OTEPAAE, Estonia Petra Majdic of Slovenia won the classic World Cup sprint race Sunday to maintain the overall lead in the season's sprint standings. Kikkan Randall (Anchorage) was also eliminated in the quarterfinal to finish 16th.
Majdic has won four World Cup sprints so far this season.
"We had good skis, we had good qualifying, but where we're at right now, we're not strong enough to podium on this kind of course," Cross Country Head Coach Peter Vordenberg said.
The course in Estonia he said was similar to Vancouver, with a long, hard finish.
"It's really important for us to fix where we're at. We've got our work cut out for us," Vordenberg said. "We're right in there until the last 30 seconds of the race."
This weekend the Team travels to Rybinsk, Russia where Vordenberg is more optimistic.
"The finish is shorter and faster and we've had two podiums there in the past. We're going in with high hopes," Vordenberg said.
OFFICIAL RESULTS 2009 VIESSMANN CROSS COUNTRY FIS WORLD CUP Otepaae, Estonia - Jan. 25, 2009 Classic Sprint
Women's 1.2K 1. Petra Majdic, Slovenia 2. Aino Kaisa Saarinen, Finland 3. Virpi Kuitunen, Finland 4. Pirjo Muranen, Finland 5. Alena Prochazkova, Slovakia - 16. Kikkan Randall, Anchorage # # #
