Hometown Crawford Takes Sprint
January 26, 2008
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Canmore World Cup Coverage Special to CrossCountrySkier.com See the rest of our coverage

Photos and text by Matt Muir
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The Women’s Race

Kikkan Randall, shown here in the classic sprints on Jan. 23 in Canmore.

American Kikkan Randall was second in the B final and eighth overall. Randall skied strongly in the early heats, leading her quarterfinal heat from start to finish. She excels at climbs, which did not make an especially big appearance on today’s course.

In her subsequent semifinal heat, she seemed to run out of gas. It is hard to know if she just had a bad heat, if she put in too much too early, or if another woman turned the screws at some point. In any event, Randall was among a wicked group in her semifinal that contained eventual podium finishers Crawford and Genuin plus Norwegian Astrid Jacobsen.

Crawford was nervous coming into today’s event. She described not sleeping well and not being able to eat this morning. But, upon arriving at the Canmore Nordic Centre, she found her groove. When asked about her noticeably fast starts, she referenced her several years in biathlon where she had to constantly spring out of the range after shooting.

One can see that the cheerful young Canadian is a sport. She nearly bounces around the trails with a permanent grin on her face. When asked about her “Fast and Female” program, though (www.fastandfemale.com), it is clear that she is also a competitor. “We started it for two reasons. One, we wanted to get more girls out on the trail and two, we wanted to dominate.” That is one way to recruit athletes.

That’s a Wrap

In a way, the sprint races are an even more intense version of any World Cup race. They require what turns out to be a magical theme at the post-race press conferences: “A perfect day.”

On one hand, these conferences can be the FIS equivalent of the NFL post-game interview in which the sweaty player says the same thing every time. “Yeah, we had a great game, we played really well.” On the other hand, racers like today’s winner Emil Joensson always talk about how everything miraculously fell into place – green lights all the way through town.

The army of red-jacketed volunteers was equally proud and relieved to be wrapping things up this afternoon. After Crawford caused the entire stadium to crescendo, a nearby CBC cameraman to momentarily leave his duties to cheer, and even moved the Chief of Race to whoop in a holler of joy—folks were ready for a beer, eh. The World Cup resumes in Otepaa, Estonia in February. Look for it to return to Canada, though, as Canmore has just put on a clinic in hosting World Cup cross country racing.

Complete results are available at http://fis-ski.com .