Australia’s Vancouver 2010 aspirants tackled the second World Cup of the season over the weekend, with sprint athletes getting their first taste of World Cup action for the season at the Kuusamo event.
Australia’s Vancouver 2010 aspirants tackled the second World Cup of the season over the weekend, with sprint athletes getting their first taste of World Cup action for the season at the Kuusamo event.
Best of the Ski & Snowboard Australia team was Ben Sim’s 59th placing in the men’s 15km Classic, covering the Finnish course in a time of 37 minutes 3.7 seconds, two minutes exactly behind race winner Petter Northug of Norway.
It was Sim’s best World Cup Classic result over the distance.
Callum Watson was near the rear of the field in 88th place in a time of 38:37.2.
In the women’s 10km Classic, Aimee Watson skied to 77th place in a time of 29:55.7, 3:57.7 seconds behind gold medallist Aino-Kaisa Saarinen of Finland.
In the Classic sprint events a day earlier, Esther Bottomley was 74th out of 79 starters, while Paul Murray and Mark van der Ploeg were 81st and 88th out of 91. All three were a little light on for grip.
The wax was okay during testing but the track became a bit wetter after more traffic during the qualification and all three slipped at least a few times on the main hill back in the stadium. For the guys it was also apparent that they'd had to work harder to make their skis grip on the first hill and they were already more tired than they should have been before they hit the last hill.
Bottomley was 27 seconds behind the fastest qualifier, Aino-Kaisa Saarinen of Finland, while Murray and van der Ploeg were 24 and 30 seconds behind Emil Jonsson of Sweden.
Justyna Kowalczyk from Poland won the women's A-final, and Ola Vigen Hattestad from Norway took out the men's A-Final. (Thanks to The XC Files)