Saturday in Oslo, our skiers offered us a splendid race on the 50 km Free. Italian Pietro Piller Cottrer and French Vincent Vittoz clinched 2nd and 3rd places of the competition after a great fight!
In the lead at the 45th kilometer, Vincent Vittoz had to give way his position in front of the attack Pietro Piller Cottrer and of Norwegian Petter Northug. He takes finally the 3rd place of this stage.
After a splendid race and despite all his efforts, Pietro, in the fight for the first place, had to yield the victory in the finish sprint to Petter Northug and climbed the 2nd step of the podium!
A great 2 & 3 podium for Rossignol X-ium package!
Pietro Piller Cottrer (Ita) :
“I won on Holmenkollen 13 years ago so I know how does it feel. I really wanted to live this feeling again. I was at the beginning skiing in the chasing group and was staying a bit behind, At that time I thought the race was over for me. But after change of my skis I felt better and better and my strength increased. When I caught Maurice it gave me extra kick and energy I am happy to be second. I wish Petter to win again here in thirteen years.encore plus d’énergie pour me battre. Je suis vraiment ravi de cette 2ème place.”
Vincent Vittoz (Fra) :
"Before the competition, we didn’t speak about strategy with the team but we knew that we will have no chance for a podium in case of slow race. That’s why we started the competition very fast. That could seem crazy but it worked well. We had all very good skis and without a good material it’s impossible to make good result here. For that, I want to thank all my staff.”

Thursday, Finn Aino Kaisa Saarinen grabbed her 6th individual podium of the season by taking the 2nd place in Sprint Classical held in Drammen (Nor).
Note that she takes 3rd place in the Overall World cup standings with 999 points.
Aino Kaisa Saarinen (Fin):
“I’m happy with my second place. After my sickness last week it is a nice comeback. I hope I will be strong until the end of the season to have a good overall World Cup ranking. “

"Having two globes is awesome. It's cool to have those and to be the best in giant slalom over the last couple of years is nice."
Ted’s specialty title is his second in three years, having won it already in 2008. The 2006 combined Olympic champion had a solid first run and, after falling slightly behind at the third interval, he picked up the pace in the second run to tie for third in the race with Austrian Philipp Schoerghofer.

"It's always better to tie someone than be one hundredth behind, so I was happy to be on the podium," Ligety joked. He knows what he is talking about! Two years ago he lost a giant slalom at Beaver Creek by only one hundredth to Austria’s ski legend Benjamin Raich after having clearly dominated the first run.

With a somewhat narrow 43 point-lead on the giant slalom standings going into Friday's race, Ligety said things fell into place on game day for him to beat his toughest challengers for the title. "I knew I had to have a good first run and I was pretty lucky in the sense that Massimiliano Blardone had a big screw up and then Marcel Hirscher got disqualified. That opened it up for me and I skied decently in the second run."
At the end of the race, Ted clinched the title with a nice lead of 71 points!

While those advantages locked Ligety in the title run before his second run, the 2006 Olympic champ had no idea he had already won the globe when the time came for him to race. "I didn't actually know that I had won the title no matter what at that point," he explained. "I would have gone harder had I known that, but I had a safe second run and was still pretty excited to get again on the podium."

With that new Crystal globe, Ligety added the 2010 discipline title to the first he won in 2008. He also capped the year with three consecutive World Cup podiums in giant slalom to bookend a season that began with second in Soelden, in Austria, last October. Despite his success in GS, Ligety was looking for more with his slalom, but has one more chance in slalom tomoorrow to end on a high note.

"I don't feel like the year has been great otherwise, so it's definitely nice to walk away with the speciality globe. It's cool to be able to ski at this level for multiple years." Wrapping up the race Ligety noted the future he hopes to have on the hill when 2011 World Championships are held here.

"The hill is actually pretty good. It's difficult on the top and then the bottom has a super long flat. It's a confidence booster to do well on the hill that you know you're going to have World Championships here."

We are all waiting for the next Follow US episode coming very soon (maybe tonight)!
Let's have a look at Kevin's winning run. 

photos: Louis Garnier