Marit Bjoergen wins 10K Freestyle in heavy snowfall

World Cup: Falun

Mon, Mar  22, 2010 - By FIS

Marit Bjoergen finished the 10 km handicap start race in a time of 31.58 min, 51.9 seconds ahead of Justyna Kowalcyzk from Poland. Charlotte Kalla took the third spot by finishing in 1:12.8 min in the race which took place under real winter conditions with heavy snowfall.

Since already a week the overall victory of Justyna Kowalczyk was fixed. At the end she won the trophy for the second time with 2064 points followed by Marit Bjoergen with 1320 points. On third place is Petra Majdic (SL0) who stopped the World Cup season due to a injury during the Olympics. The distance World Cup ranking and sprint World Cup ranking went also to Kowalczyk.

Justyna Kowalczyk (POL)
It was a great season for me. I took part many World Cups so it was not easy. I want to thank to my support team who has been helping me a lot during the season. Now it is time to celebrate and enjoy this great moment of my career.

Marit Bjoergen (NOR)
It is 30th birthday today. All girls in our team were singing to me this morning so it was a great start of the day. Conditions today were really difficult. I had a big advantage over Justyna as I had good overview about the time gap. Crowds along the course were incredible and supported me a lot. It was very successful season for me. I am happy for the second place overall. I did not follow all World Cups and it was not my goal at the beginning of the season.

Contributed by Sandra Spitz