November 13, 2011   (Munio, Finland) –  Polish sensation Justyna Kowalczyk capped off her start to the 2011-12 season with her third victory in as many days in Muonio, Finland, taking the women’s 5km Classic this morning with a Finnish posse on her tail, lead by Aino- Kaisa Saarinen in second, with Laura Ahervo placing third and Riitta-Liisa Roponen in 4th.

Kowalczyk also captured the victory in Friday’s sprint race, as previously reported, and Saturday’s 5km skate race making it a clean sweep. In Saturday’s event she was followed closely by Saarinen and Roponen as well.

In the men’s 10km Free event on Saturday, Norway’s Snorri Einarsson took the win with an 11-second margin over Finland’s Ville Nousiainen in second, followed 2.4 seconds back by countryman Sami Jauhojaervi in third. At this morning’s 10km classic on on Day 3 Jauhojaevi topped the field, with Alexey Poltoranin (KAZ) in second and Finland’s Anssi Pentsinen landing on the podium in third.

While the Canadian team was racing in Bruksvallarna, Sweden, and the majority of the U.S. ski team was either training in Torsby or still en route to Scandinavia, a small contingent of Americans from the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, including the USST’s Ida Sargent, were in Muonio to contest the races.

On Saturday, Day Two in Munio, Sargent led the way for the Americans in the women’s 5km Free event finishing in 35th, followed by Hannah Dreissigacker in 44th and Clare Egan in 55th. Tim Reynolds was the top American in the men’s 10km event followed by Patrick O’Brien in 70th, Dylan McGuffin in 88th and Ethan Dreissigacker in 129th.

In today’s final classic round Sargent was again the top American women, moving up to 26th at 1:14 off the pace. Clare Egan finished 39th and Hannah Dreissigacker was 46th. As he did on Friday, Pat O’Brien lead the men again in 61st, with Tim Reynolds in 80th, Dylan McGuffin in 101th, and Ethan Dressigacker was 129th.

The Craftsbury Green Racing Project athletes had been training in Muonio for two weeks prior to the races, enjoying some of the better snow conditions to be found anywhere in Scandinavia. While the purpose of the trip is primarily to get in some early on-snow training and gain international racing experience, the athletes were clearly psyched by the hectic atmosphere that comes with the first races on the FIS calendar, with hundreds of top Scandinavian skiers looking to test themselves.

As Hannah Dreissigacker recently wrote on the team’s blog: “Of course, it’s still mid-November and we still have another month until we’ll race back home, so these are definitely races and results to be taken pretty lightly. But with a deep, highly competitive international field of racers fired up for the season to begin, there’s definitely a contagious energy around these races. When I was racing today, Clare cheered me on by screaming “every second counts!” and it couldn’t have been more true – in these races, every second could easily be five places.”

Women’s final results HERE.
Men’s final results HERE.

Full results HERE.