November 29, 2010 (Barrie, ON) – Three races in three days in the last weekend of November is a tough way to start the World Cup season. Add to this the fact that Kuusamo is near the Arctic Circle and the warmest temperature was -15 celcius and you have one hard, cold, and dark weekend of racing.

The “Ruka Triple” was run as three separate races as well as a mini-tour. The first day on Friday was a sprint race followed by a short interval start classic race on Saturday with the final race on Sunday a skating pursuit handicap start race where the starting positions were based on the results of the first two days.

The FIS is moving more and more to this kind of format with mixed reviews from fans and skiers. Many people like the idea of combining the times to have an overall winner while others lament the loss of focus on the individual sprint and classic events that were held on Friday and Saturday. What do you think?

This is the second weekend of racing in northern Scandinavia after the World Cup started in Gallivare, Sweden, but at the top of the leaderboard most of the names were the same.

Marit Bjoergen of Norway continues to dominate the women’s competitions and she remains undefeated so far on the World Cup. She won all three races on the weekend and finished 33 seconds ahead of Justina Kowalczyk of Poland in the final race. She credits her fall preparation for her great start. Kowalczyk is getting better with every race, though, and had a strong sprint in the last 2km on Sunday to beat Charlotte Kalla from Sweden by 12 seconds. These truly are the best three women in xc ski racing right now with Bjoergen leading the World Cup with 440 points, Kalla in 2nd with 311 and Kowalczyk in 3rd with 309.

Things are now quite so clear on the men’s side of the ledger. Defending World Cup champion Petter Northug of Norway did not race in Gallivare or Kuusamo. He overtrained in the fall and has not been able to recover enough so he stayed at home to rest and recover for later races. He does not want to do anything to jeopardize his results in Oslo at the World Championships.

Four other men have jumped in to fill the void. Dario Cologna (SUI) won the classic race on Saturday and looks very strong. Daniel Rickardsson of Sweden has surprised everyone with his improvement in skating and he finished 3rd overall on Saturday in the handicap race. This is his second 3rd place so far this season in a skating race – he was also 3rd in Gallivare.

After winning in Gallivare, Marcus Hellner of Sweden finished 4th overall at Ruka. The big winner over the weekend, however, was Alexander Legkov of Russia and the whole Russian men’s team. After firing all their coaches and being slapped with fines for past doping offences, the Russian men came out very strong in Kuusamo with five in the top 11 overall at the end of the weekend. Legkov won the overall title and now leads the World Cup with 318 points. Cologna is 2nd with 311 and Hellner is 3rd with 265 pts. At the end of the race on Sunday Legkov was quoted as saying “I want to win the Tour de Ski – I’m waiting for you Petter!”

American Kris Freeman had another great weekend of racing finishing 12th overall. He would have been even higher but he broke a pole in the last few kilometers of the race on Sunday. He was 7th in the classic race, 12th in the skating race and looked very strong all weekend. Consistency is the key for Freeman and it looks like he is on his way to a great season with some of his best results at the races in Gallivare and Kuusamo.

The Canadian men had a much better weekend than in Gallivare. Alex Harvey led a strong sprint team with a 9th on Friday. The Canadians had four in the top 30 with Devon Kershaw in 16th, rookie Len Valjas in 29th and Stefan Kuhn in 30th. After the 2nd day Harvey was in 4th place overall but he faded on the last day to finish 17th. Kershaw had the 9th fastest time in the skating pursuit race on Sunday to move from 16th to 10th overall – a great comeback after being tired from over training on the first weekend in Gallivare. He and coach Justin Wadsworth adjusted his training last week and he is starting to feel better and better.

Two years ago Kikkan Randall was primarily a skating sprint specialist. But she has worked very hard on her classic and her distance racing since then and it showed in Kuusamo. After a disappointing 42nd place in the classic sprints on Friday she rebounded with a strong 17th in the classic 5km and a 20th in the skating pursuit race to finish 19th overall for the weekend. Liz Stephen and Morgan Arritola continue to improve and are taking full advantage of the experience that they are gaining on the World Cup. Ida Sargeant is the new kid on the block and a welcome member of the women’s squad. She did not finish on Sunday due to asthma but so far has had encouraging performances since jumping on board at her first WCups in Gallivare and Kuusamo.

Dasha Gaiazova had the best result for the Canadian women with a 24th in the sprint race on Friday in the Ruka Triple. Chandra Crawford continues to struggle to find her form and finished 45th in the same race. I am sure that she is looking forward to the sprints in Dusseldorf next weekend where she was 12th last year – a result that qualified her for the Vancouver Olympics.

One positive result of the Tour de Ski format was to watch some of the male sprinters try to race in the distance races. There is much more specialization in the men’s races than in the women’s race between sprinters and distance racers mostly because of the difference in the lengths of the races. Women race primarily 5 and 10km races which are not very much longer than the typical four rounds of 1.5km that are contested in the sprint races. The shortest distance for the men is 10km with most races 15 to 30km and even up to 50km. This means that the best sprinters usually have a different muscle fiber composition than the distance skiers. Of course, there are exceptions like Petter Northug.

The best finish by a sprinter had to be Emil Joensson from Sweden who followed up an 8th place in the sprints on Friday with a great 8th place finish in the 10 km classic on Saturday. He went out first on Sunday in the pursuit race but faded to 18th overall. Kudos to Joensson for trying – most of the other top sprinters were no shows on Saturday and Sunday.

So, the skiers leave the cold and dark of Scandinavia for the warmer climes of southern Europe this week. The sprinters are off to Dusseldorf, Germany for some exciting street sprinting while the distance skiers put in some training before racing again on December 11-12 in Davos Switzerland. The Canadian team is training in Livingo, Italy this week while the American distance skiers are off to Davos. The American sprinters will stay in Kuusamo until Thursday before travelling to Dusseldorf.