Randall takes second straight sprint title

Twelve years ago, in Soldier Hollow, Utah, Kikkan Randall made her first World Cup cross-country skiing start. She finished 24th and, at the time, as she recalled Saturday, "That was so exciting." Times certainly have changed.

On Saturday, after qualifying 11th and powering through the heats, Randall skied past world champion Marit Bjoergen by a boot length to win a freestyle sprint in Lahti, Finland.

"My skis were awesome today and it's really cool to see what a well-oiled machine we have become," Randall said afterward, underscoring the emphatic reality: in the sprints, the U.S. cross-country program has emerged as a genuine threat to win.

The victory Saturday clinched Randall's second straight World Cup sprint championship.

Barring injury, Randall will start next season as one of the favorites for an Olympic medal next February in Sochi.

Maybe more than one.

A few weeks ago, Randall and Jessie Diggins won the team sprint title at the world championships.

An American has not won an Olympic medal in cross-country skiing since Bill Koch in 1976.

No American woman has ever won an Olympic medal in the sport.

The race Saturday marked Randall's 100th career World cup start. As she said, she was "really hoping to make it a special one."

It turned out to be her 11th career World Cup or World Cup Stage victory. For the season: her sixth World Cup or World Cup Stage win.

The win gives Randall 488 World Cup sprint points; Justyna Kowalcyzk of Poland has 280. That's a 208-point lead; there are two sprint races remaining, meaning the most anyone could make up is 150 points.

On the men's tour, Sweden's Emil Joensson wrapped up the men's sprint title by defeating Ola Vigen Hattestad of Norway; Joensson now has 466 points. Andy Newell of the United States is second, with 236.

Bjoergen was the only woman Randall had yet to face in a skate sprint all year; the Norwegian skier, long viewed by many as the best in the world, had missed every skate sprint before Lahti because of heart trouble in December.

The race Saturday -- on a short, twisty course -- came down to a photo finish.

Bjoergen didn't quite have the lunge, Randall did, Randall winning by seven-hundredths of a second.

After the finish, the two racers shared a hug.

Bjoergen understandably said later, "I have not raced that much so I feel like the World Cup season has just started for me."

As Randall told the website fasterskier.com, "We're good friends and we got to laugh about it. I asked her what World Cup start this was for her. I said, 'You're probably over 200 by now.' And she said, 'Yeah, probably.' "

Randall also said, thinking back to her first start 12 years ago: " … It's pretty funny that, 100 starts later, we're in the hunt for the win every time in the skate sprint now. I got to go up against one of the world's greatest athletes today and it was definitely close there at the end.

"She was coming on strong but it's just nice to know that … it's taken me a lot of races and a lot of time to get to this point but if you put in the work and stay dedicated then you can be the best in the world.

"And it's pretty fun."

U.S. cross-country ski relay makes history

The United States of America put on a man on the moon 43 summers ago. You wouldn't think, really, that it would take until Sunday to put four American women on the podium in a World Cup cross-country relay ski race for the very first time.

Jessie Diggins, the American anchor, outsprinted Marthe Kristoffersen of Norway II as the U.S. women's 4 x 5k relay team claimed third place Sunday at the World Cup relay in Gallivare, Sweden.

It just goes to show you two things:

One, nothing is impossible. Americans genuinely can excel at cross-country skiing.

Two, when Americans make something a priority, they are as good at it as anybody in the world. This is the lesson of the U.S. Nordic combined team at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, and this is what the U.S. cross-country team is aiming to show the world in Sochi in 2014.

"We skied our hearts out and I am so proud to be a part of something this big," Diggins said.

Norway I won, in a time of 45.32.2; Sweden took second, in 45.51.6.

The Americans: 46.00.4.

Norway II: 46.00.9, just five-tenths of a second behind.

All the signs were there for this on Saturday, when Kikkan Randall finished third in the 10k and Holly Brooks fifth. Liz Stephen had been among the race leaders but broke a pole and ended up 21st.

Randall was last year's World Cup sprint champion.

She and Brooks, in an interview late Saturday, had talked about how so much was changing.

You can see it, they said, in attitudes, and not just within the U.S. team -- where there is the absolute, unconditional belief that they can win -- but from others, and in particular the Scandinavians, who long had dismissed the Americans.

Now, both said, other teams wanted to know whether the Americans would be interested in training with them.

That never used to happen, they said.

That, they said, is a sure sign of emerging respect.

You can see it, too, in resource -- with, for instance, the physical therapist now traveling with the U.S. team. That never used to happen, either.

The previous U.S. women's relay best had been a fifth -- last winter at Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. But that was without Randall, who was out for that race.

Even so, the Americans started Sunday in bib 3, on the front line, with Norway I and Sweden. "Some people at the race today were skeptical that we could put together the four world-class relay legs that it takes to reach the podium in this women's field," the U.S. head coach, Chris Grover, said. "But the women handled the pressure, and did it."

Brooks went first, skiing the first of the two classic legs. She skied solidly, 11.2 seconds out, in eight place.

Randall then skied the fastest classic leg of the day. She moved the Americans up into second, 8.2 seconds back of Norway I.

As the race moved to freestyle, Stephen got the Americans to within 4.2 seconds of Norway I.

Diggins went out knowing that Sweden's anchor, Charlotte Kalla, the Vancouver 2010 10k gold medalist, would probably overtake her. Which Kalla did.

The idea was to hold on to third place.

Kristoffersen actually caught Diggins. Together, they climbed the final hill into the stadium.

Diggins would later tell fasterskier.com, which specializes in coverage of cross-country and biathlon: "At the end I could really feel it. I thought, I do no want to lose us a medal here, the girls and the team, the whole team worked so hard this year. I'm not going to screw this up right now. I was able to get just enough energy to get to the end. And then I thought I was going to die. I think I might have been crying."

After Diggins collapsed onto the snow, the other Americans spent maybe 10 minutes in the finish area. There were hugs. There were tears. The TV cameras couldn't get enough.

Later, Stephen told FIScrosscountry.com, "I have always looked at the TV and seen people crying after big races. I didn't understand that feeling until today."