Niskanen sparkles on home snow to get World Cup season off to a flyer

Finnish flyer Iivo Niskanen battled the bracing Ruka conditions to get his Cross-Country World Cup season off to the perfect start on home snow.

In Saturday morning temperatures as low as -17°C, Niskanen breezed past Alexey Chervotkin by 8.3s to win the first 15km event of the campaign.

The two-time Olympic champion, 29, knows the Ruka route like the back of his hand and showed all his experience to topple Chervotkin and fellow Russian Alexander Bolshunov.

Bolshunov, a four-time Olympic medallist in PyeongChang, finished over five seconds behind his compatriot to beat Norwegian Erik Valnes onto the podium in Finland.

But it was Iskanen who threw down an early-season marker by claiming his sixth individual World Cup triumph and delight his home crowd.

In the women's 10km event, three-time overall World Cup champion Therese Johaug suffered a setback as she finished second behind Frida Karlsson.

The Swedish star, 22, stopped the clock in 24:29.4s to beat Johaug - a 14-time world champion - by 13.7s and clinch her second individual race victory.

Germany's Katharina Hennig was third as she finished 16.6s ahead of Ebba Andersson to complete a runaway front three.

Both the men's and women's fields now turn their attention to the pursuit events on Sunday, with the mercury set to drop even lower in Finland as the World Cup season starts to enter full swing.