November 26, 2011 (Kuusamo, FIN) – The North Americans continued their assault at the World Cup mini-tour in Kuusamo today as the US women demonstrated the great progress they’ve been making by placing three skiers in the top 30 while Canada’s Ivan Babikov showed the form he’s capable of leading the North American men in 16th… (results links below).

Kikkan Randall – USA – 12th – 5km
This ranks as one of my top three distance world cup results, so I am pretty satisfied. My expectations have certainly changed based on the results from the past two weekends. I was hoping for a little better – a top ten – but I did ski competitively right in there, only a few seconds out of the top ten. I know I laid down the best effort I had out there today and that is always my #1 goal.

The course has big climbs and fast descents – also a lot of good terrain in the 2nd half of the race where I usually tend to be stronger. Knowing Kalla was starting thirty seconds behind me was a little extra motivation.

Now that I know I can race in the top ten, that is where I will be aiming for each race.  I definitely went into the 5km today wanting to lay down a top-ten worthy effort so I was a little disappointed to be just outside.

My outlook on the season hasn’t changed – I just want to focus on each weekend at a time and put my best foot (or boot) forward. Being an overall contender has been one of my long term goals. It’s nice to start seeing some solid progress towards that goal. I knew it was just going to take time and hard work. It will be fun to go into every event now feeling competitive.

A GREAT day for Holly, a solid one for Liz and awesome for the two younger girls as well!!  We’ve got a really good vibe going on the women’s team right now that stems back from Oslo World Champs last Feb. I think we can all see what is possible now. We’ve gone from having one female athlete here in Kuusamo five years ago, not even close to the points, to having three – almost four – in the top 30.

I’m pretty psyched for tomorrow. I love head-to-head racing and I’ve got some great skiers to ski against tomorrow. It’s going to be tough but I’m looking forward to the challenge.

Ivan Babikov – Canada – 16th – 10km
I didn’t feel a 100% today and was missing some snap on the uphills, but I tried to go very powerful and focus on each push on the flats, which I think I managed pretty well. I’m very happy with my result today – it’s my best early season result ever. I think I paced it well…I wasn’t too fast in the beginning and this let me to push hard on the 2nd lap.

All the guys did pretty solid today, we just need more confidence, and you only get that by doing more WCup races. Tomorrow is another day and a different race, it’s pretty much 15km classic mass start.

It’ll be very busy and tight out there, and I think the best for me would be just to stay calm and work in the pack. It will be very hard to stay in the top 30 but I’ll do my best.

Holly Brooks – USA – 17th – 5km
Awesome race today… I was certainly disappointed after yesterday’s debacle and decided that today, I had nothing to loose. It’s hard, fast, and icy here so I knew that it would be important to go out hard and maintain a consistent pace with high pressure.  I focused on skiing transitions and did lots of skating with no poles.  Due to my poor result yesterday I had TONS of fast skiers behind me and I was a bit anxious watching my name slip down the mega-tron.

Chris Grover [US head coach] gave me two splits out on the course that I was in second which helped fuel the fire… Astrid Jacobsen (NOR) had a tough day yesterday as well and started ahead of me so I assumed that she was the race leader (which was a safe assumption seeing that she maintained her seat in the leader’s chair for quite some time…) One of these days I’m going to sit in that chair too!

I might need the aid of an early start but today’s result gives me the confidence that will help carry me through Christmas and the rest of my time here in Europe. I wasn’t all that far from the top ten which also shows that on a good day, anything can happen! Plus, I had great skis prepared by my friend and wax tech, Casey Fagerquist who is also celebrating his birthday today!!!!

It’s been great having a big crew here over in Europe. The women’s team all had FANTASTIC finishes today and we’re really looking forward to some head-to-head battles tomorrow!  I think we’re going to be tough 🙂

Kris Freeman – USA – 24th – 10km
I would like to ski into the top 20 tomorrow. I’m only a second or two from 30th and 13 seconds back from 20th (I think). There will be a million guys starting around me so I will just try to relax and hold position early. The race will really start for me with 7km to go.  I love the 15km classic.

Kevin Sandau – Canada – 69th – 10km
My race didn’t really go great. My body felt pretty responsive in the warm up but didn’t translate over in the race. I couldn’t clear any lactate and I skied with heavy legs for 8km which didn’t really help with the hills. Hopefully I’ll find my legs in tomorrow’s race and work my way up the field.

Noah Hoffman – USA – 68th – 10km
My race today was a good step in the right direction after last week. I felt good and under control for the first lap. It is a really tough course and fun skiing. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. I’m really happy for our women’s team and the success they’ve had!

Lenny Valjas – Canada – 55th – 10km
Coming into today’s race I really didn’t have to many expectations for myself. This is a really tough course so my plan was just to pace it and ski it smart and see where I ended up. It was tough getting ready for today’s race, my body was tired and sore from the hard effort yesterday. I would say this is the toughest distance course I have ever raced. I was feeling the burn by the end – I was happy with my result.

Tomorrow’s race will be a fun one, everyone is feeling tired after today. The goal tomorrow is to catch a ride off someone quick and don’t let him out of my sights! I am feeling good about my classic skiing this year and I’m looking forward to burning a few hot laps tomorrow.

 

Andy Newell – USA– 100th – 10km
Yeah, today was a bit of a disaster for me. My legs felt really fatigued on a lot of the climbing today and I was also fighting my skis a little. Being a late starter I kind of had to test a long time ahead of my start time and ended up going with a ski that didn’t have nearly enough structure. So it I was skiing with suction cups on my feet. Now the only thing I can do is look toward tomorrow as more of an individual classic race and not so much a stage race and hopefully put together a better day.

Matt Whitcomb – US Women’s Coach
The story here is certainly about landing three U.S. women in the points in a World Cup, but I think it really extends to include Sadie [Bjornsen] and Ida [Sargent] finishing 37th and 47th. While this team result is built of five individual performances, it is very much about these women figuring out how to live, train, and compete as a team on the road. They’ve built a very positive team atmosphere, a structure of support.

As a team that does not get to go home often, if at all, during the winter, this is a critical element that takes deliberate work every day. There’s no surprise in this result to me. We’ve seen hints of a race like this coming together since our freestyle race at the World Championships, and strong indications at our training camps. A strong result for the team is something you can feel developing. This one was in the mail we’re really proud of this race.

Individually the day was all about the break-out result of Holly Brooks. I am really excited about this performance, yet not surprised in the least. She started hard and held the speed, only 10 seconds out of the top 10 and pacing a smart race. This is the type of performance we are looking for as we look to construct our relay teams. Holly got some impressive work done out there today and I know will go into tomorrow with new confidence.

We certainly saw good results from Kikkan and Liz [Stephen] as well, and while each were very positive in their reports, they said they had only solid races. Kikkan commented on being a little stiff and Liz said she flailed a bit and just didn’t tie together a perfect day. Still, both were clearly positive. A 5km in the middle of a mini-tour is a tricky event where a 10-second window can grab or lose 10 places. It’s a 12-minute fist-fight against the toughest girls in the world.

I’d like to think there are 50 other women in the U.S. willing to work as hard as these ladies to get a chance to be a part of what they are doing. I think they will all tell you it is worth every bit of the sacrifice it takes. From the response we had to our video contest earlier this year, and the athletes we saw at National J2, REG, and NEG camps, we can see the next tier emerging. It is exciting to think that we already have women like Morgan Arritola, Jessie Diggins, and Caitlin Compton that can ski in this group, but we need to build more depth. We still have a lot of work to do.

A shout-out goes to our waxing staff of Peter Johansson, Randy Gibbs, Oleg Ragilo, Cory Wubbles, and Casey Fagerquist. The girls took a ride on some rockets today.”

Women’s 5km results HERE.
Men’s 10k freestyle results HERE.

Women’s Overall after Day 2 HERE.
Men’s Overall results after Day 2 HERE.