Tynell “wins” 2^nd place, Johnsson 6^th only 2 seconds out

Daniel Tynell’s 2nd place in the record setting (3:48:41) 88th Vasaloppet 90km classic marathon made him feel like a winner. Tynell states, “Two years ago it felt like I was losing the first place, this year it felt like I won a second place. It feels so good to be back and I am really satisfied with my race today. It was a hard fight in the end and I am happy that I was able to gain this second place!”  

Daniel Tynell was so very happy that he almost burst into tears at the finish.  “The feeling right now is just that I’m so enormously pleased to be back at this level again,” said Tynell.  Tynell has, over a long period, had a tough time to get back into form with various illnesses and injuries, but feels now that finally he’s made it back, but is modest about it all Tynell has three victories, two second places, and a third place at the Vasaloppet.

Jimmie Johnsson, a Salomon Complete Athlete of Team Exspirit, continues to prove his endurance staying in the men’s lead group the whole way to the finish in Mora and finishing sixth just 2 seconds back.  He states,”A sprint finish with that many competitors is always really hard. Even though I was very tired by the end I tried to put myself in a good position with 1km to go because you never know how tired the others are. But unfortunately they were faster than me in the last uphill and also stronger in the last 100m sprint. Sixth place is Jimmie’s best result in Vasaloppet but he’s not 100% satisfied. “It’s a great result and I will be happy with that after a few days. But at the same time my shape was not perfect and I had a struggle to keep up with the lead group at some places during the race. It could have been a even better result with perfect shape but I did my best of the day and I got a sixth place out of it, says Jimmie. 

61,806 skiers participated in the Vasaloppet’s winter week events and 15,800 skiers raced the 90km event alone.

Emil Joensson back to his World Cup winning ways.

WorldCup Sprint Cup Champion Emil Joensson repeated his victory in Lahti, Finland from a year earlier.  Winning the qualifying and the finals Joensson was unstoppable today. Joensson states “I am speechless. I had so many difficulties in the past weeks and today I am back on the top, I did not believe that this is possible. I had a really good prologue and also the heats were good. My further goal is now to have fun with racing and trying to help Teodor to win the overall sprint World Cup.”