Title: 1) Beatrici Lorenza (Atl
Author: tpo
Last saved by: Elena
Company: Newspower

Press Release - 21^st February 2013 

FIEMME 2013: FIRST DAY OF RACES
MARIT BJOERGEN AND NIKITA KRIUKOV ARE WORLD CHAMPIONS 

If the speaker wasn't occasionally speaking Italian, you may have thought you were in Scandinavia. In a magical, snowy atmosphere, scandinavian flags have outnumbered all other flags colouring the stands at the ski stadium in Lago di Tesero during this first day of the Nordic Ski World Championships.
It was a hard day of racing in the women's and men's sprint. The gold medal in the women's was awarded to Marit Bjoergen (NOR), who dominated in this classic technique sprint race over the Swedish athlete Ida Ingemarsdotter and Maiken Caspersen Falla from Norway.
Marit has good memories of participating at World Championships in Val di Fiemme. In 2003 she also won the gold medal in the sprint race, when the Championships were last held here. She said: “I raced today with the will to repeat my win of 10 years ago, and I am very satisfied, especially because I am 10 years older”.
In this first day of races the public was the main character, supporting all athletes and responding with great enthusiasm to all events. When one of the favourites, Polish Justyna Kowalczyk, stumbled in the final causing her to lose a place on the podium, the public exclaimed with surprise.
In the male competition the fight was intense in the duel between the Russian Nikita Kriukov and the Viking Petter Northug.
The Norwegian audience who had occupied the main part of the stand along the final part of the track did not intimidate the Russian. The championship title was captured after a determined final run against Northug and the surprise of the day Alex Harvey (CAN).
Probably the three top athletes would have been different if not one of the favourites, Alexey Poltoranin had fallen right after the start of his semi-final.
Tonight at 7 p.m. in Cavalese centre in Piazza dei Campioni there will be a medal ceremony. The world event is on, now is time to celebrate the Champions.
Info: www.fiemme2013.com

Ladies 1.2 km Sprint C
1 BJOERGEN Marit NOR 3.16.6; 2 INGEMARSDOTTER Ida SWE +2.32; 3 FALLA Maiken Caspersen NOR +3.78; 4 VISNAR Katja SLO +4.62; 5 NILSSON Stina SWE +4.89; 6 KOWALCZYK Justyna POL +6.34

Men 1.5 km Sprint C
1 KRIUKOV Nikita RUS 3:29.75; 2 NORTHUG Petter jr. NOR +0.40; 3 HARVEY Alex CAN +0.84; 4 JOENSSON Emil SWE +2.61; 5 GOLBERG Paal NOR +9.27; 6 BRANDSDAL Eirik NOR +27.17