By Noah Eckstein
It’s been a long road back for the German women. Following a mid-2000s zenith that saw numerous individual and relay wins at the World Cup, World Championship, and Olympic level from a powerhouse squad including Claudia Nystad, Viola Bauer, Stefanie Böhler, and Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle (who was admittedly popped twice for doping), things got very, very quiet for the next decade or so.
All that changed in 2022, when Victoria Carl and Katharina Hennig took gold in the team sprint at the Beijing Olympics. Hennig then followed that up with an individual win in Val di Fiemme the next season, followed by Carl last year in Trondheim.
The German team added another page to their comeback story on Friday when Coletta Rydzek faced down an imposing Kristine Stavås Skistad to take a surprise win in the Lahti skate sprint.
Julia Kern led the Americans in 13th, with Jessie Diggins in 15th and Sammy Smith in 25th.
The evening’s racing began with home favorite — and newly-crowned season-long sprint champion — Jasmi Joensuu and Skistad both advancing out of the first heat. Young Andorran Gina del Rio, building on her fourth place in Tallinn, looked strong throughout and nearly came around Skistad at the finish, but her time wasn’t quite fast enough to send her through as a lucky loser.
In the second heat, surprise qual-winner Federica Cassol of Italy proved her prelim was no fluke by taking second behind Norwegian Mathilde Myhrvold.
Next, Americans Kern and Smith lined up in what was, at least on paper, probably the strongest heat of the day. Maja Dahlqvist of Sweden and Carl of Germany took charge at the front, but Kern — confident she can ski with the very best after taking third Thursday in Tallinn — skied assertively just behind them.
Smith, still just 19 years old — she would have been eligible to race in last week’s Junior Nationals in Soldier Hollow — showed that she, too, belongs in the thick of World Cup sprinting by leading the pack around the second climb’s sharp hairpin and down the hill into the stadium.
Despite tasting clean air just a few hundred meters from the finish, Smith was absorbed around the final curve before Dahlqvist and Carl sprinted away up the stretch. Smith finished the heat fifth, with Kern coming up just short in third
After the race, Smith reflected on the bittersweetness of leading the pack at the business end of a sprint heat. “I was pretty happy with my quarterfinal. It was a bummer to get swallowed up on the final downhill, but I was excited to be in a position to contest until the finish line,” she wrote to Nordic Insights. If she keeps putting herself in positions like this, a semifinal will come soon enough. Just not in Period 1 of a World Cup season, because the multisport star is committed to the Stanford women’s soccer team then.
Kern, coming down off the major high of her second career World Cup podium just two days ago, struggled with Lahti’s turny, complex course.
“Today was variable, including the snow conditions,” she wrote to Nordic Insights. “My body felt good, but my tactics didn’t go as planned. The times were really tight today, and the course was causing a lot of jam ups and scrappy skiing.”
“I’m proud I had a good start and for trying to make moves out there and adjust my plan,” she continued, “but it wasn’t quite enough. Sprinting can be so fun, but also requires a little luck. Today I’ll learn from my mistakes for next time.”
Jessie Diggins demonstrated once again that her home is not in Massachusetts but in heat five. She never looked particularly comfortable, sitting at the back for most of the first half and struggling to convert on opportunities to move forward. Employing some trademark Diggins downhill magic, she slid up into third around the final corner, but the powerful finishing sprints of both Rydzek and Swede Johanna Hagström closed the door on any hope of her advancing.
The racing was technical, with the course racing narrower than its championship width. The final complex especially — a hairpin of the ski-around-a-cone variety leading into the final, drafty descent, followed by a long and chopped-up left-hand corner into the finish straight — required finesse. Today, Diggins was left wanting more from her racecraft.
“In terms of race tactics,” she wrote to the media after the race, “it was pretty scrappy and positioning was tricky, and I need to get better at my positioning at the start — I am not the best starter most of the time, and today, I felt like I was stuck. I know I can improve there but, in the rounds, I am super proud of how it went and also of my tech team — my skis were super competitive and I am proud of myself at the finish!”
Having locked up the World Cup overall in Oslo last weekend, though, she was racing with quite a load lifted off her shoulders.
“It was a really cool atmosphere today,” Diggins reflected. “The lights were super bright, the crowd was amazing and I am super grateful to everyone for the love. This was maybe the only race of the year where there was no pressure, no points — I was just going out there racing for me, because I love it, and because it was fun! And I did have a ton of fun out there.”
In the semifinals, Skistad and Rydzek both displayed excellent skis and dominant late-race straight-line speed in their respective heats to foreshadow their coming matchup in the finals.
In those finals, Skistad was not content to wait until the homestretch, blasting straight to the front and pushing the pace throughout the first half. Around the tight hairpin, she cheekily slowed, stalling the group behind her before accelerating down the hill toward the stadium and grabbing a small gap.
The pesky draft brought it all back together at the bottom, though. Rydzek took the wide, wide line around the final corner, outside both Hagström and Myhrvold, and then opened up a sprint powerful enough to send Earth’s orbit wobbling a little. (Valerio Grond would later discover this wobble the hard way, and then contribute to it, mostly with his face.) Surprising everyone — Skistad, the fans, the commentators, and perhaps most of all herself — Rydzek pulled away to take her first ever World Cup win.
And my goodness, she was stoked about it! Screams, laughs, hugs galore, everything. Even if you don’t normally watch embedded videos, the one below is worth it, promise.
No hate for people like Johannes Hosfløt Klæbo and Jonna Sundling, but their winner’s circle interviews — their 10th or 50th or, in Klæbo’s case tonight, 97th time in this situation — can feel a little bit rote.
Rydzek was anything but, still rosy and grinning after jumping around with her team for five minutes. “On the home stretch I was thinking, Oh shit, I can win this, and I gave it all,” she said to the camera.
“It’s hard to describe,” she went on. “I didn’t think I ever can achieve this. But yeah, here I am!”
Three other Americans also raced the qualifier today. Kate Oldham (Montana State University) was 45th, Alayna Sonnesyn (Team Birkie) 47th, and Lauren Jortberg (Centre National d’Entraînement Pierre-Harvey) 61st.
Racing continues Saturday with a skate team sprint that is unscored vis-à-vis individual globe standings. Julia Kern, flagging at the end of a long winter, will take the day off to prepare for Sunday’s season-ending 50km classic.
“It has been a lot of racing and my body is feeling it,” she wrote, “but I feel like I am in good form. I am looking forward to racing another 50km, practicing for the future, and seeing what I have left in the tank for the final World Cup race of the season.”
Diggins, too, will not be racing ahead of the 50km. In their absence, Smith and Kate Oldham will pair up to represent the U.S. in the final team event of the season.
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