21-year-old Ella Turesson, Sweden and home athlete Aapo Viippola are the Middle Distance champions after today’s races on technically challenging courses in varied terrain. Sweden won all the women’s medals and Finland all the men’s.
Ella Turesson followed up her third place in Middle in the second round of the World Cup with a convincing victory today by 29 seconds – which she may see as her best-ever SkiO result; she also won the Middle race at the Junior World Championships in 2022. She was fastest overall throughout the race, her slowest leg being the longest where she was eleventh-fastest, 41 seconds down on the fastest – a remarkable performance given the varied and detailed nature of the terrain on which many athletes struggled, including some highly ranked.
The experienced Frida Sandberg made up for yesterday’s disappointment with a more than competent performance to take the silver medal – she never dropped below third place in overall timing. Bronze medalist, 1.29 down on the winning time, was Anna Aasa, tenth in the World Cup standings before today. This is also her best result since junior days. Favourite Magdalena Olsson had a poor start to the race and after several problems on the course ended in ninth position.
Frida Sandberg, Sweden – silver medallist Photos: Timo Mikkola
Finland took positions four to six, the fastest being Maria Hoskari, who had dropped down to 11th fastest half-way round the course, but pulled back well to finish fourth.
In the men’s race, it was very close approaching the finish between Viippola (cover picture) and his compatriot Eevert Toivonen. They registered precisely the same time at the penultimate control, then Toivonen lost 5 seconds to the last control and couldn’t make this up skiing to the finish. Viippola was fastest overall from control 9 on the 20-control course. Sprint winner Niklas Ekstrӧm found some difficulties early in the course and was 13th after control 7, but then had a good sequence to pull up to third by control 16.
Eevert Toivonen FIN – finished 6 seconds down
Andrei Lamov, Sweden took fourth place after a bad start, and fifth and sixth places went to Norway – Vegard Gulbrandsen and Henrik Fredriksen Aas.
Both the women’s and the men’s courses included a very long leg, stretching right across the map, with a myriad of possible routes, all quite complex, with some choices including a lake crossing. The tracking shows that many different routes were seen as optimal by the competitors – some proved rather more so than others. On the men’s long leg, Viippola and Toivonen were equal fastest with Ekstrӧm third.
The Championships end tomorrow with the Long Distance race, also the final race in this year’s SkiO World Cup – follow all the action on IOF LIVE! This race carries double World Cup points, and today Jonatan Ståhl (SWE), second in the men’s standings, was 34th and gained only 7 points. A fascinating day in prospect!
Leading results – Middle Distance
Women
- Ella Turesson SWE 35:19 (U-23)
- Frida Sandberg SWE 35:48
- Anna Aasa SWE 36:39
- Maria Hoskari FIN 36:44 (U-23)
- Amanda Yli Futka FIN 36:48 (U-23)
- Kaisa Klemettinen FIN 36:55
Men
- Aapo Viippola FIN 35:19
- Eevert Toivonen FIN 35:26
- Niklas Ekstrӧm FIN 35:42 (U-23)
- Andrei Lamov SWE 36:06
- Vegard Gulbrandsen NOR 36:22
- Henrik Fredriksen Aas NOR 36:46
Junior World SkiO Championships
Women’s gold: Johanna Naskali FIN by 8 seconds
Men’s gold: Lavio Müller SUI by 36 seconds
European Youth SkiO Championships
Women’s gold: Iris Bergkvist SWE by 42 seconds (gold also in Sprint)
Men’s gold: Niklas Hirvilahti FIN by 29 seconds