With a second place finish today (Jan. 14) in the World Cup sprint in Milan, Italy, Kikkan Randall is getting psyched about finishing out the season with a red bib as the world’s best cross country ski sprinter.

The length of the season and rapid fire sequence of events makes for a grueling enterprise but the Alaska star clocked in second to Swede Ida Ingemarsdotter bumping her sprint standings lead to 434, a healthy 124 ahead of Russian Natalia Mateeva.

“I have taken part in every World Cup,” Randall said. “I’ve been in good shape. We have been training to compete. I would like to take part in all of the World Cups and I hope I can keep the red jersey (indicative of standings leader) until the end of the season. I’m feeling strong and I hope I can make it.”

The win was the first ever for Ingemarsdotter and she had to fight for it. She broke a pole in the quarter-final but a replacement was handy. A bad start in the semi-final had her struggling to make up ground, but she said the fans seemed to appreciate her effort and gave her strength,“The audience was fantastic today with a great number of fans around the track.”

An estimated 25,000 fans lined the tracks of the “Race in the City,” held for the first time in Parco Sempione, a large park in the middle of historic Milan.

US coach Matt Whitcomb said, “Kikkan’s semi earned her a season’s worth of experience. She had a slow start and had to fight and scrap for position the entire heat. It’s a very difficult course to make passes on, making fast starts critical, but she skied wide and with double aggression, qualifying for the finals.”

Men’s race winner Eirik Brandsdal said he just kept feeling better and better as each heat went by. “I was surprised by how good the competition was,” he said. “I had expected the course to be more narrow but it was perfect. Conditions were good the whole day.”

Josef Wenzl was second, his first podium since 2009.

Gepa photo