PETTER ELIASSEN AND KATERINA SMUTNA WINS THE PROLOGUE!

Source VISMA SKI CLASSICS

The seventh season of Visma Ski Classics, the long distance ski championship, is now officially on. The first race, the Pontresina Prologue, started at 9 o’clock in the morning with men’s individual interval race on a 8 km course where skiers did five laps with one steep hill on every lap. The running order was reversed so that the team ranked last started first. That team happened to be the one from France, Team Gel Intérim/Rossignol, finishing first as well in the team competition to everyone’s surprise.

In the men’s race, Team LeasePlan’s Petter Eliassen, the Champion from last year, proved once again that he is the undisputed king of the sport. He came in late the night before avoiding any high altitude hiccups and beat everyone in the race. He started very slowly and was 12 seconds behind the leader in the first control point, but sped up and claimed the victory.
“I feel that I’m in a great shape, but wasn’t really sure if I could win today,” Petter said after the race. “It was a bit hard to double-pole because my poles kept sinking into soft snow. Other than that, I had no problems on the course.”

Bastien Poirrier from the aforementioned French team took second place while Team BN Bank’s Morten Eide Pedersen finished third. Both of them were very satisfied with their end results and confident about the upcoming Visma Ski Classics races saying that the podium is their goal in every race.

In the women’s competition, there was a tight fight between the last season’s Champion Britta Johansson Norgren from Lager 157 Ski Team and Katerina Smutná from Team Santander. The latter was able to beat her opponent by 0.7 seconds. Sara Lindborg from Team Serneke finished third.

“It was a hard race and the course was getting really soft,” Katerina said after the race while suffering from stomach cramps. “But this was a great start for the season and I’m off to Livigno and ready for the next race on Saturday.” Britta was quite happy with her second place but admitted that today was not her best day. She also said that the steep hill was not easy to double-pole but she managed to do that nevertheless.

In the prologue there are no sprint points handed out leaving Team Santander’s Andreas Nygaard the current green bib holder as he is the category winner in 2016. Britta Johansson Norgren, being the second fastest female skier, is wearing the green bib at least until the next race. This is the first year when women have the sprint competition in Visma Ski Classics.
 
The youth category wins went to Lager 157 Ski Team’s Oscar Persson, who finished 14^th in the overall results, and to Team Synnfjell’s Kristin Antonsen, 9^th in the women’s race. Two skiers were disqualified because of skating: Olga Rotcheva and Evelina Bångman.
The next stop in Visma Ski Classics tour is La Sgambeda in Livigno, Italy where a 5 km course is being prepared for a 25 km race on Saturday, December 3, 2016. After the holiday break, the tour heads to China and then in mid-January to Austria and back to Switzerland.

RESULTS

	Top 5 women
	Prologue 8.0 km (FINISH)
		team	time
1	Katerina Smutna	SAN	0:23:42.97
2	Britta Johansson Norgren	LAG	0:23:43.63
3	Sara Lindborg	SER	0:24:03.64
4	Astrid Oyre Slind	TUB	0:24:13.28
5	Seraina Boner	ROS	0:24:23.34

 

	Top 25 men
	Prologue 8.0 km (FINISH)
1	Petter Eliassen	LEA	0:19:42.66
2	Bastien Poirrier	ROS	0:19:51.19
3	Morten Eide Pedersen	BNB	0:19:58.46
4	John Kristian Dahl	TUB	0:20:03.32
5	Candide Pralong	ROS	0:20:05.59
6	Tord Asle Gjerdalen	SAN	0:20:08.43
7	Toni Livers	ROS	0:20:13.45
8	Adrien Mougel	ROS	0:20:13.63
9	Ilya Chernousov	PIO	0:20:26.33
10	Jérémie Millereau	ROS	0:20:30.89
11	Vetle Thyli	TUB	0:20:31.99
12	Fredrik Byström	LAG	0:20:33.77
13	Øystein Pettersen	BNB	0:20:36.26
14	Oscar Persson	LAG	0:20:36.52
15	Torgeir Skare Thygesen	LEA	0:20:39.38
16	Bastien Buttin	HSN	0:20:39.79
17	Snorri Einarsson	SAN	0:20:42.18
18	Tore Bjørseth Berdal	TUB	0:20:46.64
19	Andreas Holmberg	MOR	0:20:49.54
20	Benoit Chauvet	ROS	0:20:49.64
21	Alexander Utkin	RMT	0:20:51.62
22	Jimmie Johnsson	LAG	0:20:53.93
23	Kjetil Dammen	LEA	0:20:59.30
24	Alexey Dvoskin	RMT	0:20:59.42
25	Bill Impola	BRI	0:20:59.64