Marathon woman Holly Brooks and sprinting sensation Rosie Brennan took Europe by storm Sunday.
Brooks, a two-time Olympian from Anchorage who is racing on the World Loppet circuit this winter, won the 42-kilometer Dolomitenlauf, Austria's biggest cross-country ski race. The victory vaulted Brooks, who placed second in a 42-K race last month in Italy, to the top of the World Loppet standings.
"I am so happy to now wear the red bib, meaning that I am the leader in the overall Cup," Brooks said in a World Loppet race report. "This is so exciting."
Brennan didn't earn a bib or a medal, but her sixth-place finish in a World Cup team sprint in Otepaa, Estonia, drew rave reviews from surprised U.S. Ski Team coach Matt Whitcomb.
Brennan, a fourth-year member of the Alaska Pacific University ski team, arrived in Estonia last week, fresh off a wildly successful U.S. Cross Country Championships in Michigan, where she eared three gold medals and a bronze in the four-race series. Seven days after winning the freestyle sprint race at the national championships (she also captured the classic sprint title), Brennan was in Estonia, racing in Saturday's individual sprint and finishing 38th.
A day later, she teamed up with Vermont's Ida Sargent to lead the U.S. Ski Team in the team sprint.
"While both athletes are capable of world-class skiing like this, Rosie's recent arrival to Europe directly from a frigid U.S. Championships did make it unexpected," Whitcomb said in a press release from the ski team. "To be in Europe for only a few days and to post a result like that is outstanding. The cards were stacked against her and she just knocked them out of the way. Rosie can have a great weekend in Russia, and I look forward to everything the rest of the season holds for her."
Brennan, 26, came to Anchorage from Utah four years ago to train at APU, where she is teammates with Bjornsen and Brooks. It was the absence of another teammate -- four-time Olympian and three-time World Cup sprint champion Kikkan Randall -- that provided Brennan with a spot in Sunday's team sprint. Randall, who has had a rough time so far this season, "left the World Cup to recover from fatigue," the U.S. Ski Team reported Sunday.
"This was only my second team sprint of my life and the last one was about six years ago, so I certainly didn't have expectations," Brennan said in the press release. "In fact, I didn't even expect to be racing. It wasn't until Kikkan decided not to come that I got a spot, so I tried to make the most of the opportunity."
Brennan and Sargent finished the sprint -- which consists of six laps on a 1.2-kilometer freestyle course, with each skier racing one lap and then tagging off to her teammate -- in 16 minutes, 29.27 seconds. Sweden took the gold in 16:11.13.
Anchorage's Sadie Bjornsen and Vermont's Sophie Caldwell finished 11th after placing fourth in their semifinal heat, one spot away from advancing to the 10-team finals. No U.S. men's teams made the finals.
In Austria, Brooks led from start to finish in her Dolomitenlauf debut.
She finished in 1 hour, 43 minutes, 55.6 seconds, about 2.5 minutes ahead of France's Aurelie Dabodyk. Brooks registered a nearly identical time -- 1:42:54.9 -- in December's La Sgambeda 42-K in Italy.
"It was such a beautiful race with a well-prepared course," Brooks said. "The conditions were just great, with perfect sunshine and new snow."