Paul Murray and Esther Bottomley made an impressive start in the opening Sprint of the China Tour de Ski, with Murray winning the opening men's time trial and Bottomley taking second place in the women's time trial.

The Australian pair travelled to China from Europe on Wednesday for the series, which takes in four events over nine days in three different locations in China. The opening stage was a Freestyle Sprint in Shangri-La, held on a 700m loop inside a football stadium at approximately 3200m above sea level. In the finals, both Australians were knocked out in the semi-finals, with Murray going on to win the B-Final and Bottomley taking second place in the B-Final behind Barbara Morrigl of Italy but ahead of Anna-Karin Stromstedt from Sweden. Peter Larsson from Sweden won the men's A-final and Solfrid Braathen from Norway won the women's A-final.

A day earlier in Europe, KT Calder and Chris Darlington each recorded their best race of the season at the Swiss Cup in Campra yesterday, with Calder finishing fourth just 6 seconds from the podium in the 5km Freestyle and Darlington finishing 17th in the 15km Freestyle. Calder started fast to be in touch with the leaders early on, and held onto third place for most of the race before fading in the final kilometre. The race was won by Swiss skier Seraina Boner. Darlington was feeling crook in the stomach the night before the race, and was contemplating withdrawing right up until just before the start. In the race he felt the best he has so far this season, finishing 5 minutes behind the winner, Toni Livers from Switzerland, to score FIS points of 156. Calder's FIS points of 91 are her best in the last two years. (Story  courtesy  of The XC Files.)