Pellegrino, Oeberg win cross-country World Cup sprints

By foxsports
Published

RYBINSK, Russia (AP) Italy's Federico Pellegrino and Sweden's Jennie Oeberg took advantage of a weakened field to win freestyle sprint races Saturday at a cross-country skiing World Cup meet.

Pellegrino held off four Russians to secure his third win of the season in 2 minutes, 34.99 seconds, 0.69 ahead of Sergei Ustyugov and 0.77 ahead of Andrei Parfyonov.

With most members of the dominant Norwegian team skipping the Rybinsk meet, Oeberg became the first non-Norwegian woman to win an individual World Cup race this season.

The Swede won in 3:02.54, denying Russia's Natalia Matveeva a win in front of her home crowd by 0.48 seconds.

Switzerland's Laurien van der Graff edged Russian Anastasia Dontsenko in a photo finish to take third, 0.76 seconds behind Oeberg.