Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Liberec Team Sprint

Well, ain't Kikkan wonderful? A silver is a damn good result for the Red-Haired One. Now let's see what those Norwegians can do in the team sprint.

women's classic team sprint
1. Italy (Longa & Follis)
2. Finland (Kuitunen & Saarinen)
3. Russia (Shapovalova & Matveeva)
U.S. (Valaas & Randall): top 10

men's classic team sprint
1. Norway (Kjoelstad & Hattestad)
2. Sweden (Joensson & Larsson)
3. I got no idea
U.S. (Freeman & Koos) and Canada (Grey & Kershaw): top 10

8 comments:

Kieran said...

Any idea why Newell isn't sprinting with Koos?

Luke S said...

They probably looked at Freeman's sprint at Nationals, his amazing last 5k in the 15k, and Newell's not quite as strong classic sprinting, and Freeman's superior endurance in a multi-lap race. Just a guess. Newell is probably going with Chris Cook, or he's a scratch. Maybe he hurt himself in the individual sprint.

Anonymous said...

The minds behind this blog considered this question at length earlier today and guessed that Newell must injured. Since it's Worlds, each nation can only enter one team, so it's Freeman/Koos or nobody.

Colin R said...

Yeah -- I think something happened to him in today's sprint, either physically or mentally, that made him back out of tomorrow's race. I would be willing to buy that Freeman is a better classic-team-sprinter than Newell, but even so, a Freeman/Newell pair is surely faster than Freeman/Koos?

Luke S said...

Just read up on it on FS-Coaches decided that Andy would be tired after racing through all the rounds in the individual, and since Koos fell in qualifying, he's fresh. The idea is to have two pairs of fresh legs on the line. Strange they can't run a second team of Newell/Cook or Newell/Kuzzy...that team could do decently too.

The Canadians also are racing fresh legs-Kershaw and Grey both sat out the individual to be fresh for the team.

Christopher Tassava said...

Roll the dice, Vordenberg! Roll 'em! When you can point at a silver with only half the races gone, you're in a good place to take some risks. *crosses fingers*

ZC said...

Great analysis on all of the races guys. a little background on team selection. Kris has been one of the guys under consideration for a spot on the sprint relay for quite a long time now. He's trained with the sprinters for that purpose and considers the sprint relay to be a potential medal event for him. Given his good 15K the question was likely more which of the sprinter guys would ski with Kris than whether Kris would displace one of them. He's a solid bet to keep the team in contention. The strategy has been to hand one of the sprinters the lead going into the last lap, and to minimize the amount of work the sprinter has to do. It worked today until the last 300 meters. Better tactical skiing necessary? Better speed in the end? Something needs to happen in order for the US to field a medal-contending team.

Colin R said...

Thanks for the info Zach (i assume :)). Hoping to find video of the semis but I'm guessing 11th place in both will be painful to watch, anyway.