December 05, 2010 (Dusseldorf, Germany) – Canada’s dynamic duo, Chandra Crawford and Dasha Gaiazova, pulled out all the stops to land on the podium in third in the women’s 6x.9km freestyle Team Sprint Relay on Sunday in Dusseldorf. After qualifying in fourth they got off to an okay start but dropped to seventh and then eighth by mid race.

It was a scrappy, crash-filled day on the tight and short Dusseldorf course which Crawford told us suited her. “This is my kind of sprint course – fast, tight and gnarly the way I like it.” This played well for some and not for others and meant that skiing smart was critical to success.

On the penultimate leg Gaiazova was able to capitalize and kept her cool following a crash on the short uphill section dubbed Mt. Dusseldorf to pass Sweden, Finland and Germany and bring Canada back into fifth place as she tagged Crawford for the final leg.

“This course really suits Chandra,” said head coach Justin Wadsworth. “Both she and Dasha had good tactics and really good tags which is so important in a race like this where teams are jostling hard for position.”

On the final leg Italy’s Arianna Follis, the previous day’s sprint winner, had the pole position with Slovenia’s Katja Visnar in second and Norway’s Celine Brun-Lie in third. Crawford blasted out and surged past Russia 1’s Natalia Korosteleva to take over fourth and was bearing down on Brun-Lie as they came into the home stretch when Visnar suddenly caught a pole on her ski went down with less than 100m to go. Both Brun-Lie and Crawford were able to stay clear on the inside and bypass Visnar to claim 2nd and 3rd.

“We were so psyched for this race and worked really hard to get here. It was a joy to ski on such a fast twisty course with tough corners,” said an elated Crawford. “This is my kind of race. Dasha kept telling me ‘I think we can do it’ so we just kept pushing and stayed focused.”

It’s Gaiazova’s first WCup podium so how does it feel? “Amazing!,” she replied. “It seems the team sprints have been good to me. Last winter at the Olympics in Vancouver Sara [Renner] and I did well [they placed 7th] and Chandra and I won bronze at the U23 Worlds [in Norway in 2004]. There were lots of crashes but we were able to ski smart and stay clear of any trouble.”

Crawford made sure that they practiced their tagging as she recalled her first team sprint with Renner years ago and knew how important they are. “I remembered my first time with Sara so we practiced our tagging six times before going into the race.”

Dusseldorf has been good to Crawford as her 8th place finish in Saturday’s freestyle sprint qualified her for the 2011 Nordic World Championships in Oslo – as her 12th place finish last year earned her a berth on Canada’s 2010 Olympic team. While this podium finish is not part of the Worlds qualification criteria it serves Gaiazova well if “discretionary considerations are needed,” said Wadsworth.

When asked if ‘Chandra is back’ reminding her of her comment yesterday about feeling good when hearing someone with a European accent say that she laughed. “This weekend is a great expression of the feeling within our team with new physiotherapists, sports psychologists, and new coach along with great wax technicians…there’s good positive energy and happiness here.”

Wadsworth was obviously pleased with the weekend’s outcome. “There were lots of crashes and noone likes to see what happened to the Slovenian skier at the end but that’s racing. It hurt us in the men’s sprints on the final round in the qualifications [Stefan Kuhn was caught up when a French skier collided with him] but the girls kept their cool and were able to capitalize on opportunities on a tight course with very little room for mistakes.”

The team departs for Davos tomorrow for the upcoming WCup with more positive wind in their sails.

Full results HERE or view PDF file HERE.

Video highlights HERE.