Friday, January 25, 2008

Arritola leads Yanks in World Cup debut

Places 24th in Canmore pursuit


Photo by Philip Bowen-Competitive Image Morgan Arritola skis to an impressive 24th place Tuesday in her World Cup debut at Canmore, Alberta, Canada.

Cross-country skier Morgan Arritola, 21, of Fairfield, made her Nordic World Cup debut Tuesday by finishing 24th in a women's 15-kilometer pursuit race at Canmore, Alberta, Canada that was won by Poland's Justyna Kowalczyk.

Later Tuesday, 27-year-old two-time Olympian Kris Freeman of Andover, N.H. rebounded from fatigue earlier this month to lead the U.S. men in the men's 30k pursuit at Camore with a 22nd place behind Russian Nikolai Pankratov.

Ketchum's Mike Sinnott, 23, last year's Dartmouth College cross-country ski team captain, was the third of seven Americans in the men's pursuit about seven minutes behind the Russian winner.

The pursuit format featured 15k classic and 15k freestyle, while women did 7.5k classic and 7.5 freestyle.

Arritola, 19, who came to the U.S. Ski Team from the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation, decided to compete in Canmore to get some racing before going to the Under-23 Championships Feb. 3-10 at Szczyrk/Wisla, Poland.

She was 29th at the midpoint and held off tiredness in the final kilometers to finish in 45:27.2, just about five minutes behind Kowalczyk of Poland.

"I kind of surprised myself," Arritola conceded with a laugh. "It was a little like 'Oh, my god, I'm racing with the big kids.' But all the coaches kept reminding me it's just a ski race. There's a start and a finish, they said, and I should ski it as well as I could."

Head Coach Pete Vordenberg said. "She skated particularly well even though she was tired. She was nervous before the race and that always burns energy."




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