According to Sadie, “Today was nice and nerve-racking leading into it! Fun to finally do my first Olympic race and it was just what I was hoping for: get a race in there and get everything out of my system and one more hard race before some of the races that I’m looking forward more later on in the week. The weather was perfect, the trail was perfect, and I heard a lot of Americans cheering which was a lot of fun.”

Sadie finished the skiathlon in 31st place and Holly improved on her 2010 Olympic performance in this race moving up from 56th to 47th overall.

Holly’s reaction to the Skiathlon, “Today was a tough one out there.  It’s hard to complain when it’s so gorgeous…..the sun is out, there was a lot of cheering out there, the tracks were good, I had decent skis.  I’ve always had a hard time with this skiathlon event and this course is a really hard one for me too… so in the days leading up to this I was trying to tell myself that the skiathlon is ‘my new favorite race’   (laughs) when really it’s probably the toughest event out there for me.  I didn’t have any big expectations coming into this race.  It was a challenge.  Hey, it’s the Olympics, I got a hard effort in, and maybe it’s a good training run for the 30km!”

Full Women’s Skiathlon results here