Masters World Cup competitions are finally on!
Tuesday 13th of FEB was marked as the day when the first competitions in 2024 Masters World Cup were able to be held. As the weather remained chilly, the distances were shortened to 5 km and 3 km from original 10 km and 5 km distances.
First out were the classic races in total of 23 different categories. The hosting nation Finland came out strong and was able to get the gold medal in 18 categories. The rest of the gold medals went to Latvia, Sweden, and Switzerland. There were some sprint finishes like in the F05 class, where the winner Riikka Kalliokoski beat the silver medalist Maarit Talonen by only 0.2 seconds. The biggest winning marginal was in the M12 class, where Tapio Wallenius from Finland took the gold medal with the difference of 3.51,6 before Igor Gesse from the United States of America.
Complete results from the classic races can be found here.
http://www.helatulos.fi/Kisat24/MastersWC/ti_r.htm
Freestyle races right after the classic races
With less than an hour break on the start line, the freestyle races started at 14:45. Same as in the classic races, there were competitors in total of 23 different categories fighting for the medals also in the freestyle races. In the freestyle races, there were skiers from total of seven countries to claim gold medals which were Finland, Italy, Austria, France, Switzerland, USA, and Estonia.
As it was possible to compete in both classic and freestyle races during the same day, we also got total of five double world champions after the first day of racing. Double World Champions are Ilmo Räisänen in class M01, Laura Karkkulainen in F01, Katri Munukka in F06, Sirkka Ernrooth in F08 and Hilkka Riihivuori in F09.
Complete results from the Freestyle races:
