January 27, 2009 – Here is U.S. National Team skier Kikkan Randall’s report from the FIS World Cup races this past weekend in Otepaa, Estonia. She talks about klister, hairies, drafting, track selection and other details world-class racers consider everyday on their quest for the best glide.

Cliff Notes:

Back in Europe now for the rest of the season. Nice to be back in the World Cup rhythm! Otepaa, Estonia hosted this weekend’s two classic races. Conditions here were quite a bit better than the previous two years, and especially better than last year’s rain and puddles!

First race was a 10km classic distance event, two laps of a 5km loop. It was slightly warmer than freezing, with a little fresh snow overnight, so we were skiing on klister. My skis were awesome during my pre-race testing with lots of kick and good glide. Over the first few kilometers however, I wasn’t able to get on my skis very well and slipped around a bit, loosing valuable time. I came on stronger over the second lap and worked my way up to 33rd place, just eight seconds shy of the top 30.

Day two was a classic sprint. It was a tough call on ski selection because there was new snow again around the freezing mark. While some racers went on hairies (small fibers roughed up on the bottom of the ski), I chose to go on klister. My skis kicked hard and ran fast, and I posted one of my better classic sprint qualifiers, 15th place.

In my quarterfinal, I got off to a bad start, which caused me to ski a little frantic over the first half. I was able to get back into a good rhythm over the second half and came into the final 400m (a long flat stretch) in fourth place. I had good speed from a draft and tried to pass the Norwegian girl in front of me, but switched into a track that hadn’t been skied in and was quite a bit slower. I was unable to make up the extra ground and finished fourth. Done. My final place was 16th.

Overall a pretty good weekend. My body is feeling stronger and stronger. Now I head to Rybinsk, Russia for a skate sprint on Saturday. Russia has been a good place for me in the past and I’m looking forward to defending my sprint title from last year!

Cheers,
Kikkan 🙂

The Full Story:

The full story will be posted on www.kikkan.com 🙂