March 14, 2004 – Austrian Christian Hoffmann won the final men's World Cup of the cross-country season Sunday, topping World Cup Champion Rene Sommerfeldt of Germany by 19.1 seconds in a 30K freestyle race. Carl Swenson (Park City, UT) was 30th and Kris Freeman (Andover, NH) finished 33rd.

Hoffmann finished with a time of 1:07.32.8 after taking the lead at about the 20K mark on the hilly 2006 Olympic course. It's his second win of the season.

“The guys [Swenson and Freeman] were close the whole time and just missed being in the points,” said U.S. Head Coach Trond Nystad. Swenson's time of 1:10.51.5 was 1.6 seconds away from 30th, while Freeman finished in 1:10.58.3, ending the season 44th in the points after producing the best U.S. results in 20 years.

“We're taking it one step at a time,” Nystad said. “We took a big step last Year, and this year we made more progress, were more consistent…and had six people scoring World Cup points against full World Cup fields, which is the most in years.”

Elsewhere, Andrew Johnson (Greensboro, VT) was 61st, David Chamberlain (Bethel, ME) 70th, Lars Flora (Anchorage, AK) 73rd and Justin Freeman (Andover, NH) 76th.

“Conditions were slow – we had some dirty snow – but it was a good race,” Nystad said. “This is a hard course with some tough hills. It'll be a good Olympic course.”

Results:

1. Christian Hoffmann, Austria, 1:07.32.8 2. Rene Sommerfeldt, Germany, 1:07.51.9 3. Thomas Moriggl, Italy, 1:08.02.0 4. Tore Ruud Hofstad, Norway, 1:08.03.3 5. Pietro Piller Cottrer, Italy, 1:08.04.8 31. Carl Swenson, Park City, Utah, 1:10.51.5 33. Kris Freeman, Andover, N.H., 1:10.58.3 61. Andrew Johnson, Greensboro, Vt., 1:14.32.2 70. Dave Chamberlain, Bethel, Maine, 1:15.16.4 76. Justin Freeman, Andover, N.H., 1:19.12.0