January 4, 2004 (Asiago, Italy) – Czech Lukas Bauer was 42nd in the skating sprint Friday at Stage 6, but easily held onto his lead in the men’s overall standings of the FIS Tour de Ski. Meanwhile, Swede Charlotte Kalla, gobbled up bonus seconds to close to within two-tenths of a second behind women’s leader Virpi Kuitunen of Finland with two stages remaining.

As the Tour goes through each stage, athletes’ times accumulate. In the sprint, though, they are given the time they post in the qualification round plus any bonus points they pickup during the quarterfinals, semifinals and final heat.

So, Kalla came into the sixth stage of the Tour 25 seconds back of Kuitunen, the defending Tour champion. With light snow falling, Arianna Follis of Italy led the qualifying round in 2:50.91 with Kuitunen second, just over a second back (2:51.99); Kalla qualified ninth, 4.19 seconds back of Follis. That dropped her 29 seconds behind Kuitunen.

However, in the finals, Kalla led from the start and finished more than a stride ahead of Russian Natalia Korosteleva with Poland’s Justyna Kowalczyk third. Kuitunen, knocked out in the semifinals, wound up 11th. Kalla earned 60 bonus seconds with her win while Kuitunen picked up 32 in 11th place, which meant Kalla shaved 28-plus seconds off that 29-seconds lead the Finn held going into finals.

Heading into Saturday’s 10km mass-start, classic race, Kowalczyk is 23.7 second behind Kjuitunen and Olga Rotcheva of Russia, who was fifth in the sprint, is 36.1 seconds back with Follis – who concedes two days of distance racing don’t suit her – in fifth place, 38.2 back.

Men’s Race
In the men’s race, Bauer ole’d the qualifying phase placing 8.1 seconds behind Norway’s Tord Asle Gjerdalen without shredding himself, which was all that was necessary. Then he got to rest while the others chased bonus seconds depending on where they finished in the heats.

Petter Northug of Norway won the sprint competition but not before a semifinal controversy involving team tactics – click a href=”http://www.tour-de-ski.com/fr/news/latest-news.html?actu_id=235″>here for the full story on this – as he appeared to possibly try to block Italy’s Giorgio DiCenta from gaining on fellow Norwegian Tor Arne Hetland. Northug gained 60 seconds on Bauer and stands fifth, just over two minutes behind.

Kazakhstan’s Nikolay Chebotko finished second (earning 56 bonus seconds) while Gjerdalen finished sixth (42-second boost). So, heading into the penultimate stage, Bauer, who has won the three distance stages plus the opening 4.5km prologue, has a total time of 2:04.42.0. He holds a 77.1-second lead over Gjerdalen with Italian star Pietro Piller Cottrer in third place, 105.2 seconds away.

Saturday, it’s a mass start, a 15km classic race which will be followed Sunday by the tortuous Final Climb, an 11km freestyle race for men, 10km for women. The winner gets 400 World Cup points.

Full results here.