STA, 24 February 2019 - Slovenia's Katja Višnar and Anamarija Lampič won silver in the women's team sprint classic event at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Austria's Seefeld on Sunday.
The Slovenian team finished 37 hundredths of a second behind 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.
"Seeing you're at the front gives you an extra push. In the end I was at the very front. But I was on the outer side, if I'd be on the inner side, I'd have a chance to win. But second place is super as well," she added.
"I put in over ten years of hard work. I was often close, but I never succeeded as this time. You just work on and then one day everything falls into place," Višnar, 34, commented.
Like her teammate Višnar said that she were close to winning the race.
The Slovenian pair finished third in the qualifying, coming 0.53 seconds behind Russia's Natalya Nepryayeva and Yuliya Belorukova, who clocked the fastest time, and 0.11 behind Switzerland's Laurien Van Der Graaf and Nadine Fähndrich.
Stina Nillson and Maja Dahlqvist were in the lead in the other qualifying group but clocked behind the Slovenian team.
In the finals, Višnar and Lampič were in the running for the podium throughout the 7.2-kilometre track. In the penultimate stage, Višnar exchanged with Lampič as the fourth, a good second behind the Russian.
In the nail-biting finish Lampič advanced to the second spot on the last climb, finishing the race second only to Swede Dahlqvist.
This is the third cross-country skiing World Championship medal for Slovenia after silver and bronze won by Petra Majdič in individual sprint events in Sapporo in 2007 and Oslo in 2011, respectively.
It is the ninth medal for Slovenia at Nordic world ski championships.
