Three medals for Sweden in the first round of cross-country skiing at the World Championships in Planica – Jonna Sundling is the new world champion in the classic sprint. Best German is Laura Gimmler, who failed in the semifinals.
Three German cross-country skiers had qualified for the World Cup quarterfinals in the classic sprint: Victoria Carl, Coletta Rydzek and Laura Gimmler. In the Valley of the Schanzen, Carl was the first to start. Typically for her, the start of the race was rather slow, but she stayed with the fastest of her group.
On the climb, however, the DSV athlete was unlucky: The competitor from Poland, Izabela Marcisz, kicked her stick away – and the 27-year-old fell. Your chance to attack the top was gone. In the end, the Olympic champion finished 12 seconds behind in the team sprint.
With tears in her eyes, she said after the race in the ZDF interview: “I’m very angry because I felt really good and then had no chance.”
Rydzek briefly in the semifinals
The next German at the start was Coletta Rydzek, she started the race very well. As a third in the meantime, she always stayed in the top group. She didn’t give up on the first climb either, but after a fall on the way to the second hill, Swede Jonna Sundling and Norwegian Tiril Udnes Weng were able to pull away.
Rydzek was now fighting for third place on the home stretch in a duel with Jasmi Jönsuu from Finland. The 25-year-old won the final sprint and was initially among the “lucky losers”. The two fastest of each heat and the two best “lucky losers” advance to the semi-finals of the top twelve.
But Norway’s Anna Sevendsen pushed Rydzeck out of the “Lucky Loser” position in the next run – very bitterly, because the two separated by only a tenth.
Gimmler prevails against strong competition
Laura Gimmler, the strongest German in this discipline, started in the last quarter-final. In her group she had to assert herself against strong opponents like Jessi Diggins and Lotta Utnes Weng. Gimmler managed that, she kept her nerves, stayed technically clean on the climbs and descents and was the only German to get the ticket to the semi-finals.
Scandinavian Festival in the semi-finals
In the semifinals, Gimmler started in the second group and had to prevail against the dominant Swedes. At the start she was the fastest, but then she did very quickly in the deep snow on the cross-country ski run. The 29-year-old was finally passed, finished sixth and thus clearly missed making it into the final.
Five of the twelve athletes in the sprint semifinals came from Sweden, the team showed enormous dominance, similar to that in the World Cup. In the two races for the final tickets, four Swedes, Emma Ribon, Linn Svahn, Jonna Sundling and Maja Dahlqvist, and two Norwegians, Kristine Stavaas Skistad and Tiril Udnes Weng, ultimately prevailed.
Sweden in their own league
The final started cautiously, the Scandinavian finalists initially stayed close together for a long time, no runner hurried away. But after the first climb, the two Norwegians lost contact and could no longer keep up with the faster-paced Swedes. In the end, Team Sweden settled for the medals: gold went to Jonna Sundling, silver to Emma Ribom and bronze to Maja Dahlqvist.