Lampič

Dresden – Slovenians Anamarija Lampič and Eva Urevc finished third in the women’s team sprint finals at the FIS Cross Country World Cup in Dresden on Sunday. The Swiss Nadine Fähndrich and Laurien van der Graaff won the race, while Russian Yulia Stupak and Natalia Nepryaeva were second.

Dresden- Fresh from being declared Slovenian female athlete of the year, cross-country runner Anamarija Lampič finished third in Saturday’s World Cup sprint in Dresden, Germany.

The top three finish came even though Lampič lost a pole soon after the start and was forced to run with one pole for a part of the race.

Ljubljana – Cross-country skier Anamarija Lampič, cyclist Primož Roglič and the men’s handball team are this year’s crème de la crème of Slovenian sports as selected by the Association of Sports Journalists. Both the athletes and the team received the top sports awards at the 2020 Athlete of the Year ceremony on Wednesday.

After clocking the fastest time in her group in qualifications, she was the fastest in her group in the quarter finals and second in her group in the semi finals.

In the final run, Lampič finished 0.21 seconds slower than the winner, Swede Linn Svahn. Swede Maja Dahlqvist took third place, lagging only 0.5 seconds behind Lampič.

The Slovenian team finished 37 hundredths of a second ahead of the champions Stina Nillson and Maja Dahlqvist of Sweden. Bronze went to Norway's Ingvild Flugstad Oestbergin and Maiken Caspersen Fala (+0.60).

"This is absolutely crazy, we finally did it," Lampič, 23, said in her first comment for the Slovenian public broadcaster TV Slovenija.

National Olympic Committee President Bogdan Gabrovec said that there was no way Slovenia could have pulled off another Sochi, when the team won eight medals, a Slovenian Olympic record.

Gabrovec, as well as retired cross-country skier and Olympic medallist Petra Majdič, believe that high rankings by young athletes at the games were reason for optimism.