Thursday, February 26, 2009

30km to the End

Though there are many storylines to tomorrow's 30km freestyle mass start race, a dominant one is whether Aino-Kaisa Saarinen can make the podium and thus earn a medal in every event at the Liberec Worlds. A win and a fourth gold would put her ahead of the three-gold hauls of teammate Kuitunen at the '07 Sapporo Worlds and Marit Bjoergen at the '05 Oberstdorf Worlds.

I don't think the gold is in the offing: the brutal 30km course is just too tough. Still and all, a ridiculous 69 women are in the start list, including all the big names except Majdic and, unsurprisingly, Bjoergen. Six North Americans will start: Renner, Swanson, Gaiazova for Canada; Stephen, Arritola, Compton for the U.S.

women's 30km freestyle mass start
1. Kristin Stoermer Steira
2. Charlotte Kalla
3. Aino-Kaisa Saarinen     Renner: top 10

1 comments:

Colin R said...

Interestingly, I made some picks before seeing this and came up with
1)Steira
2)Kalla
3)Longa

I'm surprised we agree that much!