January 04, 2012 (Toblach, Italy) – Norway’s Marit Bjoergen evened the score with rival Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland today by notching her third stage win at the Tour de Ski with a victory in the 1.2km skate sprint held in Toblach, Italy. North American fans had lots to cheer about as the USA’s Kikkan Randall vaulted back up to fourth place overall finishing a close second to Bjoergen in today’s sprint race, with Kowalczyk taking third.

Kowalczyk still enjoys the overall Tour lead but only by a margin of 4.8 seconds over second placed Bjoergen as both now have three stage wins to their credit and remain the co-favourites for the overall win. Norway’s Therese Johaug holds on to third overall.

Bjoergen won the morning qualification round by a margin of over a second, followed by Krista Lahteenmaki of Finland and the USA’s Randall. Kowalczyk got off to a slow start, qualifying in 11th place.

Bjoergen and Kowalczyk cruised through the rounds, but Randall, who won her quarter-final handily, had to fight her way into the final when she found herself running in third around the final turn during her semi-final, giving her fans a few grey hairs.

“I didn’t want to use up too much energy by leading from the front,” Randall told SkiTrax in a phone interview, “so I just tried to settle into the pack a little bit, but you’re always at the mercy of what other skiers are doing in that position, so it definitely put me into a bit of a tough spot coming into the finish.

“But I knew from last year by watching a lot of heats that if you remained patient and took the inside line off that final turn that I could go by. I was confident in my finish ability and just tried to stay relaxed and figured it would work out.”

In today’s final, Norway’s Marthe Kristoferssen charged to the front on the first lap, but Bjoergen, Randall and Kowalczyk took charge on the 2nd lap and easily gapped the other three finalists. Randall, who was skiing in third going into the final climb, attacked up the hill and went by Kowalczyk, but couldn’t quite reel in Bjoergen.

“It was a good race and I’m really happy,” Bjoergen said at the FIS post-race news conference. “In the final I was very satisfied, also with the fact that Kikkan came in between Justyna and myself. I’ve taken a lot of seconds over the last two days which I’m obviously happy about. It’s really close now”.”

“I was actually really happy with the way the final played out,” Randall added. “Right away Kowalcyzk and Kristoferssen went to the front, which was nice because it strung things out a little bit. Once we came around to the steep hill I followed Marit and she made a really good push over the top and I followed it, but I didn’t have quite enough momentum to get around Kowalczyk until the next hill so unfortunately I just couldn’t quite stay right on Marit’s heels. I needed to stay in her draft and to be a little closer at the finish.”

Kowalczyk, meanwhile, seemed a little surprised by her 3rd place finish: “I don’t know what happened today, I was fast. This is a big surprise for me, I’m still in the lead, and I was third in skate sprinting – wow.”

With today’s 2nd place result, Randall vaults back into 4th place overall, 1:18 behind Johaug, but now has a 28-second cushion over 5th place Charlotte Kalla (SWE).

The other story for the USA today was Holly Brooks, who has been skiing with broken bones in her left wrist, the result of a fall suffered during training over Christmas. Brooks managed to qualify 28th today and squeaked into her third World Cup sprint quarter-final. “With the way I’ve been skiing lately and the wrist issues, I didn’t really have any expectations for today,” she told SkiTrax, “so I just went out and did what I could and it was good enough to get into the heats.”

While Brooks managed no better than 6th in her heat, she may have established a record as the first competitor to qualify for a sprint heat while nursing a broken wrist!

Brooks admitted that the wrist injury was definitely having an impact on her ability to compete: “It’s like having a joint where not everything is 100% solid, so you put pressure on it and it just feels like there are a couple of screws loose, and there’s a little bit of pain associated with it, and so I’m just doing my best with it. Double-poling is really hard,” she continued, “it’s hard to get 100% out of my arms, so I end up depending on my legs and they get really tired.”

The latest diagnosis on Brook’s wrist is that she has non-dislocated hairline fractures of the left radius, revealed by an MRI she underwent in Oberstdorf, Germany. “It’s not great, but it’s skiable. I don’t know how much I’m digging myself into a hole, but what I’d like to do is finish the Tour and then just take a couple of weeks to train and recoup and hopefully let it heal 100%.”

The Tour de Ski continues tomorrow with a handicap start 15km skate race and then skiers enjoy their second rest day

Women’s Sprint Qualification results HERE.
Women’s Sprint Final results HERE.
Women’s TdS Overall results HERE.