Vermeulen and Stadlober start the 2024 cross-country season!

Vermeulen and Stadlober start the 2024 cross-country season!

It was an exciting start to the new cross -country season for the Austrian athletes who competed in Ruka last week. The 31-year-old Teresa Stadlober caused a sensation with a strong eighth place in the classic 10 km race. With a distance of 1: 18.3 minutes to the superior winner Frida Karlsson from Sweden, Stadlober still showed an impressive performance and was very satisfied: "A fully cool race. I knew that the shape fits the start," said the Salzburg native after her 222nd World Cup start. Your gaze is already focused on the upcoming challenges, in particular on the 20 km mass start in skating style, where she wants to optimize her technique to run again in the top ten, how tt.com reported.

The young Mika Vermeulen, also Austria's hope, was also strong, despite a fall that cost him a few seconds. In the 20 km skating competition in Toblach, the 25-year-old landed in a solid tenth place and was satisfied with his result, even if he was over 59.6 seconds behind Norwegian Harald Östberg Amundsen. Vermeulen commented on his fall on the first day of the race with a joke: "A close study from the ground," and despite this small challenge, he was optimistic about the coming season. "I worked a lot on skating technology and would like to run into the top ten," so krone.at About his motivation and anticipation for further competitions.

Exciting competitions in sight

In the next few weeks it will be important for both athletes to prove themselves further and to confirm their good performance. Stadlober and Vermeulen seem well in shape and could definitely fight placements on the podium. While Stadlober in Ruka took the first steps on the way to a successful season, it remains to be seen how venison will develop after his fall. The fans can look forward to the competitions of these two talented cross -country skiers.