Grande Prairie (ck) At temperatures far below minus 20 C degrees the training runs were started today, Saturday, at the Smoky River track near Grande Prairie. All athletes had kept up their good spirits even though it was biting cold to race down the track. "We have a special Norwegian cream to cover the face," said Christa Gietl (ITA). Her Austrian mate Marlies Wagner agreed: "Sure it is cold, but the track is good and when you can warm up in the heated car in the finish area it is not so bad."
Gerald Kallan (AUT) sees the special challenge of the track in the final part: "The curves at the end are quite difficult to race and need a lot of concentration. The track is quite long and therefore you have been on the way for quite a while before you reach those curves." These curves are the newest part of the track. The original finish part got lost when the highway to Alaska was built a couple of years ago. So Josef Ploner of the international federation (FIL) came over to Grande Prairie last year to design a new finish.
Today it was the Russians and the Italians who obviously liked the track best. In the doubleseaters training Pawel Porschnev/Ivan Lazarev (RUS/1:17,95) dominated the training runs. In the women´s training Ekatharina Lavrentjeva (RUS/1:15,44) was fastest. Martin Psenner (ITA/1:13,67) took the lead in both men´s runs. Best Canadian was Corey Pusey (1:16,12).
The race will start tomorrow, Sunday, at 10 am.