Lahti, Finland. The 2017 Nordic World Ski Championships resumed today in Lahti. Today’s race was the Classic Team Sprint and skiing for the U.S. women were APU student-athlete Sadie Bjornsen and U.S teammate Jessie Diggins. Sadie skied first (the scramble leg) and brought the U.S. in 1st to the first exchange to Diggins. The race continued in a tight pack and was a 3-4 way race for bronze for most of the race. In Sadie’s final leg (each skier skis 3×1.3km course), she brought the U.S. in in 5th to the exchange to Diggins. In the end it was a 2 way race for bronze and the U.S. team bested Sweden by .2 seconds taking the Bronze for the first time ever in a Classic Team Sprint at World Championships. This remarkable performance was a first World Championships medal for Bjornsen who brought great classic skiing strength to the team as the lead-off skier.
The U.S. is having a remarkable World Championships as they have already had historic results bringing home 3 medals thus far with 7 races still upcoming this week.
By the time I made the turn to do the herringbone hill on my final lapl, I was pretty tired. I just knew I needed to get up that hill in a place where I could re-catch those leaders because the double pole section right after that was somewhere I could catch up to people. We got to the top, closed the gap and came down into the stadium with that group and handed off to Jessie with every last bit of effort in a place where she could fight for the medal still.
– Sadie Bjornsen
In the Men’s Classic Team Sprint, APU student-athlete Erik Bjornsen teamed up with U.S. teammate Simi Hamilton finishing 5th place. This was the best men’s team sprint finish in World Championships history for the U.S. men.
6 APU athletes are competing at this year’s World Championships. Sadie Bjornsen, Rosie Brennan, Chelsea Holmes, Kikkan Randall and Erik Bjornsen are competing for the U.S. and Jessica Yeaton is competing for her home country of Australia.
World Championships Race schedule is as follows and races can be watched live on NBCsports.com (Lahti, Finland is 11 hours ahead of Alaska).
February 28- 1:30pm 10km Classic (W) March 1- 1:30pm 15k Classic (M)
March 2- 3:00pm 4x5k Relay (W)
March 3- 1:30pm 4x10k Relay (M)
March 4- 2:30pm 30k Skate Mass Start (W) March 5- 2:30pm 50k Skate Mass Start (M)
