Victoria Carl made it to the final of the freestyle sprints at the atmospheric cross-country skiing World Cup in Theodore Wirth Park/Minneapolis on Saturday (February 17, 2024). But she had bad luck there early on.
Victoria Carl finished fifth in the freestyle sprint in the USA. In the top-class final with Olympic sprint champion and world champion Jonna Sundling and the US local hero and overall World Cup leader Jessica Diggins, the Thuringian came in fifth place. Shortly after the start, she had to avoid a stumbling opponent and run the race from behind. It is questionable whether she would have made it further forward without this mishap; the competition seemed too strong.
Sundling secured victory in the best external conditions and 15,000 enthusiastic spectators ahead of her compatriot Linn Svahn (+0.95 seconds) and the Norwegian Kristine Stavaas Skistad (+2.68 seconds).
Carl confidently made it to the semi-finals, where she had to tremble
At the start of the competition, Carl had run her quarter-finals all over again, she set the pace until the last climb and finally only had to admit defeat to Svahn. Lena Keck also flew over the course in her slipstream, came third and was initially one of two lucky losers. There she was edged out by her teammate Laura Gimmler, who came fourth in her quarterfinals but was almost 1.5 seconds faster. But it wasn’t enough for Gimmler to reach the semi-finals either. Since the last heat, in which Coletta Rydzek was the fastest, was a bit faster, she was also over in the first knockout round. Anna-Maria Dietze also missed qualifying for the semi-finals in her run.
As fourth in the first run, Carl had to tremble for a few minutes before she made it to the final. In the second semi-final, Rydzek also came fourth, a tenth of a second shy of securing a place in the top six.
Sossau missed out on reaching the semi-finals
From a German perspective, only Anian Sossau made it to the quarterfinals among the men. There he didn’t get past sixth and last place in his heat and was out early. The Norwegian Johannes Hösflot Kläbo secured victory ahead of Federico Pellegrino from Italy and his compatriot Haavard Solaas Taugböl.
Friedrich Moch, who is more at home on longer distances, missed Prologues-48. the knockout round of the best 30 clearly. For Lucas Bögl (69th) and Florian Notz (72nd) it was also the end of the line after qualification.