The Tour de Ski started its 18th edition on Saturday (December 30, 2023) with the sprints in Toblach, Italy. The German starters kept up well in the freestyle technique on the 1.4 kilometer long route in the shadow of the mighty Dolomite mountains, but missed the big shot. The victories went to Sweden and France.
Victoria Carl won quite confidently against her five opponents in her quarter-finals, but in the semi-finals she lost touch with the top early on and was no longer able to close the gap. On the penultimate climb, the Thuringian, who celebrated her World Cup debut victory in the last race before the Christmas break in Trondheim, even slowed down and ultimately crossed the finish line well behind. It was enough for them to finish twelfth in the final rankings.
Things went even better for Coletta Rydzek. She missed the jump to the final by one ski length in third place in her semi-final. As in the quarterfinals, she showed strong finishing sprint skills on the final straight and pushed past several runners. But it was just not enough for a place in the top two. Nevertheless, seventh place was her best result of the season. “I’m very, very happy today,” said Rydzek afterwards.
In the women’s final, four Swedes dueled with the Norwegian Kristine Stavås Skistad and the Swiss Nadine Fähndrich. Linn Svahn took victory ahead of her compatriot Jonna Sundling and Skistad.
Fink and Krehl narrowly failed in the quarterfinals
It was already over for Pia Fink in the quarterfinals. She had a promising race up to the finish curve against numerous favorites such as the Swedish Olympic champion and reigning world champion Sundling, but fell after coming into contact with Skistad. Sofie Krehl also had long hopes of making it to the semi-finals, but in the last quarter-final run the American Julia Kern snatched her place as the lucky loser.
Katharina Hennig did not make it into the top 30 in the qualification. In the first race after her break from competition due to a corona infection, her time was only enough for 37th place. So she missed the knockout duels, as did Laura Gimmler (49th) and Lisa Lohmann (58th).
Kastner is surprising from a German perspective
In the men’s category, where Norwegian superstar Johannes Hösflot Kläbo had to cancel his participation in the tour due to flu, surprisingly three out of six athletes from the German Ski Association made it to the quarter-finals. Marius Kastner qualified with the 15th best time, Jan Stölben as 19th and Anian Sossau as 30th. But in the first knockout round it was already over for the DSV trio.
It was still a great success for the 21-year-old Kastner, especially since he only missed out on reaching the semi-finals by a few hundredths of a second. However, in 17th place he was able to celebrate the first World Cup points of his career. Stölben ended up in 28th place, Sossau in 30th place.
The first stage success of the season’s highlight was secured by the Frenchman Lucas Chanavat, who was able to hold his own in the final against his compatriot Jules Chappaz. Ben Odgen from the USA came third.