Team Sweden wins mixed-team event in Arosa

After last night’s heart-beating race under the floodlights, we got our pulse to a normal rate again just in time for the mixed-team event in Arosa. 16 teams in total prepped a gameplan for tonight’s show and the second of back-to-back races in the Swiss resort almost at primetime.

We had two Swedish teams, two Austrian teams, three Canadian teams, one French team, one Italian team, two Russian teams and three Swiss teams fighting for the team medal.

Each mixed-team consisted of a female and male athlete, with the male going down the course first and the women starting out of the start gate in the order and with the respective margin of the men crossing the finish line. This means that the start gate for each woman did not drop, as usually at the same time, but a little bit delayed for the women with some margin to start later.

The first woman crossing the finish line decided for the winning team of the heat and the second woman, of course, got her team qualified as second.

Overall, one could see that the teams had a lot of fun racing together. After their heat was done, the men waited in the finish and cheered on their teammates and were really not holding back their emotions.

Team Sweden unbeatable

The teams Sweden 1 with Sandra Naeslund and Tuesday’s winner David Mobaerg, Canada 3 with Zoe Chore and Reece Howden, Russia 1 with Olympic bronze medallist Sergey Ridzik and Natalia Sherina and Austria 1 with Tristan Takats and Katrin Ofner made it into the big final of the mixed-team event.

The overall World Cup winner 2020/21, Reece Howden shot out of the gate and was simply on fire heading into the first turn, where he could secure the first spot seemingly easily. Mobaerg was close behind him, sitting in second position, while Ridzik and Takats were behind the Swede on the left and right side respectively.

Heading into the negative turn, Ridzik took the high line in the hope that he could pass Mobaerg, who first seemed a bit down low on the negative, but then came up with quite some speed and through the roller section.

Meanwhile, as the Austrian came closer to Ridzik, he accidentally caught on the Russian’s skis and immediately lost balance over the rollers and unfortunately crashed. Although it really looked as if he had injured himself, thankfully he was ok coming into the finish later.

The rest of the heat got into the finish with Howden crossing the finish line first, Mobaerg second and Ridzik third.

For once, it was the women, who had the honour to do the last heat of the day. Zoe Chore’s gate of course dropped first and the Canadian was out of the gate, followed by World Cup leader Sandra Naeslund starting 0.71 seconds later, Shirina with a margin of 0.87 seconds and Katrin Ofner with the maximum penalty time of 1.48 seconds later.

Naeslund immediately got behind Chore to use her draft in order to generate some speed, which, of course she did, then taking the inside line into the turn and into the negative, where she was able to make the pass on the Canadian.

After that, Naeslund just seemed to be racing in a league of her own, generating a gap between her and the Canadian, which would be enough to secure the win for team Sweden. The gap between the other athletes also got bigger and there was really no more opportunity to change the result, which in the end was the win for team Sweden 1, second place for team Canada 3 and the third place for team Russia 1.

And that way, Mobaerg earned his back-to-back wins here in Arosa, which really seems to be “his” course as he made it on top of this podium for the third time in his career, but definitely as a premiere together with his team mate Sandra Naeslund.

“The final was a bit stressful, when Team Canada was in the lead, but Sandra did a great job and it was just awesome,” Mobaerg said in the finish.

“It is a little bit more relaxed than the individual event, but it is also really a lot of fun and you don’t want to mess anything up for the teammate. So yeah, it’s really fun,” Naeslund added.

Both athletes then simultaneously added that the vote for the mixed-team event is definitely a “yay”.

We say thank you Switzerland, it was a blast to have some night-time racing action here, but now it is time to drive to the beautiful area of South Tyrol, Italy, where in San Candido/ Innichen is waiting for us with a double pack of pre-Christmas races on December 19 and 20.

Time to switch the “Grüezi” in Switzerland to a “Buongiorno” in Italy…

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