Winners of the week Skistad and Klaebo claim their second sprint victories in five days
[ad_1]
In the men’s sprint free, Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo also continued his dominance this week. The 26-year-old overall World Cup leader had won the sprint in Drammen on Tuesday and Friday’s 10km classic in Falun, and could comfortably cruise to his third victory in five days, 0.73 second before his teammate Erik Valnes. Italy’s Federico Pellegrino grabbed the last podium spot.
“It’s always nice to win in Sweden, especially with all these spectators cheering for us,” Klaebo said.
“I’m a little bit sad we didn’t have a Swedish guy in the final, that could probably have been more fun, but I am still really satisfied, for sure.”
Knowing that he has the best sprints in the world, Klaebo usually likes to stay behind the leader coming into the final stretch, and then switch gears to sprint for the first place. This time, however, no other skier made the move and he was forced to make his winning push earlier than usual.
“It was a lot of fun, especially in the final there,” Klaebo said.
“Everybody started at the top and nobody wanted to go first downhill. It was a challenging one but these sprints in Falun normally are really tactical and I think we saw that today.”
His plan had been not to be in the front in the last downhill.
“That was my tactic, but I ended up being in the front a little bit too early but I tried to push everything from there and it worked out quite well.”
Klaebo leads the World Cup sprint standings with 252 points down to runner-up Lucas Chavanat from France. In the overall rankings he is 309 points ahead of No.2 Paal Golberg from Norway.
The World Cup action in Falun concludes with the mixed 4x5km relay classic/free on Sunday.
Click here for full results from the women’s sprint free and here for full results from the men’s sprint free.
[ad_2]
Source link
