Shaftsbury skier finishes 11th at World Cup race
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Staff Report - Published: November 30, 2008
KUUSAMO, Finland — Andy Newell of Shaftsbury finished in 11th place at Saturday's men's cross-country World Cup ski sprint opener.
Ola Vigen Hattestad led a Norwegian sweep on the men's side, while Petra Majdic of Slovenia won the women's event for her third consecutive victory. Kikkan Randall of Anchorage, Alaska, the first U.S. woman to win a World Cup cross country event, finished less than a second outside of qualification in 33rd place.
The Norwegian trio took command about halfway into the 1.4-kilometer men's final, with World Cup sprint title champion Hattestad finishing ahead of Tor Arne Hetland and John Kristian Dahl. They were followed by Kalle Lassila of Finland, Nikolay Morilov of Russia and Emil Jonsson of Sweden, the sprint cup runner-up last season.
Newell is steadily becoming one of the fastest men in the sport. He was the only U.S. skier to make it past qualifications in the classic technique race, the kind of sprint that will be used in the 2010 Olympics.
"It was a really hard course — harder than what they've had here in the past — because they added another hill," Newell said. "It had the most vertical of any sprint I have done, so it was really hard. I had 12 minutes in between all my heats to recover, but that's not enough for me to recover and get ready to race again.
"Eleventh place wasn't exactly what I was hoping for in the first sprint weekend, just because in the past we've had some good results here."
Ackermann wins World Cup opener
KUUSAMO, Finland — World Cup champion Ronny Ackermann of Germany won the opener of the Nordic combined season Saturday. He was followed by Janne Ryynanen and Anssi Koivuranta, both of Finland.
Bill Demong of the United States, third overall in the World Cup last season and a silver medalist at the worlds in Japan, was 27th.
Nordic combined features a new format this season. A one-jump ski jump is followed by a 10-kilometer freestyle cross-country ski race. In earlier years, there were two jumps and a 15-kilometer race, and a sprint version with one jump and a 7.5-kilometer race.
This was the first top-three finish for the 20-year-old Ryynanen. Pavel Churavy of the Czech Republic was fourth and Eric Frenzel of Germany was fifth.
Ackerman set out in fourth place in the 10-kilometer freestyle cross-country race behind Ryynanen, who won the jump with a leap of 141.5 meters.
Ackermann jumped 135 meters and started 43 seconds behind Ryynanen. The German passed second-place Anssi Koivuranta after four kilometers and later Ryynanen. With 1.5 kilometers to go, Ackermann built a decisive margin to beat the Finns by 9.8 and 26 seconds.
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