Nilsson and Pellegrino win cross-country World Cup sprints

FALUN, Sweden (AP) Sweden's Stina Nilsson and Federico Pellegrino of Italy won the women's and men's 1.4-kilometer sprint events in the cross-country skiing World Cup on Saturday.

Nilsson won in 3 minutes, 24 seconds, beating Maiken Caspersen Falla of Norway by one-hundredth of a second in a photo finish.

''It was so close and it was very icy,'' Nilsson said. ''I'm so glad that I had one-hundredth of a second in my advantage.''

Norwegian Heidi Weng was third, 1.88 seconds behind Nilsson, and continues to lead the overall women's World Cup standings.

Nilsson has been on good form - with six of her nine career World Cup wins coming this season - but had never before won a race in her home country.

Saturday's race also underlined Nilsson's status as a sprint freestyle specialist, having now won five of the last 11 such events in the World Cup over the last three seasons.

Pellegrino took his first season victory in 2:45.77, beating two Norwegians - Emil Iversen was 0.06 behind and Sindre Bjoernestad Skar a further 0.41 back.

It was the Italian's first World Cup win of a difficult season after seven sprint freestyle victories in 2015-16.

''This season is not so easy right now for me but I think I'm going the right way,'' Pellegrino said.

Norway's Martin Johnsrud Sundby continues to lead the men's World Cup standings.