Dolomiten Lauf

Today perfect conditions – sunshine and well prepared tracks – enabled an amazing Dolomiten-Classicrace with athletes from 29 different nations, who had to ski 42 km for Worldloppet gold-status or 20 km for silver. 

Until halfway Andy Newell was leading the starting field and kept a very high tempo. A tempo only 4 other skiers were able to follow: The two Austrian brothers Martin and Stefan Sutter (4th and 5th place), the Italian Brigadoi who lost the sprint duell for place 3 against Newell only by 0,3 seconds and the winner Stanislav Rezac, who qouted: “I skied a race yesterday so I only had 3 hours of sleep this night, means I was tiered the first half of the race, but then I changed. It was a fast race, perfect track, it is amazing for me to win here again!” Newell on the other hand stated: “I wanted the victory, but against this strong Rezac it was not enough today!” He skied the race “as double poling traing for the next FIS Worldcup races”. This is the 6th victory in Dolomiten-Classicrace for Rezac, who won the FIS Worldloppet Cup Overall 2012 and 2005 and many Worldloppet races like, König Ludwiglauf, Birkebeinerrennet, Vasaloppet China, Kangaroo Hoppet, etc. 

Way less close was the women’s race: Valentina Shevchenko from Ukraine won the race more than 5 minutes before the Norwegian Kristin Antonsen who travelled to Austria from the high-north Trondheim. Her teammate Britt Ingunn Nydal took the third place.

Tomorrow, 24th of January, at 10:00 am CET the 42nd Dolomitenlauf will start and host the 2nd stage of the FIS Worldloppet Cup. The French marathon skiing star and member of Team Gel Interim Rossignol, Benoit Chauvet counts as one of the biggest favourites as he has won the Dolomitenlauf before and became FIS Worldloppet Cup Overall second the last two years. Other favourites are his compatriots Adrien Mougel and Ivan Boiteux Perrillat, who achieved the 3rd place at last weeks Foulee Blanche (FRA). Also Giorgio Di Centa, the Italian Olympic gold winner and Sergio Bonaldi, FIS Worldloppet Cup winner 2013 will start tomorrow. 

Find pictures in our photo gallery and don’t forget about tomorrow’s WORLDLOPPET-TV, 8:00 pm CET, Highlights of the Dolomitenlauf on our website www.worldloppet.com