New record for Naeslund, Howden on top for the second time this season
Jan 22, 2023·Ski Cross
Purple sky, trees covered in snow, an amazing view over Sweden and Norway and a well-prepared course this is how we started into the second FIS Ski Cross World Cup race day here in Idre Fjäll (SWE). On Sunday’s race the queen of Ski Cross Sandra Naeslund (SWE) wrote history again. By winning her 15th single World Cup race in a row, she tied the record of most wins in a row with her compatriot Ingemar Stenmark who set this record in 1980. On men`s side it was Reece Howden (CAN) dominating every single heat and taking home his second victory this season.
Naeslund ties record of most World Cup wins in a row
Sunday’s big final women showed us some really good skiing from all season winner Sandra Naeslund (SWE) in red, Fanny Smith (SUI) in green, Marielle Thompson (CAN) in blue and Kathrin Ofner (AUT) in yellow.
We don’t know how Naeslund does it, but she was again already in front of the other three athletes before the first element was even there. Smith and Thompson tried to follow Naeslund head by head trough the start strait, with Fanny Smith winning this battle and skiing into the first turn in second position. Ofner who had some problems skiing the first elements was in fourth position with quite a big gap to her competitors.
Until the third turn, the four athletes skied down the course in the same order as they skied into the first bank. While Smith was skiing the lower line into the negative turn, Thompson tried to take her chance and skied the upper line, trying to pass Smith. Thompson came really close, but didn`t manage to overtake Smith. The experienced Canadian than decided to get back into Smith slipstream to gain some more speed trying to pass her somewhere on the finish strait. She made the right decision and passed Smith right after the big jump before the dragon back.
Ofner, who also cam close to her competitors right before the finish straight, used the slipstream of Smith and Thompson to gain more speed as well and overtook Smith at the dragon back. She even gained so much speed that she managed to pass Thompson which lead to the second place and finally a podium for Ofner after more than a year.
Naeslund won her 15th World Cup race in a row, Ofner got second, Thompson who wasn`t in the big final yesterday got third and Smith fourth.
Hats off or ‘hatten av’ as the Swedish say to the 26-year-old Sandra Naeslund! This win and the fact that she ties the record with Ingemar Stenmark who “is such a legend” in Sweden now, means a lot to Naeslund and as she said it`s “kinda cool” to share this record with him.
Howden dominating every single heat
Next to the Qualification winner and World Cup leader Reece Howden (CAN) in red we had three athletes which never won a World Cup before waiting for the gate to drop. It have been Simone Deromedis (ITA) in blue, Erik Mobaerg in green and Tobias Müller (GER) in yellow.
The young Italian Deromedis already crashed right after the start and so there have been only three men fighting for the win. Howden with the fastest start got into the lead followed by Müller and Mobaerg. As with the women, also the men didn’t change their positions until the negative turn, where Mobaerg took the inside line trying to overtake Müller, which in this case worked already right before the big step down.
Howden skied his own race at the very front and came into the finish with quite a big gap. Erik Mobaerg who was standing on the podium for the first time in his career on Saturday’s race got second, Müller who already got second in Val Thorens this season got third and Deromedis who didn`t complete the course got ranked fourth in the end.
New and old World Cup leaders: Sandra Naeslund (SWE) and Reece Howden (CAN)
Next stop for the FIS Ski Cross World Cup circuit is Reiteralm (AUT), where we can see some spectacular back-to-back races down the challenging course from 15. – 17. February 2023.
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