CROSS COUNTRY WORLD CUP. Arianna Follis became queen of Düsseldorf. After her victory yesterday in the individual free technique sprint she dominated with Magda Genuin the ladies’ team sprint in the same technique.

Team Norway I with Maiken Caspersen Falla and Celine Brun-Lie finished second 0,9 second behind the winner while Daria Gaiazova and Chandra Crawford came surprisingly third, 2,4 seconds behind team Italy.

Follis and Genuin were working the whole race in the top of the field and did not get involved in any crashes. The start field was compact until the last lap when Follis and Katja Visnar (SLO) opened up a small gap. Arianna Follis was first in the finishing straight followed by Visnar, however, the Slovenian sprint specialist fall down and offered second place to Norway’s Celine Brun-Lie who took the chance. Crawford took the third spot.

Ola Vigen Hattestad and Anders Gloeersen of team Norway II claimed victory on the men’s side. Oeystein Pettersen and John Kristian Dahl of Norway I built up in the last leg a gap and Josef Wenzl caught up with Dahl and were fighting side by side. After the last curve they both fell down. Emil Joensson of Sweden was fighting hard in the finishing straight with Norway’s Anders Gloeersen. The Norwegian was faster in last meters, claimed victory while Joensson took second place for Sweden (Joensson/Larsson). The last spot on the podium captured the Italians with Fabio Pasini and David Hofer.

Sweden is leading after the team sprint the nations cup with 2349 points. Norway is second (2090 points) whilst Russia is third with 1759 points.

Quotes
Magda Genuin (ITA)

It was our plan to stay out of the bunch and with that out of the fights for the positions. It is more safe to stay in front. We saw it again today in this race, a lot was happened on the course. The crowed was unbelievable and also my family is here and enjoyed Düsseldorf and it’s great atmosphere.

Daria Gaiazova (CAN)

It is just awesome here. I enjoyed racing and we had as well the necessary luck to reach the podium in this team sprint.

Ola Vigen Hattestad (NOR)

Team Sprint has his own rules. We saw that again today. You have to look that you stay out of troubles. I feel sorry for my team mate John Kristian, he did a great race but unfortunately he had an incident with the German racer and felt after the last curve. The course here is hard even if it feels flat, you have no rest time and have to push all the way hard.

FIScrosscountry.com
Sunday 5 December 2010

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