Pål Golberg (NOR) hauls into a screaming victory in the men’s sprint race at Lillehammer Friday, beating Alexey Petuhkov (RUS) and Finn Hågen Krogh (NOR) on the line.
“These are the kinds of days that you live for,” the soft-spoken Norwegian said to media after the race.
“I knew I had decent glide. My skis were so good that they pretty much did the job for me,” Golberg said to Norwegian TV station NRK after the race.
Prior to the Friday skate sprint, Golberg said that he would like to do a repeat of last year this weekend, meaning he wanted to win a race. So he simply took care of that task at the first opportunity.
Lillehammer is a special venue for the 24-year-old. Last year, he won his first ever World Cup at the same event, the FIS December mini-tour in Lillehammer. That was the 15km classic race. The December mini-tour in Lillehammer is a scheduled FIS event through the 2017 season, and it’s safe to assume that Golberg likes that part of the World Cup schedule. “It’s always important to win ski races,” he said with a smile after the race.
Not only is the Lillehammer mini-tour in front of a home crowd, it’s also Golberg’s home turf: He graduated from the NTG Lillehammer ski academy, and knows these courses practically like the back of his hand.