WC Long Sälen: Hausken and Föhr

Jan Kocbach July 23, 2008 Events Comments Off on WC Long Sälen: Hausken and Föhr

The World Cup over long distance with pair start at O-ringen in Sälen today brought another victory for Anne Margrethe Hausken (Norway) in the womens class – with Minna Kauppi and Ingunn Hultgreen Weltzien in the next spots. With this she secures her lead in the overall World Cup with 667 points – 167 points ahead of Minna Kauppi in second spot and more than 350 points ahead of the next women. With this Hausken is nearly as dominating as Simone Niggli-Luder was last year. In the mens class Tero Föhr took his second World Cup victory of the year – the first being the middle distance at the World Cup in Oslo in the end of June. Second and third in the mens class were Baptiste Rollier and Dimitriy Tsvetkov.

The format of todays World Cup was interesting – and not popular among all the runners. It was originally supposed to be a mass start, but in April it was decided to be made as a pair start instead. The special thing with this pair start is that the runners had a long first part of the course common, such that the runners starting together could push each other. After that there was one small butterfly – a long common part – and again a small butterfly. Winner in the mens class, Tero Föhr, said after the race that he had had good help from Matthias Merz who he started together with to set the pace in the first part of the course.

Not all runners were happy with the pair start – some of the runners even had to run alone as their “partner” did not start. Another thing many runners – especially the men – complained about is that it is hard both physically and mentally to run a hard long distance World Cup race so soon after the World Championships. The women seem to cope better with this than the men. Of the men getting an individual medal at the World Championships, Thierry Guergiou in 9th spot and Daniel Hubmann in 11th spot were the ones who were highest up on the list today.