December 06, 2010 (Barrie, ON) – What a weekend for female skiers from North America at the streets sprints held in Dusseldorf, Germany! The flat, narrow course is right on the river in the downtown using man-made snow. Saturday there were individual skate sprints and Sunday there were skate Team Sprints. The snow was wet, it was raining and there are no hills to speak of on the track. Thousands of Germans come out to watch the fast, exciting racing. Because the course is so narrow there are usually many crashes, especially in the Team Sprints on Sunday.

These are special races in Dusseldorf that are made for skiers who can be quick on their feet and use their heads to stay out of trouble. There is always a lot of luck in sprint racing and courses like this require even more luck. I love this kind of racing and these sprints are always a favourite with the fans. It really does look like roller derby on skis when you watch a race like this. It’s a long way from the way xc skiing was contested 15 years ago where in every race the skiers would go off into the woods one at a time and you needed a stopwatch and a start list to figure out who won.

On Saturday the USA’s Kikkan Randall came from behind after a bad start in the final of the women’s individual sprint to finish 2nd behind Arianna Follis from Italy. Chandra Crawford proved how far forward she has come by finishing 8th after qualifying 4th. Dasha Gaiazova also scored World Cup points again finishing in 27th.

The results were even better for the Canadian women’s team of Crawford and Gaiazova on Sunday where they also came from behind to finish on the podium in 3rd place in the Team Sprint.

With 10 teams in the final and a very narrow fast track there were crashes galore on every leg. Each skier skied three legs so there were five tags and crashes on every tag. The Italian women – Follis and Magda Genuin – worked hard to stay at the front the whole race to stay out of trouble and won. In the final straightaway Slovenian Katja Visnar had the misfortune to trip over her own ski pole and crashed with less than 100m to go allowing the Norwegian team of Celine Brun-Lie and Maikan Falla to take second and Crawford to sneak by the Slovenian and claim 3rd. Both Canadians skied great tactical races and were able to avoid all of the major crashes.

On Saturday in the men’s Individual sprints Emil Joensson of Sweden just nipped newcomer Fulvio Scola of Italy for the win with Olympic champion Oystein Petterson of Norway in 3rd. Joensson said afterwards that he had no confidence in winning in Dusseldorf before the race because in the past he has not done well there and that he prefers courses with hills. He showed an amazing final kick in the last 200 meters to win.

Andy Newell qualified 3rd but was only able to manage a 13th place finish after not advancing past the first round of heats. Newell continues to follow the same pattern as last year – he is one of the fastest men in the world and usually qualifies very well but he cannot seem to finish it off.

It was not a good day for the rest of the North American as none of them skied fast enough to qualify for the heats with Stefan Kuhn finishing 33rd, Len Valjas 34th, Brent McMurtry 56th, Torin Koos 63rd, and Chris Cook in 70th.

Like the women’s Team Sprint final, the men’s was also decided with a crash. On the last lap the German II team skier Josef Wenzl and the Norway 1 skier John Kristian Dahl were well in the lead when they tangled on a sharp right hand corner. When I looked at the video it was hard to tell who was at fault. Wenzl was slightly ahead going into the corner so he did have the right of way but he did ski down into Dahl. You see these kinds of crashes all the time in NASCAR with no penalties and I don’t think that there should have been one here. Oystein Petterson, Dahl’s teammate got into Wenzl’s face after the race and there was some pushing and shoving, but I think that this was a racing incident with no fault.

The unexpected crash allowed the Norway II team of Ole Vigen Hattestad and Anders Gloersen to take the win – so Norway still scored on the day although they were hoping for two spots on the podium – followed by the Swedish team of Mats Larsson and Joensson with the Italian team of Fabio Pasini and David Hofer in 3rd. There were no North American teams in the final 10 teams as they did not make it out of the semi-finals in the morning.

The lacklustre weekend for North American men continued on Sunday as none of the teams qualified for the finals. Those that looked like they could contend and possibly advance were involved in a crash of some sort during their semi-finals. The best team was Stefan Kuhn and Len Valjas who finished 17th. Valjas, a rookie in Europe, has been learning very quickly that there’s a lot more aggressive skiing in sprints on the World Cup than at home. Elbows are up and no one gives an inch. Chandra Crawford learned this lesson years ago at the Silver Star World Cup in 2005 when Claudia Kuenzel (GER) knocked her down.

Next up in Davos, Switzerland, is a race from the past – an intervals start 10/15km classic distance race on Saturday followed by another freestyle sprint race on Sunday. Look for more sparks to fly as Petter Northug (NOR) is back and both Marit Bjoergen (NOR) and Justyna Kowalczyk (POL), who skipped Dusseldorf, will be on the start line again. That’s the beauty of the XC World Cup – there is something for everyone and a different winner in nearly every race.