Crawford 1st! Newell 2nd! Kikkan 5th! Kershaw 5th!
Kikkan & Newell were on fire today here in Lahti! Same with Crawford and Kershaw from the Canadian team!
Newell won the qualifying rounds by a huge 1.85 second margin. Then he went on to dominate his quarterfinal and get second in his semifinal to move on to the A final. Newell got a late start start in the A final, stuck in 6th up the first hill and back into the stadium. It was a tight pack so he couldn't move up without tangling with someone until the last uphill when Kershaw and two of the other guys tangled and stalled out and Newell managed to jump around them to move into third. Over the downhill Newell moved into second where he finished behind Anders Gloersen. Kershaw took 5th.
Kikkan qualified in 15th this morning & Chandra in 18th. Bib numbers didn't seem to matter too much today-- only 4 of the women and 5 of the men in the top 12 actually qualified in the top 12. Kikkan lead from the start of her quarterfinal and comfortably won it. In the semifinal she and Chandra had a nice gap on the field going into the finishing straight but it looked like Chandra pulled up a little bit and Kikkan, who was behind her, lost some momentum and got passed to take third in the semi. Their semi was fast enough that both her and Sachenbacher who took fourth moved on to the A Final. This put her in the far outside lane for the A final and she got off to a last place start. It was looking grim until she took advantage of some poor cornering on the part of Sachenbacher who pushed two other girls way to the outside allowing Kik to move past all three on the inside on the first 180° corner and then charged into first on the last uphill. Chandra drafted her down the hill before moving to the inside and past her to take the win. The pack caught Kikkan and I don't know exactly what happened but Kik got knocked into at least twice and thrown off balance, maybe three times, I'll have to ask Kik (& Kikkan will post a recap in her race tails). On the finishing straight Bjoergen crashed into her and went down and Kikkan stayed up but last a couple of V2s so she was out of contention and in fifth.
It was some pretty exciting racing today. I thought Kikkan and Newell both had some very savvy tactical moves in addition to being simply real fast. And it's very good to see some North Americans on the podium!
Newell won the qualifying rounds by a huge 1.85 second margin. Then he went on to dominate his quarterfinal and get second in his semifinal to move on to the A final. Newell got a late start start in the A final, stuck in 6th up the first hill and back into the stadium. It was a tight pack so he couldn't move up without tangling with someone until the last uphill when Kershaw and two of the other guys tangled and stalled out and Newell managed to jump around them to move into third. Over the downhill Newell moved into second where he finished behind Anders Gloersen. Kershaw took 5th.
Kikkan qualified in 15th this morning & Chandra in 18th. Bib numbers didn't seem to matter too much today-- only 4 of the women and 5 of the men in the top 12 actually qualified in the top 12. Kikkan lead from the start of her quarterfinal and comfortably won it. In the semifinal she and Chandra had a nice gap on the field going into the finishing straight but it looked like Chandra pulled up a little bit and Kikkan, who was behind her, lost some momentum and got passed to take third in the semi. Their semi was fast enough that both her and Sachenbacher who took fourth moved on to the A Final. This put her in the far outside lane for the A final and she got off to a last place start. It was looking grim until she took advantage of some poor cornering on the part of Sachenbacher who pushed two other girls way to the outside allowing Kik to move past all three on the inside on the first 180° corner and then charged into first on the last uphill. Chandra drafted her down the hill before moving to the inside and past her to take the win. The pack caught Kikkan and I don't know exactly what happened but Kik got knocked into at least twice and thrown off balance, maybe three times, I'll have to ask Kik (& Kikkan will post a recap in her race tails). On the finishing straight Bjoergen crashed into her and went down and Kikkan stayed up but last a couple of V2s so she was out of contention and in fifth.
It was some pretty exciting racing today. I thought Kikkan and Newell both had some very savvy tactical moves in addition to being simply real fast. And it's very good to see some North Americans on the podium!
posted by LAV at 03:46
2 Comments:
AAAAAAAA VERY MERRY UNBIRTHDAY, TO YOU!!!!
[to me?]
A VERY MERRY UNBIRTHDAY TO ---
wait a second...this is the only day I can't sing you that song.
happy b.
Thanks Sam :)
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