Berlanda and Magnusson take titles in FIS Roller Skiing sprint

Mon, Sep  3, 2007 - By FIS

At the Roller Skiing FIS World Championships in Croatia, exciting sprint races were held on a 180-meter-long course in the Oroslavje town center on Friday.

In the junior ladies' category, the title of the 2007 new sprint world champion went to Julia Köckritz of Germany who beat Evgenia Kurochkina (RUS) by only two hundreds of a second. In the junior men's category, Ivan Trofimov (RUS) claimed victory by beating Folco Pizzuto (ITA) in the final by nine hundreds of a second. In the small final, Norway's Ragnar B. Andresen captured the bronze medal.

The expected new world champion in the ladies' category is Maria Magnusson of Sweden. The dominator of this year's World Cup beat Marina Firsova (RUS) by a clear margin of 1.43 seconds. In the small final, Mateja Bogatec (ITA) picked the bronze medal ahead of Andrijana Stipanicic (CRO) who finished 4th in the final rankings.

The 2007 men's world champion in Roller Skiing sprint comes from Italy and is called Alessio Berlanda. Berlanda beat compatriot David Bogatec by just a hundred of a second to claim the title. The bronze went to Igor Glushkov of Russia, the defending 2005 sprint world champion.

Click here for the results. See a video here of a couple sprints (must have RealPlayer installed to view.)