January 6, 2008 (Val di Fiemme, Italy) – Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla overtook defending champion Virpi Kuitunen from Finland on the so-called Final Climb Sunday and went on to win the 2008 FIS Tour de Ski. Czech Lukas Bauer, as expected held onto his lead and cruised to the win by nearly three minutes.

The final stage of the eight-race, 10-day Tour was a climb from Lago di Tesero, on the valley floor, up Alpe Cermis to Cavalese, the main village above the valley. It’s a bruising climb.

Skiers began the stage according to their accumulated times up to the last stage, so Kuitunen took off first for the women on a 9km route. Later, Bauer led the men out on a 10km path to the top. The Final Climb is about 2.5km in length.

Kuitunen, who used the 400 points she got for winning the inaugural Tour last January as a springboard to the overall World Cup title, was worried about Kalla. The young Swede is (a) young; (b) a strong skater; (c) re-read a and b. Kuitunen had a 40-second lead to start the race.

The Finn, who is stronger in classic technique and 11 years older than Kalla, was right to be worried. Not only was she facing a fearsome competitor, despite her youth, but Kuitunen ran into back problems when she took the pack up the hill.

“I didn’t attack today. My tactic was to go full speed from the beginning so that they couldn’t catch me, and so that they had to do all the work on the uphill,” Kuitunen said.

Kalla stalked her until pulling up behind her perhaps one-third of the way up the hill. With a kilometre to go, she pulled away from the Finn and raced to the finish line. Her winning time was 2:43.01.0, 36.4 seconds ahead of Kuitunen.

Arianna Follis of Italy was third (2:43.54.3. Valentina Shevchenko of the Ukraine had the fastest race and moved up from 10th place to fourth overall.

“I almost can’t believe that this is true,” the new champion said. “It’s like a dream.”

She said the climb “was just as tough as I thought it would be. Maybe the last part was much tougher than I had expected.”

In the men’s race, Bauer said, “I had no special tactics. I wanted to go as fast as in a normal race and keep up the tempo.” His winning time through eight stages was 3:38.07.4.

As he approached the finish, well in front of German Rene Sommerfeldt, who had the fastest race, advancing from ninth to second overall, Bauer got a Czech flag from someone lining the course. As he hit the finish line, he hit the snow, jubilant in his victory, exhausted by what he had accomplished.

“I started fast. I wanted to keep distance [with the pack] in case I would get problems on the steepest part.” Bauer was never seriously challenged. Sommerfeldt’s time was 3:40.54.7.

Canadian Dave Nighbor, competing in his first Tour, finished 51st. His time was 3:52.50.9.

Vegard Ulvang, chairman of the FIS Cross-country Committee and an Olympic and World Cup champion in his racing days, was pleased with the Tour. He and Juerg Capol, x-c coordinator for the FIS, midwifed the birth of the Tour a year ago. He said they will continue to confer with athletes and coaches in laying out TdS III next season, which will have special logistical problems because it’s a Nordic World Championships winter.

“It is not so easy to make it all work out well,” said Ulvang. He and Capol hope Germany, which backed out of the Tour de Ski this time, will return as well as other nations serving as race sites.

Stage 8 Results

Women
1. Valentina Shevchenko (Ukr) 34:06.2
2. Kristin Stoermer Steira (Nor) 35:01.5
3. Claudia Nystad (Ger) 335:17.0
4. Therese Johaug (Nor) 3 35:22.7
5. Stefanie Boehler (Ger) 35:23.5
9. Charlotte Kalla (Swe) 35:36.9
21. Virpi Kuitunen (Fin) 36:53.0

Men
1. Rene Sommerfeldt (Ger) 32:59.0
2. Christian Hoffman (Aut) 33:18.3
3. Martin Bajcicak (Svk) 33:18.8
4. Giorgio Di Centa (Ita) 33:34.4
5. Franz Goering (Ger) 33:38.5
7. Lukas Bauer (Cze) 33:45.1

Full Women’s results here.
Full Men’s results here.

2008 Tour de Ski Final Standings after 8 events (brief)

Women
1. Charlotte Kalla (Swe) 2:43:01.0
2. Virpi Kuitunen (Fin) 2:43:37.4
3. Arianna Follis (Ita) 2:43:54.3
4. Valentina Shevchenko (Ukr) 2:44:10.2
5. Olga Rotcheva (Rus) 2:44:15.8

Men
1. Lukas Bauer (Cze) 3:04:22.3
2. Tord Asle Gjerdalen (Nor) 3:06:12.1
3. Pietro Piller Cottrer (Ita) 3:06:46.0
4. Jens Arne Svartedal (Nor) 3:07:03.5
5. Tor Arne Hetland (Nor) 3:07:10.4