February 20, 2010 (Whistler, BC) – There are five races in the books here at the 2010 Olympics
She won her second race and third medal on Friday in the women’s 15km pursuit a
Charlotte Kalla and Anna Haag have each won a medal for the Swedish team. Kalla won in the 10km skate race on very soft tracks. Haag gutted out a great silver in the 15km pursuit.
Poland’s Justina Kowalczyk has won two medals already and she could also get more. She has complained that the courses are not tough enough for her, but in the pursuit she let Bjoergen go on the last big uphill where she’s supposed to be at her best.
The performance of the Games so far has to be by Slovenia’s Petra Majdic in the sprints. It was bizarre to see her ski off the trail before the start of the qualifying. She fell into a ditch that was four meters deep and had to be rescued by Phil Villeneuve from Salomon. She was screaming and crying and clutching her back. There was no way she was going to make her start, and the jury – correctly so because there’s no way that there should have been a ditch like that at the bottom of a downhill turn that was not fenced – allowed her to miss her start time and go at the back of the field. She gutted out a 19th place in the qualifications.
She went through the quarterfinals and made it to the semi-finals as the last “lucky loser”. Then in the finals she came from behind for the bronze. She was in obvious pain every time we saw her but it was not until it was announced that she had four broken ribs and a torn lung that I realized what pain she must have been in. She is finished racing, likely for the year, but that was a great performance.
The USA’s Kikkan Randall had her best-ever performance in a classic sprint finishing in 8th as the top North American ahead of Dasha Gaiasova in 22nd and defending champion Chandra Crawford in 26th. Randall also broke her own US Olympic record for women – she was 9th in the freestyle sprints in Torino.
For the men, Dario Cologna (SUI) showed that good technique and a smart racing plan can win an Olympic gold medal. The tracks were very soft and the skiers who could not glide on top of the snow, like Petter Northug (NOR) did not do very well. Cologna is a pretty big guy but he is a great glider and skis on a flat ski very well. Poor Marcus Hellner was the early leader but he could not hold his early pace and he lost the bronze medal to Lukas Bauer (CZE) in the last 100 meters. Italy’s Pietro Piller-Cottrer realized his dream and won the silver.
Canada’s Ivan Babikov surpassed xc ski icon Pierre Harvey to post a best ever 8th place finish for Canada. Alex Harvey was 21st and George Grey 29th. The Canadian men’s team was better than the Norwegian, Finnish and German teams on the day. James Southam was the best American in 48th.
In the sprints, Nikita Kriukov and Alexander Panzinskiy absolutely dominated the final of the sprint winning by nine seconds over third place Northug. Kriukov and Panzinskiy are roommates and great friends and they were thrilled to be on the podium and for each other.
On the other hand, I have never seen someone so unhappy with a bronze medal as Northug. In his interviews I did not see him smile once and his body language was very negative. He beat a lot of good skiers including the favorites team mate Ola Viggen Hattestad and Sweden’s Emil Joensson who did not even make it to the final.
The men’s sprints saw Stefan Kuhn from Canada qualify in 10th and finish in 15th after getting bumped by Panzinskiy in their quarterfinal. Devon Kershaw finished 23rd and Simi Hamilton was the only American to qualify for the heats were he finished 29th.
This sprint was pretty much a disaster for the American team despite putting a lot of resources in their men’s sprint team over the past two years. Top dog Andy Newell fell, again, in the qualifications and finished 45th. Torin Koos, fresh off a 2nd place qualifying time in Canmore at the Alberta World Cup the week before the Olympics, also did not make the cut in the qualifications and finished in 36th.
There are still seven races left in cross-country skiing at these Olympics and plenty of time for skiers who have done poorly to get it back together. Some skiers are going up and some are coming down. I’m sure waxing will be an issue in all of the races as well. It will be fun to watch.