On Saturday, Madshus marathon racer Oeystein Pettersen (NOR) of Team United Bakeries won the prestigious 54-kilometer Holmenkollmarsjen in Oslo (NOR), with a field worthy of a 50km at the World Cup.
Winning the legendary classic race, which is literally in his back yard, in front of World Cup leader Martin Johnsrud Sundby, also a local, was a dream come true for Pettersen. The former national team sprint specialist finished in 2:28:34, and won by 11 seconds.
“I felt great and it was my day. The entire last week, I’ve been at home training on these trails, and honestly, there isn’t a better place to ski. It was a bit windy from time to time, but I had an incredible double-pole race through the woods. I knew I had a good base, but winning this race, that was out of this world,” Pettersen said after the race, adding that double-poling the brutal course from Soerkedalen to Holmenkollen is quite a challenge.
“I’ve done insane amounts of double-pole specific training leading up to this season. I wouldn’t recommend citizen racers to attempt this course without kickwax,” he said.
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- Oeystein Pettersen (NOR) won the 2015 Holmenkollmarsjen in Oslo. Photo: Madshus
Madshus racers plaster the marathon podiums: Oyestein Pettersen wins Holmenkollmarsjen, Tim Tscharnke wins Toblach-Cortina and Stanislav Rezac bags his sixth victory in the Transjurassienne.
On track for the FIS World Championships
Also on Saturday, Tim Tshcarnke (GER) won the 30-kilometer FIS Worldloppet race from Toblach to Cortina in Italy. For Tscharnke, the marathon race is a part of his peaking plan for the upcoming 2015 FIS World Championships in Falun (SWE), where he expects the 30-kilometer duathlon to be one of his best events.
Tshcarnke surprised both himself and the World Cup community with his victory in the 15-kilometer classic mass start in Val di Fiemme (ITA) during the 2015 FIS Tour de Ski in January. That performance secured him a ticket to the World Championships, which start on February 18.
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Rezac Wins Transjurassienne for the sixth time
And finally, Madshus marathon racer Stanislav Rezac (CZE) braved the brutal, gusty conditions in the French Jura Mountains and won the 56-kilometer classic race La Transjurassienne on Saturday, which was the fourth event in the 2015 FIS Marathon Cup.
“I am very happy that I could win this race again,” Rezac said, adding that he had lost count of how many times he had won the Transjurassienne.
“I didn’t know that I had already won it that many times, but it’s a really nice race and I like to ski here,” he said when FIS announcers told him it was his sixth victory.
But while Rezac knows the trails like the back of his hand, he didn’t expect to win.
“As it was a FIS Marathon Cup today, a lot more god athletes took part, and I wasn’t so sure if I would win it again. Anyway, it was a hard race, too,” Rezac said.
“It’s a long time since I won a FIS Marathon Cup! My next races will normally be the Vasaloppet and the Bieg Piastow.”
Both the men’s and the women’s fields were stacked, with all the top contenders in the FIS Marathon Cup on the start line among more than 800 participants total.