Shortly before the end there were already the first tears of joy: the German cross-country relay team celebrated silver at the World Championships in Planica and only had to let Norway go first.
In the end, Laura Gimmler, Katharina Hennig, Pia Fink and Victoria Carl were 20.3 seconds behind the subscription world champion, but on Thursday (March 2nd, 2023) Sweden and Finland were confidently kept at a distance on the 4 x 5 kilometers great party atmosphere in the German team.
First skier Gimmler had put her no-wax ski in wait early on behind the strong Norwegian Tiril Udnes Weng and the Swede Emma Ribom and kept up very well. Only shortly before the first exchange did the gap widen a bit, but with a 2.5-second deficit in fourth place, anything was still possible.
Gimmler is satisfied
Laura Gimmler was also very satisfied with the Sportschau microphone: “It was a tough lap, I had a lot of respect. My job was to keep up with the front, I’m really relieved that it went so well.”
Katharina Hennig took over in second place and quickly caught up. After that she even took the lead against the top stars from Scandinavia, then dropped back into the group of four to have enough energy on the way back to the stadium.
Attack just right
The tactic turned out to be brilliant, and when the Swede Ebba Andersson fell on the last climb, Hennig even jumped away alone at the front. Finland with Kerttu Niskanen was able to follow the German, in the end Hennig handed over with a lead of three tenths of a second on Niskanen, the Norwegian Astrid Oyre Slind with 5.6 seconds and Andersson with 8.7 already had some distance.
Hennig commented on her top performance in the first: “I’m very satisfied, I did a good job organizing the race. I’m very proud that in the end I was able to attack exactly as I planned.”
USA without a chance early on
For the Americans, who were among the favorites in the medal fight, the race was already over at this point: After a poor performance by starting runner Hailey Swirbul, Rosie Brennan even increased the gap. She, too, fell just before the last climb and gave world champion Jessie Diggins an uncatchable 48 seconds on the way.
As expected, Pia Fink was not able to keep the lead against the strong Norwegian Ingvild Flugstad Östberg, but like Gimmler and Hennig before her, she showed an enormously courageous race.
Fink even outperforms Karlsson
The seventh-placed over the ten kilometers was 6.2 seconds behind Norway at the finish, but bravely defended second place in front of Sweden with Frida Karlsson, who had to pay tribute at the end of her race to catch up and was 14.2 seconds behind.
Pia Fink herself was amazed that she was able to give Karlsson a pack like this: “I would never have believed that, I was quite surprised myself. I had really good skis and wanted to do my best because we knew that this was a really good chance for us.”
Kalvaa quickly makes everything clear
Final runner Anne Kjersti Kalva made it clear from the first meter that only Norway was eligible for gold. But second place was taken just as quickly: Victoria Carl even extended her lead over the Swedes with Maja Dahlqvist and Finland with Krista Parmakoski. In the end, Sweden won the sprint for bronze.
Peter Schlickenrieder: “It was a real milestone that we got the silver medal here. Our athletes are in top form, it’s great what they have delivered here for a performance. The pressure and the expectations were high, but now of course we’re tearing it down – right But we don’t want to let it rip until tomorrow after the men’s relay.”
Carl celebrates tactical progress
Final runner Carl celebrated her colleagues: “It really motivated me that we had such good skis and that the other girls skied so well. The looseness helped me not to go too fast and to ski properly. We kept calm and tactically we all made a big step forward done in front.”