January 16, 2016 (Planica, SLO) – The day belonged to Italy’s Federico Pellegrino as he kept his hot streak going to win his 4th consecutive free technique Sprint breaking his own record of three consecutive wins, which he has now accomplished twice. France’s Baptiste Gros landed on the podium in second with teammate Richard Jouve in third. The top North American was Simi Hamilton (USA) in 18th.

Pellegrino also became the winningest Italian male skier of all time with seven World Cup victories breaking a tie with Pietro Piller Cottrer as both had six wins. “It felt very good in the qualification. I was worried it could get worse. I learned in my semifinal how to ski in the final. I expected Baptist to be fast on this course so my plan was to go in the front and get a gap on the others,” said Pellegrino.

American Hamilton qualified 18th while his teammate Andy Newell was 24th. Canada’s Lenny Valjas just missed the heats by 5/100ths of a second finishing 31st. The USA’s Dakota Blackhorse-Von Jess was 50th, Knute Johnsgaard (Can) got his 2nd World Cup start and finished a personal best 54th, Andy Shields (Can) was 56th, Jesse Cockney (Can) was 61st, and Reese Hanneman (USA) placed 63rd.

Both Hamilton and Newell had good starts and looked strong in their heats but could not maintain the pace near the end. We caught up with both for their take on the day.

“It was a good day out there to get my feet back under me after getting pretty sick during the middle of the TdS. Obviously I’m not super thrilled with the final result and I would have liked to have skied into the semis or the finals because I’ve been feeling very fit this season, especially in skate sprinting, but I’ll take what I can get and move forward from here.

“I felt decent in the qualification; I don’t think my top gear is quite where I want it to be this week since I haven’t really done anything hard since the sprint in Lenzeheide, but I wanted to make sure that I got back to 100% healthy before pushing too hard again. I had a good start in my quarter and was happy to tuck in behind Sebastian for the first half of the short course, but when it came to dropping into a higher gear on the first long climb, my legs just didn’t really respond with the speed even though my energy felt good.

“I found myself kind of fighting to move thru the pack from there all the way to the finish lanes, where I focused on getting through as much traffic as I could in the last 100 meters. All 6 of us basically came into the lanes together and I just couldn’t find any space to slip through into the top 2. It was a really fast and short course, and because it was so twisty snaking, it was really hard to get around anyone in most places.

“Overall, though, I’m happy that I’m healthy again and I’m looking forward to another good effort tomorrow with Andy. I think we can ski well as a sprint team tomorrow and I’m looking forward to putting my body through the motions again.

“This venue and area is super cool. The mountains rising up from the jumping and ski complex are unbelievable and they’ve done a great job with designing a really cool sprint course as well as a unique stadium/waxing setup (all of the wax rooms are in an underground concrete bunker below the stadium). I’m really looking forward to getting back here in the future for more racing and training,” concluded Hamilton.

Newell was also disappointed but is now focused on Stockholm and Drammen which are two venues he likes.

“Feeling pretty good after the Tour de Ski… definitely wasn’t feeling great during the Tour and didn’t have great results but feeling much stronger now.

“The Planica venue is beautiful and the course today groomed up in great shape with some really fast man-made snow. The course had a lot of twists and turns and skied pretty quickly.. in the 2:15 range for guys so one of the shorter sprints of the year.

“In Qualification I felt pretty flat. Probably from a combination of not doing too much sprint training recently. I’ve been working on more distance style intervals the last week or so. But after quali I started feeling a lot better and fired up for the heats.

“I felt like I could be quick in the start and maneuver and get around people well.. so in general even though my placing wasn’t any better I’m feeling a lot stronger than I have in the last two skate sprints. I still have been messing around but with my finishing technique and hope to improve on that. The good news is the next two sprint world cups are Stockholm and Drammen which are my two favorites.

“For tomorrow Simi and I will pair up for the relay. Even though neither of us placed well today I think we have a shot at a really good result on Sunday. Sprint relays are a different beast and I think we can both ski this course really well and are good at the fast tags necessary to stay out front.

Simi Hamilton is 12th in the overall World Cup sprint standings, Andy Newell is 16th.

Qualifications here.
Full results here.