Valentina Schevchenko of Ukraine won the women’s 10km freestyle individual start. Evgenia Medvedeva was second with Justyna Kowalczyk (POL) third. Schevchecnko, an excellent skater who won the Tour de Ski Final Climb by over a minute, clearly took to the hilly 5km loop in Canmore. This was her second victory of the season, following the Tour de Ski stage win.

The Ukrainian veteran led by 1.5 seconds after the first 5km lap, but pulled away over the second half of the race to win by 30 seconds. Medvedeva, who was second in the pursuit, finished 3 seconds ahead of Kowalczyk. The Polish star now has a victory and two thirds place finishes in Canmore this week.

Sara Renner of Canmore scored World Cup points for the third consecutive race, finishing 25th, just under 2 minutes behind the winner. Fellow Canadian Madeleine Williams had an excellent race taking 32nd.

The top US finisher was Kate Arduser in 39th, +3:39. She was closely followed by Evelyn Dong in 40th. Tazlina Mannix, 44th and Lindsey Dehlin, 46th were the other American finishers. Lindsay Williams did not finish.

Race Winner Valentina Schevchenko (UKR)

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 2:32 pm and is filed under Freestyle, Race Update. 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.