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Swiss Sprint to Top
January 6, 1999

Swiss skiers took the top spots in both the men's and women's World Cup Telemark Sprint Classic races today. The men's field was extremely close with the top three finishing within one hundredth of a second after the two run event. Patrick Leopold tied with Norway's Stein Kjarten Vik with a two run time of 1:57:07 and Sondre Engelle of Norway took third a mere 0.01 seconds off the leaders.

	Go, Man Go!!

For the women, former overall World Cup Champion Andrea Walker of Switzerland edged out the reigning World Cup Champion Hege Johanson of Norway. Andrea's combined time of 2:08:52 would have placed her 16th amongst the men. Hege's time was 2:09:58 and Mirjam Rubin took third with a total time of 2:10:84.

The Americans were not far off the pace with Chris Rice placing 6th and Glenn Gustafsen taking 15th. The technical gate sections provided good rhythm both above and below the 20 meter mid-course jump.

Speeds were quite high entering the figure eight dual "Noose" portion of the skate section causing several skiers to prematurely exit the course. The days skate leads to an uphill finish which differed from the uphill-downhill finish course set in last Sunday's regional race. The change caused one of the US's top talents, Reid Sabin, to incorrectly approach the finish in the first run. However, even though Reid started the second run in the back of the pack, he was still able to post one of the day's fastest times proving he is always a serious threat to win at this level of racing.

Cody Thompson of Whitefish, MT, who last year won the overall masters Alpine National Championships and the US Telemark National Championships, is starting to make her mark on the International Telemark scene with a 6th place in her first ever World Cup Event.

The races got off to a late start as the first run course was not set until 9:30am. The lack of snow made it difficult for the course setters, as there was barely enough snow to place the gates deep enough so that the gates would flex at the snow level, a FIS safety rule, and at one point they even had to use a pickaxe to remove one large chunk of granite that nature had cleverly placed in the line of our course.

Spectators gathered at the sides of the course to cheer on both the local and international racers alike. Many had never witnessed a telemark race and were awed by the grace and athleticism displayed by the competitors.

— Jimmy Ludlow, Mountain Zone Correspondent