Hanna Brodin (SWE) leads Norway's Ingvild Flugstad Oestberg on the final leg of the women's relay at the World Junior Championships

After the Norwegian junior women swept the pursuit here on Friday, there didn’t seem to be much of a question of who would win today’s relay. And all the way until the last hundred meters of the race, that held true.

With pursuit champion Ingvild Flugstad Oestberg anchoring her team and leading by five seconds over the last small hill on the course, Norway appeared to have things in the bag. But a ferocious charge by Finland’s Krista Lahteenmaki on the finishing stretch took Oestberg to the limit-while it wasn’t quite enough, if the course had been five or ten meters longer, it probably would have been.

Hanna Brodin of Sweden tried to drop Oestberg on the course’s main climb, and she paid the price. Oestberg passed her over the top, and then Lahteenmaki went by Brodin in the stadium like she was standing still. Sweden still managed to hold on to third, however.

The American women fought their way to an eighth place finish, just ten seconds from the top six, with their teammates screaming encouragement from the side of the trail. Canada was farther back, most likely out of the top ten.

Complete report to come.

Tags: Hanna Brodin, Ingvild Flugstad Oestberg, Krista Lahteenmaki, World Junior Championships, World Junior Championships relay

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 6:45 am and is filed under Results, Update, World Juniors/U23. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.