Cross-country skiing: Tour de Ski: Norwegian Weng wins mass start in Val di Fiemme

Last year’s winner Heidi Weng (Norway) has the best prospects of successfully defending her title at the Tour de Ski. In the mass start race over 10 km classic in the Italian Val di Fiemme, the 26-year-old won on Saturday ahead of the Finnish Krista Pärmäkoski (7.6 seconds back) and Teresa Stadlober from Austria (8.6 seconds back).

Before the final mountain pursuit on Sunday (11.30 am in the LIVETICKER) up to Alpe Cermis, Weng now has all the trumps in his hand.

Although she is still second in the overall standings behind her compatriot Ingvild Flugstad Östberg (1:48:43.2 hours), she reduced the gap from 57 seconds to only 1.8 thanks to the time bonus. Östberg had only finished the mass start in fifth (35.5 seconds back).

From a German perspective, Stefanie Böhler remains the greatest hope in the overall standings. After top-runner Nicole Fessel had relegated to sixth place after the second tour stop in her homeland Oberstdorf, Böhler finished twelfth overall before the last day. On Saturday she ran to rank 19. Katharina Hennig missed a place in front of her by 15th place and thus barely missed half the Olympic norm. Pia Fink finished 31st as penultimate.

Only Böhler, Hennig and Fink remained of the originally ten German athletes who started the tour. All the others are resting for the Olympics in Pyeongchang (9. till 25. February).