Cross-country skiing: yellow card and fall
During the cross-country skiing World Cup stage in Ruka (Finland), Emma Ribom experienced the kind of weekend you’d rather forget. On a track where she has built her reputation as a sprinter, the Swede suffered a series of disqualifications, material damage and falls, all during the day.
On Saturday, the sprinter was already on the verge of going off course: the first to start in the qualifiers, she only made it through to the quarters by a hundredth of a second, with the very last ticket. Then, buoyed by a solid quarter, she thought she had revived her day… only to be disqualified. Second yellow card of the season for one too many skating steps in the classic. The birthday girl left the stadium in tears.
On Sunday, the mass-start was intended as a catch-up. With one kilometre to go, she was still in around tenth place, ready to sprint. Then everything changed: a broken pole, a big scare on the last icy descent, a fall, and the Swede slipped down to 21ᵉ place. “It was not my day, not my weekend.”
