January 30, 2017 (Park City, Utah) – The racing kicked off today at the USANA 2017 FIS Junior and U23 World Ski Championships with the Junior Classic sprint competitions. Ample natural snow, cold temperatures, and sunshine made for hard tracks and fast racing on a course perfectly prepared by the team at Soldier Hollow.

The Salt Lake City area is no stranger to world-class sporting events, but it has not seen an international championship cross-country ski race since the 2002 Olympic Games. With talented international athletes in both cross-country and Nordic combined arriving at the venue over the past weeks, the North Americans hope to use their home court advantage to out-ski their European rivals.

When the dust settled on the opening day it was Polina Nekrasova of Russia who skied clear to claim gold in the women’s 1.4km CL race winning by 3.56 seconds over Germany’s Antonia Fräbel, and her teammate Coletta Rydzek at 4.58 behind. The top North American was the USA’s Julia Kern making the top 10 with a strong 9th-place result.

In the morning’s CL Sprint qualification round, Germany dominated with Fraebel topping the field. Three American women placed in the top 30 to advance to the quarterfinal heats including Kern in 11th, Hannah Halvorsen in 13th and Lauren Jortberg placing 27th.

Claire Grall-Johnson posted the top Canadian finish in the women’s qualifier in 39th, followed by Natalie Hynes in 42nd, Annika Richardson in 44th, and Lisle Compton in 45th. For the U.S., Taeler McCrerey was 40th.

Of the three Americans to make the quarterfinals, two advanced to the semis. Kern finished 2nd in her quarterfinal, only 0.19 seconds behind eventual winner Nekrasova of Russia. An unfortunate fall in her semifinal saw Kern cross the line in 5th at 28.05 seconds behind winner Nekrasova, to finish 9th overall.

Halvorsen won the fifth quarterfinal with strong skiing, but went on to place 6th in her semi at 8.14 seconds behind Germany’s Fräbel to sit 11th in the final standings. The USA’s Jortberg took 4th in the second quarterfinal at 4.4 seconds behind Norwegian Kristine Stavås Skistad, and did not advance as a Lucky Loser finishing 20th overall.

Tuesday’s events include the U23 Classic Sprint races, as well as HS100m ski jumping plus 10km xc race for the Nordic Combined athletes – results below.

Results

Qualifications here.
Brackets here.
Overall here.