Norway, Finland win cross-country World Cup relays

LA CLUSAZ, France (AP) — Norway edged Sweden for the men's 40-kilometer relay win in a cross-country World Cup ski race Sunday, and Finland dominated Sweden in the women's 20K relay.

The Norwegian team of Tor Arne Hetland, Martin Johnsrud Sundby, Tord Asle Gjerdalen and Petter Northug won in 1 hour, 39 minutes, 1 second, beating Sweden by 2.2 seconds. France was third.

Finland's Virpi Kuitunen and Aino Kaisa Saarinen spearheaded the win for the women. The defending world champions won in 1:00:46.3, with the help of teammates Pirjo Muranen and Riitta-Liisa Roponen.

Sweden was 33.4 seconds back and Norway was third.

The Associated Press
December 7, 2008 at 9:51 a.m.

Ammann flies further in Norway

Ski jumper Simon Ammann has taken back the World Cup lead after equalising the record mark of 140m set by Austria's Gregor Schlierenzauer one day earlier.
At Sunday's event in Trondheim, Norway, the Swiss jumper bested his competitors with a total of 280.2 points.

Finland's Matti Hautamäki finished second with 278.3 and Schlierenzauer's 274.8 was good for third place.

On Saturday, Ammann ended fifth, only managing 271.3 points. The 27-year-old Swiss admitted to feeling ill but had obviously recovered sufficiently by Sunday to equalise Schlierenzauer's record on his first jump.

His second attempt was five metres shorter than the first, but stylistically faultless and good enough to secure victory.

"It's great to leave this hill as the record holder," an excited Ammann said. He added that he did not feel any additional pressure before his final jump of the day. "It was a lot easier than in Kuusamo," referring to last week's competition in Finland which he also won.

"I'm thrilled to do my job well. I was looking forward to competing against Schlierenzauer and Hautamäki. It's motivating to be among the top jumpers," he added.

It is still early in the season, but Ammann is already in top form, winning two of the three events to lead the field with 245 points, 25 ahead of Schlierenzauer.

The next World Cup competition will be held in Italy next weekend at the 2006 Olympic ski jumping facility.

Flying Harry Potter
Sunday's win gives Ammann a total of five World Cup victories in his career on top of the two gold medals he won at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and a World Championships' gold.

Dubbed Harry Potter after his Salt Lake City wins because of his resemblance to the boy wizard, Ammann became an overnight star: the story of a farmer's son raised with no television or radio went down particularly well in the United States.

But after the Salt Lake Games "Simi" landed with a bump and spent four years without direction or success, including his underperformance at the Turin Olympics.

He made a comeback the following winter with two World Cup wins and first place at the World Championships in Sapporo. He finished last season in ninth position overall.

Switzerland's second best ski jumper also performed well in Trondheim on Sunday. Andreas Küttel came sixth after jumps of 133.5 and 132m for 264.1 points.

He finished the weekend in tenth position in the overall standings.

swissinfo.ch with agencies
December 7, 2008 - 6:06 PM

Koivuranta builds Nordic combined lead

TRONDHEIM, Norway (AP) -- Anssi Koivuranta won a World Cup Nordic combined competition on Sunday to increase his lead in the overall standings.

The Finn finished the 10-kilometer cross-country ski race in 24 minutes, 41.9 seconds after winning the ski jumping earlier in the day.

Bjorn Kircheisen of Germany was 25.9 seconds behind in second place. Jason Lamy Chappuis of France was third.

After four events, Koivuranta leads the overall standings with 320 points. Magnus Moan of Norway, who finished sixth after winning Saturday's event, is second with 196 points. Three-time defending overall champion Ronny Ackermann of Germany is third (193).

The Associated Press
December 7, 2008 12:19PM

SKI JUMPER ZOYA LYNCH RETIRES AT AGE 17

Zoya Lynch, the 17 year old ski jumper at the heart of a legal fight to get the sport included at the 2010 Winter Olympics, has decided to retire from active competition.

"I'm not giving up on women's ski jumping," Lynch tells CTV News in British Columbia, adding she's still committed to the lawsuit but that the fight has taken a lot of joy out of the sport.

"I've been ski jumping since I was eight years old. It's all I know, all I've ever been doing. It was really hard; the past few years have been really hard."

"We would train every day to be elite athletes and to compete against the best in he world but being a woman ski jumper, there's a whole other aspect and that's fighting against the biggest sport organization in the world."

In October, Lynch made headlines when she joined 10 former and current female ski jumpers in a lawsuit against the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee. They claim VANOC's decision not to include them in the Games violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

VANOC's statement of defence says the charter doesn't apply to the International Olympic Committee and that it's the IOC which makes the decision about which sports are allowed the Games. In 2006, the IOC voted not to allow women's ski jumping in 2010 because the sport had not developed enough and did not meet the basic criteria for inclusion.

The lawsuit is scheduled to go before the B.C. Supreme Court on April 20th, 2009.

TSN.CA
4.12.2008 9:54:01 AM