Nordic SkiingRuka Triple
Michele Dardanelli
In a historically difficult context, the Italian cross-country team started the World Cup in the best possible way, making itself the great protagonist of the qualifying rounds of the alternate sprint finals today. In difficulty the Swedes with Maja Dahlqvist even eliminated.
Friday 29 November 2019 6 minutes reading time
There was no shortage of surprises in the sprint qualifying session in the classic prologue of the Ruka Triple: Italy smiles thanks to Lucia Scardoni and Greta Laurent among the women - authors of the first and third time of the day respectively -, while among men Federico Pellegrino has snatched the third performance behind Johannes Høsflot Klæbo and Erik Valnes; Swedes in trouble with Maja Dahlqvist and Frida Karlsson already eliminated.
The morning was baptized by the qualifications in ‘skirt’. The first fact that emerged was the general difficulty of the Swedish team, usually the one to beat in the shortest distance and probably struggling with non-exceptional skis. As the minutes passed, however, the whole scene took on the whole with Lucia Scardoni who appeared immediately determined, having moved to the intermediate of the 700 meters with an average time to then have inserted the high gears in the final going to take the best performance of the day in 3'03''01. Even Greta Laurent, who was brighter in the first part of the race and author of a final with a delay of 2'14 on the more experienced team-mate, was not much less.
Second performance for Sadie Bjornsen who has captained the Americans already appeared in good shape, in fact Sophie Caldwell placed herself immediately behind Laurent and Jessica Diggins also passed the cut easily. In control the big Norwegian calibers, with Ane Appelkvist Stenseth and Maiken Caspersen Falla authors of the fifth and sixth time. The Swedish team has finally managed to limit the damage: Stina Nilsson has closed 10th, a little more delayed instead Johanna Hagström (14th) and Jonna Sundling (15th), while they had to surrender to a heavy debacle Moa Lundgren (34 ^ ), Maja Dahlqvist (39 ^) and Frida Karlsson (40 ^).
In terms of Ruka Triple to record the good things shown by Krista Pärmäkoski (8 ^), Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen (9 ^) and Natalia Nepryaeva (17 ^), but also Therese Johaug managed to tear a pass to the batteries with the 27th time. Nothing to do, however, for Heidi Weng (31 ^) out for only 9 hundredths of a second, the same fate also suffered Charlotte Kalla (35 ^).
Moving on to the men, what was done by Johannes Høsflot Klæbo immediately leaps to the eye, just a week ago in difficulty in an internal test in the same race format and now ahead of the rest of the world with a margin: the holder of the crystal ball has snatched the best performance in 2'37''42, trimming 1''52 to teammate Erik Valnes and almost 3 '' to Federico Pellegrino. The blue star defended himself very well on a very hard track and moreover in the technique that was less congenial to him, showing optimism for the elimination stages scheduled starting at 12.30 Italian time.
More lingered the other contenders for the crystal ball, namely Sergey Ustiugov and Alexander Bolshunov: the two Russians have respectively wrested the 8th and 11th qualifying time and are ready to have their say starting from the batteries. In this perspective, the Norge Emil Iversen (18th), Gleb Retivykh (21st) and the transalpine Lucas Chanavat were also cut, while it was a slaughter among the non-sprint specialists.
In Italy key also Maicol Rastelli (14th) and Francesco De Fabiani (26th) ripped the bibs from the batteries, less fortunate the day for Stefan Zelger (44th) and Giandomenico Salvadori (77th) and like them also Caterina Ganz (33 ^) and Anna Comarella (70 ^)
Click here for the women's qualifying results.
Click here for the results of the men's qualification.
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