Kowalczyk reclaimes Tour de Ski lead

Tour de Ski

Fri, Jan  8, 2010 - By FIS

Justyna Kowalczyk from Poland is back in the Tour de Ski lead. She took today the stage victory in the individual start over 5 km in classical technique clearly 11,6 seconds ahead of Aino Kaisa Saarinen (FIN). On third rank finished Petra Majdic 14,8 seconds behind the winner. The winner of yesterday's race, Arianna Follis showed as well a strong race despite prefering the skating technique and finished 6th.

After the fast race today, Kowalczyk is leading the Tour overall standing 14,1 seconds ahead of Petra Majdic and 23,2 second ahead of Follis. On the four place with still good perspective to the top is Aino Kaisa Saarinen with 35,1 seconds gap to the leader.

The sprint ranking stays the same than yesterday, as no sprint bonus seconds was awarded today. There is Petra Majdic in the lead ahead of Arianna Follis and Aino Kaisa Saarinen.

Tomorrow, on the schedule of the 4th Tour de Ski is a rest day before we go into the final weekend with a Mass start race on Saturday and the famous Final Climb on Sunday.

Justyna Kowalcyzk - winner of the day, Tour leader

It was a great race today for me. I did not have any special tactics for today. I only to wanted to go fast and have a good race. 5 km classic is my favorite distance and technique so it was a good day for me. I like Tobach very much. Tomorrow we have a rest day so I will have time to think about the mass start competition in classic technique on Saturday in Val di Fiemme. There a lot girls who can still fight for the overall victory. Petra Majdic, Aino Kaisa Saarinen, Arianna Follis. Everything is still open and there are tough races ahead of us.

Petra Majdic - Tour Sprint leader

I have had some troubles with my leg. We try to heal it as fast as possibe but with this tough programme it is not easy. But it is getting better. It was really fasr today. All of us went full gas from the start. Justyna was born for 5km. As I do not run many relays I am little out of pace in the 5 km distance so it was not an easy race for me. My service team prepared excellent skis today and I could be very fast.Tomorrow I will try to recover as fast possible and then I will think about weekend races on Saturday in Val di Fiemme.