Traditionally, the last day of competitions at Skimo World Championships features team relays. This is always a great spectacle and fun, followed by a big party later in the evening.
Four person teams for men and three person teams for women compete against each other to make their nations proud. Each racer skis over a course of about 150m in elevation gain (2 x climbs) that takes about 10min to complete.
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Women relays
French has been dominating these World Champs and they stamped their authority also on this final event. Their women, lead by a superb Laetitia Roux, claimed gold with a minute to spare. Italian girls managed to take silver by about 35sec ahead of Switzerland.
Canadian girls – Melanie Bernier, Carla McKirdy, Martha Burley – have done very well and came in at 6th, leaving four more nations behind.
Team USA – Kim Young, Meredith Edwards, Stevie Kremer – gave a chance to gain more experience to their new team members and finished 8th.
Full results – women (PDF):
http://ismf-ski.org/intranet/uploaded/PDF_output/2013-02-15-227-Ranking-RelayRace-Women.pdf
Men relays
An amazing fight went down between the Swiss, Italians and French. At the end, only by a half a second, the Swiss boys took gold ahead of the Italians. The home French team was about 40sec back to claim bronze. Behind these three there was a 2min gap to fourth!
Repeating from two years ago, Canadian boys managed to get the best of the US Team:
Canadians came 9th – Reiner Thoni, Brad Schalles, Andrew McNab, Peter Knight
The US men came 11th – Scott Simmons, Greg Ruckman, Marshall Thomson, John Gaston.
Full results – men (PDF):
http://ismf-ski.org/intranet/uploaded/PDF_output/2013-02-15-226-Ranking-RelayRace-Men.pdf
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