For the last time, the Tour de Ski of cross-country skiers will stop in Oberstdorf. Friedrich Moch delivers strongly, and Katharina Hennig was not dissatisfied either. The location disappears because the place is busy with a women's world cup competition.
Katharina Hennig again achieved a top 10 result at the Tour de Ski farewell from her adopted home of Oberstdorf. The team sprint Olympic champion came ninth in a 20-kilometer pursuit race in the skating technique. The woman from Oberwiesenthal was 1:49.1 minutes behind winner Frida Karlsson from Sweden, who won in 48:02.6 minutes ahead of Finland's Krista Parmakoski and Tiril Udnes Weng from Norway. Karlsson is clearly leading the overall tour standings with a lead of 1:28 minutes. Hennig is seventh, 2:31 minutes behind the last three stages starting Friday in Val di Fiemme, Italy.
In the men's category, the Norwegian cross-country star Johannes Klaebo is about to achieve his third overall success. The defending champion also won the fourth stage on Wednesday, ahead of compatriot Sindre Björnestad Skar and Italy's Federico Pellegrino, and is just one win behind Russia's Sergei Ustyugov's stage win record.
Friedrich Moch ensured a very strong German result. The runner from Isny was 15th, but managed the best run of the day, which is equivalent to a World Cup victory. "He did a great job, fought great, divided his strength up well," praised national coach Peter Schlickenrieder. "Unfortunately, I wasn't positioned in the end to be able to attack again," said the 22-year-old Moch and regretted that he didn't get further up the field. Eleventh overall, he is now going into the tour final in Italy, one minute behind Klaebo.
Hennig would have liked to have landed further up the field with her rather weak technique. But she wasn't dissatisfied: "You needed a lot of attention to get through well. Now I'm happy that I'm leaving Oberstdorf in seventh place overall. Val di Fiemme is one of my favorite routes," said Hennig. Laura Gimmler as 20th and Pia Fink as 24th also finished in the points.
It had previously become known that Oberstdorf would no longer be a tour stage location from next season. Due to the inclusion of a women's World Cup competition on January 1st, the location is organizationally busy, and the weather conditions prevailing in the Allgäu at the beginning of January are making preparation of the Nordic Arena increasingly difficult. However, the German association wants to continue organizing cross-country skiing world cups in Oberstdorf.
