Calder Top 10 In Engadin

Engadin Ski Marathon, Switzerland

KT Calder finished off the Swiss marathon racing season yesterday with a 10th place in the biggest of them all; the 42km Engadin Ski Marathon. The Engadin Ski Marathon is the largest freestyle skiing marathon in the world, and is second only to the 90km classic Vasaloppet in Sweden in overall participants. Calder was in 7th place past the half-way point at Pontresina, then was picked up by several handy skiers (Katerina Neumannova (CZE), anyone heard of her?) in the second half of the race. At the end she was just under 4 minutes behind the winner Katrin Zeller (GER), who set a new women's race record of 1:33:27.3 for the 42km. The men's winner Tor Arne Hetland (NOR) also set a new race record of 1:24:30. The Engadin is always a pretty frenetic event - it will be interesting to hear what insight Calder can provide from the inside of the pack.

Calder was also 2nd in the 17km Engadin Ski Marathon Frauenlauf last weekend March 2, behind Natascia Leonardi-Cortesi (SUI).

Link to Engadin and Frauenlauf results.

World Cup Over For Murray

Drammen World Cup, Norway

Paul Murray finished up his 2007-2008 World Cup season with 64th place in the Sprint Classic event in Drammen in Norway. Waxing his own skis for the event, unfortunately Murray didn't quite jag the wax combination and was 17 seconds behind the fastest qualifier Boerre Naess (NOR). Glide was not good and grip was a little slippy. More details from the day are available on his website: www.paulmurray.cc The race was won by Ole Vigen Hattestad from Norway, with an incredible 13 Norwegians finishing within the top 15. Virpi Kuitunen (FIN) won the women's final, virtually securing her victory in the overall World Cup with events in just Holmkenkollen and Bormio to go.

While Murray didn't achieve his season goal of making it into the top 30 and into the World Cup finals, the writing was on the wall pretty much after his illness in China at the end of December. Two and 1/2 weeks off in the crucial part of th season meant that Murray was playing catch-up for the rest of the winter, trying to race himself into form. He was in good shape for these last three races in Scandinavia, but didn't quite have the extra spark needed to succeed at this level. Generally Murray will need to be about 4-5 seconds quicker over 1km next season to make the grade that he is aiming for. However before this season is over there is one more week of racing at the Swedish champinship beginning next Thursday.

Courtesy XC Files