more."

With three stages of the Tour left, Slind has taken a six-second lead over Johaug in second place as Kerttu Niskanen is in third place, 28 seconds after the leader.

Diggins, who spent most of the race in a group with Heidi Weng (NOR) and Stewart-Jones (CAN), started with a 37-second deficit behind Slind and finished 2:08.05 behind the winner.

The result made the defending champion fall to a fourth place in the overall standings, a minute and one second behind the new leader.

Out of the three remaining races of Tour de Ski, all in Val di Fiemme, Italy, one is a Sprint and one – the last – is the exhaustive final climb that Johaug is known to master better than most. Therefore, Slind did not want to see herself as the favorite to the overall title.

Johaug had no problems with being the runner-up behind Slind for the second day straight.

"It (the race) was really good," she said.

"Me and Astrid worked so well together. I'm so happy with the race and of course with the Tour de Ski overall. It was an important day for us both. It was so fun to race today."

Knowing that there are still much left to fight for, Johaug did not want to reflect too much on whether she sees Slind as her main obstacle to claiming a fourth Tour de Ski title.

"Astrid is really strong and of course we have a big gap to the rest of the girls, but we are not finished yet, there are three races left and we have to fight all the time so that it gets good," she said.

Without any other skiers nearby to team up with, Niskanen was pleased to keep her third place to once again make it a podium of only 36-year-olds.

"It was like an individual start for me," she said.

"Because the Norwegian girls were so far away in the start line, I thought I'd ski with Victoria Carl (GER) but she didn't take me so I had to go alone the whole time."

World Cup overall No.2 Carl and Stewart-Jones had started at the same time and kept her fourth place throughout the race as the Canadian, with another strong performance, finished seventh. Heidi Weng beat Diggins to the sprint and claimed the fifth place – a position she also holds in the overall standings.

Sweden's Ebba Andersson had finished 33th in Tuesday's 20km – a career-lowest rank in a World Cup distance race – but showed that she means different in 2025 as she crossed the line in 18th place, moving from 16th to 13th place in the Tour de Ski standings.

After a well-earned rest day on Thursday, Tour de Ski is back on Friday from a different part of Italy. The final weekend of the Tour kicks off with the Men's and Women's Sprint Classic in Val di Fiemme, on the tracks where the Cross-Country skiing of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games will be held.

Click here for full results from Toblach.

Follow FIS Cross-Country on Youtube here.