Gaellivare, Sweden – The U.S. Cross Country Ski Team’s women wasted no time establishing their direction for the season with a strong FIS Cross Country World Cup opener in Gaellivare on Saturday. Defending sprint champion Kikkan Randall scored her first non-sprint World Cup podium, finishing third in the 10k freestyle race. Holly Brookshad a career best fifth. Norway’s Olympic champion Marit Bjoergen took the women’s win while countryman Martin Johnsrud Sundby took the men’s.
Brooks started sixth and set the early pace, coming in as the leader and getting the seat of honor in the reindeer skin leader’s chair before eventually giving it up to Randall. Both are from Anchorage, Alaska.
“Today was a very pleasant surprise. Today I just wanted to go out and really focus on getting a really hard workout,” said Randall, who added, “Wow, this is something I’ve wanted to do sometime in my career. I definitely did not expect to be here this early. Having been recovering from a stress fracture since August and having done a very different training than I’m used to I was very anxious coming into this weekend not knowing how I was going to feel.”
“I’m pumped! And that’s probably an understatement!” said an enthused Brooks. “Most everyone ahead of me has an Olympic gold medal to their name so that’s quite unreal.”
Three of the top four women, in fact, were Olympic champions.
“Perhaps my favorite part of the day was all the girls that picked themselves up from the snow after the race and came over to shake my hand. It was really classy and it made me happy to be part of such a fun sport,” Brooks added.
Vermont’s Liz Stephen was challenging the leaders, skiing in the top five before crashing and breaking pole, eventually finishing 21st.
Kris Freeman, of Andover, N.H., led the U.S. men on Saturday in 32nd place.
OFFICIAL RESULTS
FIS Cross Country World Cup
Gaellivare, Sweden – Nov. 24, 2012
Women’s 10k Freestyle
| Rank | Bib | Name | Year | Nation | Time | FIS Points |
| 1 | 78 | BJOERGEN Marit | 1980 | NOR | 22:31.8 | 0.00 |
| 2 | 74 | JOHAUG Therese | 1988 | NOR | 22:44.4 | 7.46 |
| 3 | 56 | RANDALL Kikkan | 1982 | USA | 22:57.7 | 15.33 |
| 4 | 72 | KALLA Charlotte | 1987 | SWE | 22:58.7 | 15.92 |
| 5 | 6 | BROOKS Holly | 1982 | USA | 23:00.3 | 16.87 |
| 6 | 68 | SKOFTERUD Vibeke W | 1980 | NOR | 23:04.7 | 19.47 |
| 7 | 15 | LARSEN Lisa | 1990 | SWE | 23:13.2 | 24.50 |
| 8 | 26 | HAGEN Martine Ek | 1991 | NOR | 23:13.8 | 24.86 |
| 9 | 25 | TCHEKALEVA Yulia | 1984 | RUS | 23:18.3 | 27.52 |
| 10 | 28 | KOROSTELEVA Natalia | 1981 | RUS | 23:27.8 | 33.14 |
Men’s 15k Freestyle
| Rank | Bib | Name | Year | Nation | Time | FIS Points |
| 1 | 73 | SUNDBY Martin Johnsrud | 1984 | NOR | 30:37.0 | 0.00 |
| 2 | 61 | POLTORANIN Alexey | 1987 | KAZ | 30:45.9 | 3.88 |
| 3 | 83 | HELLNER Marcus | 1985 | SWE | 30:48.1 | 4.83 |
| 4 | 51 | HEIKKINEN Matti | 1983 | FIN | 31:07.2 | 13.15 |
| 5 | 57 | ROETHE Sjur | 1988 | NOR | 31:08.1 | 13.54 |
| 6 | 40 | DOLIDOVICH Sergei | 1973 | BLR | 31:11.2 | 14.89 |
| 7 | 89 | NORTHUG Petter jr. | 1986 | NOR | 31:12.4 | 15.42 |
| 8 | 55 | BELOV Evgeniy | 1990 | RUS | 31:12.9 | 15.63 |
| 9 | 93 | LEGKOV Alexander | 1983 | RUS | 31:18.1 | 17.90 |
| 10 | 87 | CHERNOUSOV Ilia | 1986 | RUS | 31:21.0 | 19.16 |