Esther Bottomley had her best ever classic sprint World Cup today, finishing 46th in the1.2km event at Canmore in Canada. While she was still 8.3 seconds outside the top 30 it was a promising result in classic technique and bodes well for the freestyle event coming up on Saturday. Paul Murray was 51st in the men's classic sprint and was satsified to be only just outside 15 seconds behind the fastest qualifier after being sick for two weeks. KT Calder didn't really fire today and was 53rd, 8.7 seconds behind Bottomley. See below for further comments from the athletes:

Murray: Four days ago I wasn't sure if my season was over and I was going home early. Today was far from the disaster it could have been, and I am certain I could have given the finals a good shake had I been healthy the last three weeks. I'm hungrier than ever to turn this season around and make it my best yet.

Bottomley: Today's classic sprint went alright, the course was good for a classic course (although a little too long), it was nice to have skiable uphills in it and a long and tough double pole finish straight. Still scrambled a bit on the ups but skied them better than usual, and then the finish, well double poling till it hurt and then keeping that going for another couple of 100m went well - it hurt. I'm looking forward to cheering on KT in the 10km Skate on Friday and then getting out there for the skate sprint on Saturday - a shorter course and it's skate...fun times ahead.

Calder: Two days ago I thought I felt the onset of a cold. Luckily it hasn't fully knocked me for six but I had nothing in the tank at all for the sprint today. I'm just going to tuck myself in bed and attempt a turn-around of mass proportions for Friday.

The women's final was won by Petra Majdic of Slovenia in a photo finish with Astrid Jacobsen from Norway. In the men's event all A-finalists went without wax double-poling on skating skis. The top five places in the final went to Norwegians, lead by Boerre Naess. There's a rest day tomorrow, followed by individual freestyle races on Friday.

Courtesy XC Files