The US advanced three men to the heats in today’s freestyle sprint in Lahti.   Andy Newell qualified in 7th, Torin Koos in 26th, and Chris Cook just squeaked in, grabbing the 30th spot, just .06 seconds ahead of Axel Teichmann (GER) in 31st.

With World Championships over, start quotas are back up.  This can make fields significantly tougher.  The Norwegians qualified 8 and the Russians 5.

No Canadian men advanced.  Alex Harvey was he closest in 35th.  Devon Kershaw was 41st, George Grey 68th and Dave Nighbor 73rd.

Other US finishers included Garrott Kuzzy in 71st, and Colin Rodgers in 78th.  84 skiers completed the men’s event.

Kikkan Randall, coming off her silver medal performance in Liberec, also failed to qualify.  She finished 49th, +12.55.  She is battling a cold and was not in top form according to coaches.

Liz Stephen, the only other US woman scheduled to start, did not start the race.

Daria Gaiazova, the lone Canadian, continued a strong run, and qualified in 27th place.

Tags: Lahti

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 7th, 2009 at 6:57 am and is filed under Race Update, Sprint. 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.