USA Day at the Tour de Ski: After Gus Schumacher’s triumph in the new mass start format over five kilometers in free style, an American also won among the women: Jessica Diggins.
Behind the favorite, the two Swedes Emma Ribom and Moa Ilor came second and third. Pia Fink achieved a respectable success and came 14th. The fact that the Norwegians were unfamiliar with the new competition was also shown by the result for the women: there was no one from the large cross-country skiing nation in the top team; the best Norwegian was Astrid Öyre Slind in twelfth place.
Sofie Krehl in 21st and Helen Hoffmann three places behind were the next Germans. Hoffmann said afterwards: “It started relatively quickly, and at the end things really took off again.” Krehl also had to struggle with the new format: “The first lap was a bit slow, so I thought I could make up a few places. Suddenly I was right at the front, which of course wasn’t the plan.”
Katharina Hennig Dotzler has dropped out
Surprisingly, Katharina Hennig Dotzler, who announced her decision shortly before the mass start, is no longer taking part in the tour. National coach Peter Schlickenrieder explained on ZDF that illness was apparently the reason: “This is her new strength, that she prefers to get out at the slightest sign and doesn’t just want to run along. Now she’s going back to training for the Olympics.”
Before the Tour de Ski, Laura Gimmler, a top German runner, had already had to cancel due to illness. Victoria Carl, team sprint Olympic champion with Hennig Dotzler in Beijing in 2022, will be missing for the foreseeable future due to a suspension following a positive doping test.
For the first time in the new Heat format
The heat mass start was held for the first time as part of this Tour de Ski. In this new format, the 82 starters were divided into four groups (heats), each of which ran its own mass start with 20 or 21 participants. The groups were mixed and not sorted according to performance, so that there were strong and less strong runners in each heat. The winner was the athlete with the fastest time of all four runs, so the trick was not only to be at the front in your own heat, but also to ensure that your own race was faster than the other three.