Cross-country skiing queen Therese Johaug becomes the comeback queen, Olympic champion Victoria Carl shines on the short and long distances.
The 36-year-old Norwegian Johaug celebrated her second victory in 48 hours in the skiathlon at her home game in Lillehammer and is in impressive shape on her return to the World Cup after a two and a half year break.
“It’s going well and it’s getting better,” said Johaug. The four-time Olympic champion won after 10 km in both classic and free style in 54:31.5 minutes, 42.6 seconds ahead of her compatriot Heidi Weng, while World Cup leader Jessie Diggins (USA/+43.1) came third.
Johaug had meanwhile led by over a minute and took it easy in the last kilometers to her 84th World Cup success.
On Friday, the 14-time world champion celebrated her first victory over 10 km after her return. Johaug, who became a mother in May 2023, decided to make a comeback with a view to the home World Championships in Trondheim from the end of February and is now the top favorite in the distance races.
Carl, who had achieved her best sprint result of her career the day before with fourth place, came in a strong seventh place on Sunday. The 29-year-old from Zella-Mehlis was 1:37.2 minutes behind Weng, but reached the finish well ahead of her Beijing gold medalist Katharina Hennig (12th/+2:06.0).
The German men didn’t play a big role in the two races at the weekend. Two days after his strong seventh place over 10 km, Friedrich Moch had to settle for 17th place in the skiathlon; Jan Stölben and Marius Kastner failed in the sprint in the first knockout round.
The Norwegians were the measure of all things at the home game: In the sprint, top star Johannes Hösflot Kläbo celebrated his 86th World Cup victory, in the skiathlon Harald Östberg Amundsen led a Norwegian quadruple success.