Randall just misses podium (Skiing)
The U.S. Ski Team’s best hope for an Olympic medal in nordic skiing just missed a podium finish yesterday.
Anchorage’s Kikkan Randall placed fourth in a women’s 5-K FIS race in Norway, giving the world championship silver medalist tons of confidence going into the first World Cup race Nov. 21 in the same city of Beitostoelen.
“That has to be one of Kikkan’s best longer distance races ever and it really bodes well for the upcoming season and reflects well on the training she’s done this summer,” American coach Pete Vordenberg told the U.S. Ski Team Web site.
“It’s early. We don’t look too specifically at results, but we do look for the effort and she was hammering from start to finish. It was more than we could hope for result wise and exactly what we were asking for effort wise.”
The 26-year-old Randall, of East High fame, made headlines in 2008 when she became the first American woman in the history of the World Cup to win a nordic race. Then in 2009 she became the first U.S. woman to earn a medal at the World Championships.
The Olympics are in 2010. It’s time to make history–again.
