January 16, 2016 (Planica, SLO) – The USA’s Sophie Caldwell was the top North American finishing 13th in the 1.2km FR Sprints at the new World Cup venue in Planica, Slovenia. Sweden’s Stina Nilsson won the women’s race, her second World Cup victory, and took over the World Cup sprint series lead from Maiken Caspersen Falla of Norway, who has been battling illness, and failed to qualify for today’s quarterfinal rounds. Top qualifier Astrid Uhrenholtd (Nor) was second in the final with teammate Heidi Weng third.

Caldwell, who is currently fifth in World Cup sprint standings, missed out as a lucky loser finishing third in her quarterfinal as Italy’s Gaia Vuerich and Sweden’s Jonna Sundling were 1-2 respectively. Ida Sargent (USA) also qualified but after a strong start in her 1/4 final heat found herself in fifth at the finish.

“Today wasn’t a bad day for me, but it wasn’t what I was hoping for. Top 15 is always a solid result, but I really wanted to make it past the quarter finals,” said Caldwell. “I didn’t feel bad, I just didn’t go as fast as I wanted to. I had a little cold last week after the Tour, so I’m hoping today was a chance to wake the body up and I’m looking forward to doing some team sprinting tomorrow with Ida.”

For Sargent it was great to be back on the start line but she fell short of her expectations. “It was fun to get back to racing here in Planica and also cool to see a new venue. The course was really hard but fun with lots of fun downhill corners. It also might be the most impressive venue, surrounded by beautiful mountains. I felt really good today but did not ski tactically as well as I hoped and did not save enough energy for the final meters. I’m really excited to race tomorrow in the team sprint,” said Sargent.

First year senior Maya Macissac-Jones was the top Canadian qualifier in 31st followed by Dahria Beatty in 32nd. This was Beatty’s 5th World Cup and her best result to date and both are eager to make the jump into the heats. “Great first Euro World Cup coming 31st, 0.3s from the heats! Excited for tomorrow’s team sprint with @_dahria,” tweeted Macissac-Jones while Beatty posted “My best World Cup result! 32nd, 0.83sec from heats. Team sprint tmrw with @_MayaMJ who was 31!”

Canada’s Emily Nishikawa was 39th, Cendrine Browne 42nd, a personal best, the USA’s Chelsea Holmes was 48th and Canadian Katherine Stewart-Jones, another first year senior and World Cup rookie, finished 54th.

Qualifications here.
Full results here.