Tour de Ski: Successful start in Lenzerheide

On December 28 and 29, 2021, the cross-country skiing elite met in Lenzerheide for the start of the Tour de Ski 2021/22.
The program included sprint races in the free technique and individual start races over 15 km (men) and 10 km (women) in the classic technique. The organizers draw a positive balance and look back on a two-day cross-country skiing festival with about 6,000 visitors. From a sporting point of view, there were no positive reports from the Swiss delegation.

No Swiss podium places in the sprint
Top favourite Johannes Kläbo (NOR) secured the day's victory in front of the two Frenchmen Richard Jouve and Lucas Chanavat sovereign. The two best Swiss were Valerio Grond and Roman Furger with the ranks 8 and 10. Dario Cologna from Grisons missed the entry into the quarter-finals. In the women's race, the US-American Jessica Diggins was on the podium ahead of Mathilde Myhrvold (NOR) and Anamarija Lampic (SLO). Switzerland's Nadine Fähndrich, the fastest in the prologue, crashed and let the Swiss hopes for a podium place fade already in the quarter-finals. She finished the race in 21st place. Her teammate Laurien Van der Graaff also had bad luck. The woman from Grisons missed the semi-final by one hundredth of a second and finished thirteenth.

Finnish sibling wins at the distance
After the sprint on Tuesday, luck was not on the side of the Swiss in the distance races on Wednesday either. Hopeful Dario Cologna finished his last World Cup race on Swiss soil in 20th place. The man from Graubünden has competed in all but the first of the five Tour de Ski events in Lenzerheide. In total, it is his 14th Tour de Ski in which he is in action, of which he has already been the overall winner four times. The 15 km distance race was won by Iivo Niskanen from Finland, ahead of Alexander Bolshunov (RUS) and Paal Golberg (NOR). In the women's 5 km shorter distance race Iivo Niskanen's sister Kerttu Niskanen (FIN) won ahead of Ebba Anderson (SWE) and Natalia Nepryaeva (RUS). The best Swiss was Nadine Fähnrich, who finished the race in 14th position after her sprint-pitch the day before.

Side events for young cross-country skiers
On the two race days, not only the pros did cross-country skiing. As part of the Coop Mini World Cup, children, and young adults aged 6 to 16 competed in a playful course. In the end, the winners were those who completed the course twice in exactly the same time. This year, the Coop Mini World Cup was supervised by Swiss Julala (Swiss youth cross-country skiing camp). A varied supporting program, which was taken advantage of by around 50 children and young adults before and after the races.