Cross-country skiing Olympic champion Victoria Carl narrowly missed the first individual podium of her career in the World Cup.
The 28-year-old stayed in the top group until the end in Kuusamo over 20 km in free style, but had to settle for eighth place in the final sprint. Hopeful Katharina Hennig didn’t get past 27th place in Sweden’s Moa Ilar’s first World Cup victory.
“I wasn’t in a good position, and then I just ran out of things. But eighth place with such a small gap to the front is just really cool,” said Carl after the race in double-digit temperatures below zero: “Now we’re off to the sauna.”
Carl was right at the front in the mass start race, and at the last split she was still level with the front. After 55:47.0 minutes, she was only 4.8 seconds short of the podium, which was completed by the Americans Jessie Diggins and Rosie Brennan.
The second best German was Pia Fink in 17th place. Katharina Hennig, who won Olympic gold in the team sprint together with Carl in 2022, was more than two minutes behind at the finish. The Saxon woman had already declared before the start that she was “at war” with the mass start race in Kuusamo.
There was also a premiere victory for the men: The Norwegian Jan Thomas Jenssen won the finish sprint on Sunday, the Germans Florian Notz (24th) and Lucas Bögl (38th) did well. Top star Johannes Hösflot Kläbo suffered the next defeat as the weakest Norwegian in 21st place – a year ago the five-time Olympic champion had won all three races on the opening weekend. At the beginning of November, however, Kläbo was unable to train for a long time due to corona illness.