We got some fresh comments-reviews from the finish line of the first day of the competition.
Sanna Pusa (Finland): I wasn’t sure of my route choices. It went so fast that I had to stop and think “Oh, my god, where I should go”. I just tried to do my best to focus on chosen route and to not think of others. Skiing was pretty hard because there were not skiers before me.
Tove Alexandersson (Sweden): My ski pole broke during the race. And even though I am happy with the race, it was just pretty hard to ski without one pole in hand. Technically sprint was ok, but I just couldn’t put in as much power as I wanted to because of the pole.
Maria Kechkina (Russia): It was quite difficult today, because there were many forbidden areas and I had to watch out every moment and that`s why there were no direct routes. And of course because of freezing, it was quite challenging to ski physically. Overall sprint was interesting.
Magdalena Olsson (Sweden): The race was very good actually. I opened quite easy and was stable during the race. My physical shape is ok, even though I was sick for 3 weeks. The course was very interesting, I liked it very much.
Sonja Morsky (Finland): I did one mistake. There was one long route and I am not sure if I got it right.
Aleksi Karppinen (Finland): It was good race. I did not do any mistakes. But anyway it is very cold and it caused some difficulties.
Lars Beglinger (Switzerland): It was fine, but there was this long control-route, where I was a bit lost at first and doubted. The terrain was very interesting for me. I even imagined it would be more difficult, but I think 5000 map just easier to read. And as for the skis, they were fast today.
Tuomas Kotro (Finland): Technically I did not make any mistakes. Tracks actually were pretty normal to ski actually, also they were sometimes a bit narrow.
Eduard Khrennikov (Russia): I think it was a little bit difficult technically, I failed immediately because of not seeing the forbidden area. And there was also a difficult route to the 4th control point: I have planned it quite long and then during skiing found out that there was a forbidden area. So that I lost huge amount of time in re-planning. Overall the course was good and this long route was the only challenging place.

Stanimir Belomazhev (Bulgaria): It was a terrible race for me. I did a very stupid mistake in the 1st control and from that moment on I was finished for today. Then I just tried to ski easy and save power for the next days. The terrain was not difficult for me, I like it. But it is not my day today.

Svetlana Korneva