TNT Sports
Estil & Kuenzel victorious
By
Published 10/01/2004 at 09:45 GMT
Norway's Frode Estil won a men's cross-country skiing World Cup 30 kilometres classical mass start race in Otepaa on Saturday while Germany's Claudia Kuenzel won the women's 15 km event.
Eurosport
Image credit: TNT Sports
Estil put forth a superb sprint in the final 600 metres to take control of the men's race, crossing the finish line in one hour 15 minutes 18.1 seconds.
Fellow Norwegian Anders Aukland charged in from the pack to claim second place, 0.6 seconds adrift while Russia's Ivan Alypov finished third, 1.4 seconds off the leading pace.
Rounding out the top five were crowd favourite Andrus Veerpalu, Estonia's number one male cross-country skier, who finished fourth in 1:15:20.5 and Germany's Jens Filbrich was fifth in 1:15:21.0.
Germany's Rene Sommerfeldt, who did much of the early race work, finished a joint sixth and extended his lead in the overall World Cup standings.
FIRST VICTORY FOR KUENZEL
In the women's 15 km classical mass start race, Kuenzel edged out home favourite Kristina Smigun, Estonia's top female skier as well as the overall World Cup leader.
Crossing the line in 41:02.2, Kuenzel was delighted to grab her first career victory on the World Cup circuit.
Smigun was forced to settle for second place, 0.9 seconds behind while Norway's experienced Hilde Pedersen finished third, 1.1 seconds behind the winning time.
Smigun, the runaway World Cup leader, extended her lead in the standings ahead of Valentina Shevchenko, who finished eighth in Otepaa.
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