After watching a lot of boring mass-starts the last year, we finally got a really interesting one in todays Tour de Ski! With 6 x 15 bonus-seconds to fight for in the mens class, there was a lot of tactics today!

Norwegian Team Tactics

In the first two of the six rounds, the Norwegians raced as a team, trying to help Petter Northug to secure his overall lead in the Tour de Ski. Simen Østensen won the first sprint, Martin Jonsrud Sundby helped Petter Northug to win the second sprint.

Bauer to the top

Towards the third sprint, Lukas Bauer increased the speed, and only the Canadian/Russian Ivan Babikov and Northug managed to follow. Northug managed to keep the speed, and took the third and fourth sprints as well. Now it looked like Northug would get a lead of around a minute ahead of the final leg of Tour de Ski. Bauer wanted it differently, though…

The sprints might have cost Northug too much, because Bauer managed to get away into the fifth round – increasing his lead to Northug to as much as 40 seconds at the maximum. In the end Northug finished 31.5 seconds behind Bauer. Bauer now has a lead of

Overall Results ahead of last leg

1. Petter jr. NORTHUG 3:39:18.9
2. Lukas BAUER 3:39:27.2
3. Axel TEICHMANN 3:40:49.2
4. Dario COLOGNA 3:40:50.4
5. Daniel RICKARDSSON 3:41:01.8
6. Marcus HELLNER 3:41:06.2
7. Jean Marc GAILLARD 3:41:17.3
8. Rene SOMMERFELDT 3:41:56.6
9. Jens FILBRICH 3:41:58.0
10. Giorgio DI CENTA 03:42:26.4

Results 20 km Mass-start

1 7 1217350 BAUER Lukas 1977 CZE 59:03.5
2 1 3420239 NORTHUG Petter jr. 1986 NOR 59:35.0
3 3 1221327 TEICHMANN Axel 1979 GER 59:35.8
4 4 3510023 COLOGNA Dario 1986 SUI 59:36.8
5 5 3500015 RICKARDSSON Daniel 1982 SWE 59:40.6
6 8 1345875 GAILLARD Jean Marc 1980 FRA 59:45.5
7 11 1101047 SOMMERFELDT Rene 1974 GER 59:48.1
8 43 3670006 CHEREPANOV Sergey 1986 KAZ 59:48.9
9 25 3420228 JOHNSRUD SUNDBY Martin 1984 NOR 59:50.0
10 10 1221036 FILBRICH Jens 1979 GER 59:51.5