December 07, 2014 (Lillehammer, NOR) – Norway’s Marit Bjoergen and teammate Therese Johaug delivered an exciting battle to the line as Bjoergen pipped her feisty rival by a mere 0.6s to claim yet another mini-tour victory – her 5th consecutive according to FIS XC. The day belonged to Johaug with the fastest time with fellow Norge Heidi Weng second fastest on the day and third overall for another Norwegian sweep.

Poland’s Justyna Kowalczyk had the 4th fastest time advancing 20 spots to 10th overall. The top North American was Sadie Bjornsen in 18th overall finished 21st on the day. Joining her in the points was Liz Stephen who is picking up steam finishing 29th overall. The top Canadian was Emily Nishikawa in 46th as Kikkan Randall (USA) was an uncharacteristic 58th.

We caught up with Bjornsen, Randall and Stephen for their comments on the first mini-tour of the season and their respective starts to the 2014-15 season… including coach Matt Whitcomb.

Sadie Bjornsen (USA)

Another solid race. I had some goods and some bad points out there. One of my high points was hanging on to Justyna for about a kilometer – and one of my bad points was the epic explosion that followed – but I was able to pull it back together.

Conditions were tricky, but I had some awesome skis – so it was perfect.

I am happy with my race today, and happy with the weekend. While it may have been one place worse than last year, I am much more confident with my fitness this year. I am happy to not be feeling on cloud nine at this time of the year, but feeling like I have some opportunities to really keep building… so I am quite pleased that it looks about the same on paper as last year.

My plan from here is to head to Davos tomorrow and see what sort of excitement that brings. As I am sure you have heard, there is no snow in central Europe, so this most likely will mean that I am doing lots of running… and hopefully a little skiing!

Kikkan Randall (USA)

Update from today’s World Cup 10km classic in Lillehammer, race 3 of 3 in the mini-tour.

Conditions were great for classic skiing today.  While the sky was overcast,  the tracks stayed in pretty firm and the snow and fog mostly held off during our race.

It was nice to start in a pack of skiers and have lots of people to ski with today. I got to put in another hard effort to bring me closer towards better race shape. I had some strong sections out there, especially climbing, and moved up a few places.

Looking forward to getting a boost from three days of racing and taking one more step next week in Davos.

Hope everyone is doing well and getting into the holiday spirit!

Elizabeth Stephen (USA)

I am definitely happy with today’s race.  It was a great day for me, skis were amazing, they felt like roller skis up all the climbs so I was able to ski how I know I can ski when the energy and kick are both good. The climbs on this course are really hard, but it skis really well and gives you some recovery so you can hammer where you want to.

(We asked Stephen about her injury) No one has been able to give me a specific answer as to what exactly my injury was as so many muscles and things seemed to be involved including the first and second ribs being out of place for about a week. I stayed home an extra 10 days and skipped our Muonio camp to get back to where I needed to be to travel and train and compete.  I had help from an awesome osteopath in Montpelier named John Peterson who helped my ribs get back into place and then my mom was my PT and an awesome MT named Emily Gatewood who works in Montpelier so I had great help and resources in my community in Vermont. We have a great PT on the road with us here too named Pete Dickinson and he has brought me back to 100% again so that’s been amazing.

We head to Davos tomorrow night and we will piece together some skiing where it can be had between now and then.  Sounds like there are some good options not too far away, so we will make good training happen for sure. One last ski in Norway, though, tomorrow morning!

Matt Whitcomb – US Women’s Coach

We had some ups and downs during this Lillehammer Triple. I was satisfied with our women’s 5k skate in which Jessie, Sadie, and Liz finished 15-20-22, respectively, and the final result for Sadie (18th) and Liz (29th) was strong.

Yesterday’s race was a best-ever skate result for Sadie, and very close to where Jessie and Liz will need to be skiing for relay success in La Clusaz. There is work to be done, however. On the whole, our team is not yet firing on all cylinders. We’re bouncing back from a couple injuries this fall as well as a cold that has latched onto three of the women in the last week.  We do feel like we have a good purchase on the direction each athlete needs to take to make progress as we move into the second half of Period 1.

We saw a few familiar faces in the crowd this weekend waving Old Glory, and we truly appreciate all of the fans that reach out to support these athletes. Egil Christiansen’s (Norway’s Women’s Coach) wife was even wearing a U.S. Ski Team hat yesterday.

The waxing has been tricky this weekend, but on Saturday and Sunday we feel like our team had some of the best skis in the field.

10km CL Pursuit here
Mini Tour results here