February 20, 2016 (Lahti, FIN) – Jessie Diggins led the U.S. with another FIS World Cup podium result after qualifying second, as she raced to a stellar second-place in the women’s 1.6k freestyle sprint at the Lahti Ski Games on Saturday in the hotly contested final. Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla, who had four straight classic sprint victories heading into today’s race, added to her overall lead in the World Cup sprint standings while her teammate Heidi Weng rounded out the podium in third.

“It is really exciting to be on the podium,” Diggins said. “The stadium was great with loud fans, it was a lot of fun to compete here.”

Fellow American Sadie Bjornsen also advanced to the semis but fell short of making her first sprint final ending up 10th on the day. She was followed by Sophie Caldwell in 13th and Ida Sargent in 24th. Caitlin Patterson (USA) was 35th, Canadian Heidi Widmer racing for Switzerland was 46th and Jennie Bender (USA) was 50th.

“I was really happy with my qualifier this morning. This is the longest course sprint course we’ve raced all year and it also had some big hills. Generally, that’s not my strength in skate sprinting, so I was very satisfied to qualify sixth. In my quarter, Ingvild (Oestberg, of Norway, who finished fourth) put in a move on the last up and I couldn’t stick with her and then got passed in the lanes to end up third in my heat,” said Caldwell. “I was disappointed not to move on because I was feeling good, but seeing Jess in second and Sadie in the top 10 turned it back into a good day!”

Qualifications here.
Results here.

Men’s Race

Simi Hamilton was the top U.S. men’s finisher in 17th as Emil Iversen led an impressive Norwegian podium sweep with Finn Hagen Krogh in second and Petter Nothrug Jr. in third as Italian speed king, Federico Pellegrino, was the odd man out in the all Norwegian final.

Until the pack entered the stadium, Pellegrino, who currently leads the Overall World Cup sprint standings looked like he might hold off the Norwegians as he was in the lead.
But the late strike from the red, white and blue led to the podium sweep with Iversen edging out teammates Krogh and Nothrug Jr. for the win.

“I definitely have mixed feelings with how the race went today. I felt really good training on the course yesterday and I felt great in qualification today. My plan going into the quarterfinal was to hang in the middle of the pack and take advantage of the drafts on the first couple of downhills, especially with it being a new long course at 3+ minutes. At about half way, when I wanted to start making one or two decisive moves to get to the front, I either got pinched into soft, slow snow on the sides or got tangled with other racers on the narrow climb leading up to the final downhill.

“It was for sure frustrating to finish 4th in my quarter after feeling like I had great energy and could ski a lot of the technical parts of the course better than everyone else in my heat, but we have a few more really solid sprints coming up in Canada so I’ll use today as motivation to ski more aggressive from the start and play my cards better in the races coming up.

“I couldn’t be more psyched for Jessie with another podium today, and I think our team in general had a solid day (not our best, but when we can put 4 in the top 20 I think that’s something to hang out hat on). Our service team crushed it all day long, giving us great boards, and the team as a whole couldn’t be more fired up leading up to tomorrow’s distance race and the Canadian tour,” said Hamilton.

Qualifications here.
Results here.