Victoria Carl sprinted to fifth place when the cross-country skiing World Cup returned to the USA. The team sprint Olympic champion made it into a final of the best six runners in Minneapolis for only the third time in her career, but had no chance there early on. Jonna Sundling and Linn Svahn secured Sweden’s sixth double victory of the season.
In the state of Minnesota, where a race in the USA took place for the first time in 23 years, Coletta Rydzek (8th), Lena Keck (14th), Laura Gimmler (17th) and Anna-Maria Dietze (18th) took care of the free Technology for a strong German team result. Katharina Hennig, who won Olympic gold in the team sprint together with Carl in 2022, narrowly missed the quarter-finals of the top 30 as 31st in the prologue.
From a German perspective, only Anian Sossau (30th) survived the prologue among the men. Record World Cup winner Johannes Hösflot Kläbo celebrated his 77th career success, the Norwegian prevailed ahead of the Italian Federico Pellegrino and Havard Solas Taugböl (Norway).
The World Cup last stopped in the USA in January 2001. The host at the time was Soldier Hollow, where the cross-country skiing and biathlon competitions at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics also took place.