Illustration photo – Sprint SP in Drammen. Pictured is Swedish skier Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo in Norway on March 14, 2023.
Drammen (Norway) – Ondřej Černý was the only Czech skier to advance to the sprint semifinals of the World Cup in Drammen, Norway, and in overall, he took tenth place in the race with classical technique. Another four representatives, including the fourth man from the recent WC in Planica, Michal Novák, were eliminated in the quarterfinals. Barbora Antošová did not advance from the qualification. The favored Norwegian Johannes Hösflot Klaebo and his compatriot Kristine Stavaas Skistadová won.
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Photogallery: SP – cross-country skiing, jumping and Nordic combination
Černý, who got into the elimination races from 22nd place, had a successful quarter-final run. He did not find a conqueror in her and advanced to the semi-finals. There he stayed in the game for promotion for a long time, but in the finish line most of his rivals were faster and Černý did not make it to the final from fifth place. The final tenth place is his second best result in the series after the eighth place in the sprint in Toblach in February.
Novák fell ill at the end of the world championship in Slovenia and did not make a significant impact on his return to the WC today. He advanced to the quarter-finals as twenty-sixth, but then took the last, sixth place. He was classified in 29th place.
Luděk Šeller was fourth in the quarter-finals. He paid for the collective fall of three competitors, when the Frenchman Jules Chappaz got tangled up under his legs, and was far from advancing. He completed the second ten in the results list.
The men's race was dominated by Klaebo, who won the twenty-ninth of the last 33 SP sprints. In the final, he left compatriot Erik Valnes behind by 1.79 seconds and won the city sprint in Drammen for the fourth time. The last time he triumphed here was three years ago, he was absent last year due to the coronavirus infection.
Tereza Beranová did not follow up on two final participations from this year's World Cup. In the quarterfinals, she did not show her usual strong finish this time and took a non-progressive fifth place, which meant 21st place. Kateřina Janatová, who ranked 30th, finished sixth in her initial elimination run.
Skistadová claimed her second victory in the World Cup, beating Sweden's Jonna Sundlingová by more than a second in the final. Norwegian Tiril Udnes Weng was third.
