The three German starters Pia Fink, Katarina Sauerbrey and Victoria Carl finished seventh, 19th and 29th in the 10km freestyle at the Cross-Country Skiing World Cup in Les Rousses on Friday. The Swede Ebba Andersson was the winner. The best German, Katharina Hennig, did not compete due to illness.
After two attempts, the town of Les Rousses celebrates the World Cup premiere in the third – first there was too little snow and last season a corona outbreak prevented the staging. However, not the entire world elite is at the start for the debut: many athletes skip the station for reasons of illness or regeneration.
Only 39 starters started the race. One of the absolute world class set the first scent mark: The American Jessica Diggins, who had won the only race over this distance so far, set the bar high for the other favorites at the finish with a time of 24:29.30 minutes on.
The rest struggled their teeth on this for the time being – until Andersson came and took the lead with a lead of 20.5 seconds. The Swede, who has not competed in a race since the beginning of December due to a positive corona test, showed an impressive performance on her comeback. To the cheers of the French fans, Delphine Claudel then ran ahead of Diggings, 13.6 seconds behind the winner for silver.
The German starters, on the other hand, could not fight for the podium. The biggest hope was Victoria Carl, who showed a decent performance and finally finished seventh (+45.8 seconds). Pia Fink (19th) and Katarina Sauerbrey (29th) could not place in the front field.