July 28, 2010 – This past weekend for was good xc ski racing fans. Between Norway’s Blink Festival races and the Bad Peterstal Rollerski World Cup in German’s Black Forest, there was lots of action to choose from. First up we’ll look at Øystein Pettersen’s (SWE) domination on the track in Sandnes, Norway at the Blink Festival.

On Friday (July 23th) “The Sausage” won the mass start rollerski race for the 3rd year in a row, leading much of the 15km race and proving the strongest man in the final sprint, leaving German sprinter Joseph Wenzl to battle for 2nd place over Norway’s Peter Northug. Full results can be found HERE.

Friday was also a good day for Marit Bjorgen – she won the women’s 10km race, just barely edging out fellow Norwegian Marthe Kristoffersen by a narrow 1.5 second split.  Their younger teammate Heidi Weng put down an impressive third place, losing only 13.2 seconds. Full women’s results can be found HERE.

The action continued on Saturday (July 24th) in Sandnes with the men’s and women’s sprint events.   At the end of a hot day of heats, the start line of the men’s final saw Christoph Eigenmann (SUI), Joeri Kindschi (SUI), Øystein Pettersen (NOR), Ragnar Bragvin Andresen (NOR), Joseph Wenzl (GER) and Pål Golberg (NOR) facing off.  Eigenmann proved the strongest on the day, taking the win over Kindschi with the previous day’s winner, Pettersen, having to settle for third. The men’s heat results are available HERE.

Bjorgen earned her crown as the Queen of the Blink Festival by thrilling fans with another win while Kristoffersen was 2nd again, this time followed by Slovenia’s Katja Visnar.  The Women’s heat results are available HERE.

Along with all the competition, Blink Fest is also major cultural celebration in Norway.   Music, food, and revelry of all forms were much in evidence.  Photos from the weekend courtesy of Blink Fest organizers can be found HERE.

Meanwhile, in Germany – Bad Peterstal FIS Rollserski World Cup

Famous in North America for it’s cake, the Black Forest is home to more than chocolate-and-cherry diet destroyers. This past weekend it played host to the latest installment of the FIS rollerski World Cup. While Bjorgen was busy on Saturday (July 24th) taking names and prizes in Sandnes, some of her fellow Norwegians were executing their national duty by winning all of the categories they had entrants in at the Bad Peterstal sprint races.   Guro Strøm Solli won the women’s event, besting Russia’s Evgenia Kurochkina (2nd) with Italy’s Mateja Bogatec (3rd). Full Women’s results available HERE.

On the men’s side Norway’s Jens Bjertnæs continued his country’s dominance, leaving second place to a very strong Italian, Alessio Berlanda, and third to France’s Igor Cuny – men’s results are available HERE.

Sunday (July 25th) was the second half of the Bad Peterstal FIS Rollserski World Cup event, with athletes competing in an uphill, 11.3km free technique race.  The men’s champion of the day was Anders Svanebo, of Sweden, who battled with Romanian Paul Constantin Pepene until the final 400 meters.  By this point Italian Simone Paredi had closed on Svanebo and Pepene, but the Swede dusted both challengers in a brilliant sprint finish.

On the ladies side Monika Gyorgy of Romania took the victory fighting off Sweden’s Hanna Seppas while Gabriela Ionela Leanca of Romania finished third.

Men’s results are HERE and and Women’s results are HERE.

With files from FIS