Matti Heikkinen had a fantastic finish – skiing the fastest split time on each of the last three splits from 7 km and to the finish. Eldar Rønning had the fastest start, but did not manage to match the speed of Heikkinen in the last half of the race. Heikkinens comment: - It was a stable race. I knew after the 30 km mass start that everything was perfect. This was a real endurance race, and it is nice to take the gold medal from this race. Eldar Rønning commented that his start was a bit too tough.

In the above illustration, a flat line on a split means that an athlete is the fastest on a split. The splits are at 2.2 km, 7.7 km, 10.0 km, 12.5 km and 15 km. The steeper the line goes, the more an athlete looses on that split.

Some observations:

• Maurice Manificat was third fastest from 2.2 km to 7 km – and it looked like he would be in the fight for the medals at that point. However he used too much power, and lost a lot of time from there and on.
• Sami Jauhojärvi was the only one who could match the finish of Heikkinen the last kilometers – that brought him up into Top 5.
• Lukas Bauer had a start speed which could have been good enough for a medal with a typical Bauer-finish, but Bauer lost time from half way and finished 7th.
• Axel Teichmann did not have the typical “Teichmann curve” – his curve is a straight line, loosing time all the way (see illustration below).

Take a look at the interactive graphical illustration yourself to understand more of the race development:

• Splitsbrowser: Interactive representation of race development 15 km Classic Men
• Full results classic 10/15 km predictions available here
• Overall World Champs 2011 prediction results
• Set up your predictions for the 30 km / 50 km mass start races here

Comparing with the predictions, we see that several of the big favourites lost a lot of time early. For the second day in a row it looks like the Norwegian and Finnish skiers had something extra under their skis. The big favourite Rickardsson finished 42nd(!), Cologna finished 25th, Bauer 7th, Legkov 20th and Hellner 13th. Nearly 80 people had set up their predictions ahead of this race, and only 4(!) of the ones predicted did better than expected.

Split 1

1.	06:14		Eldar ROENNING	NOR
2.	06:15	+00:00	Ville NOUSIAINEN	FIN
3.	06:19	+00:05	Lukas BAUER	CZE
4.	06:19	+00:05	Martin JOHNSRUD SUNDBY	NOR
5.	06:20	+00:05	Dario COLOGNA	SUI
6.	06:20	+00:05	Matti HEIKKINEN	FIN
7.	06:22	+00:07	Alexander LEGKOV	RUS
8.	06:23	+00:08	Petter ELIASSEN	NOR
9.	06:23	+00:09	Evgeniy BELOV	RUS
10.	06:23	+00:09	Maxim VYLEGZHANIN	RUS
11.	06:23	+00:09	Tobias ANGERER	GER
12.	06:24	+00:10	Sami JAUHOJAERVI	FIN
16.	06:28	+00:14	Maurice MANIFICAT	FRA
17.	06:29	+00:15	Stanislav VOLZHENTSEV	RUS

Split 2

1.	11:04		Eldar ROENNING	NOR
2.	11:07	+00:03	Matti HEIKKINEN	FIN
3.	11:11	+00:07	Maurice MANIFICAT	FRA
4.	11:14	+00:10	Martin JOHNSRUD SUNDBY	NOR
5.	11:15	+00:11	Kris FREEMAN	USA
6.	11:16	+00:12	Stanislav VOLZHENTSEV	RUS
7.	11:17	+00:12	Lukas BAUER	CZE
8.	11:22	+00:18	Ville NOUSIAINEN	FIN
9.	11:24	+00:20	Sami JAUHOJAERVI	FIN
10.	11:25	+00:21	Sergey CHEREPANOV	KAZ
11.	11:27	+00:22	Tobias ANGERER	GER

Split 3

1.	07:35		Matti HEIKKINEN	FIN
2.	07:41	+00:05	Stanislav VOLZHENTSEV	RUS
3.	07:44	+00:08	Eldar ROENNING	NOR
4.	07:46	+00:11	Martin JOHNSRUD SUNDBY	NOR
5.	07:46	+00:11	Sami JAUHOJAERVI	FIN
6.	07:47	+00:12	Maurice MANIFICAT	FRA
7.	07:48	+00:12	Ville NOUSIAINEN	FIN
8.	07:50	+00:14	Keishin YOSHIDA	JPN
9.	07:51	+00:16	Maxim VYLEGZHANIN	RUS
10.	07:51	+00:16	Lukas BAUER	CZE
11.	07:52	+00:17	Tobias ANGERER	GER

Split 4

1.	06:53		Matti HEIKKINEN	FIN
2.	06:57	+00:04	Stanislav VOLZHENTSEV	RUS
3.	06:57	+00:04	Martin JOHNSRUD SUNDBY	NOR
4.	07:00	+00:07	Eldar ROENNING	NOR
5.	07:04	+00:11	Sami JAUHOJAERVI	FIN
6.	07:06	+00:13	Maxim VYLEGZHANIN	RUS
7.	07:07	+00:14	Tobias ANGERER	GER
8.	07:07	+00:14	Jaak MAE	EST
9.	07:09	+00:16	Lukas BAUER	CZE
10.	07:09	+00:16	Maurice MANIFICAT	FRA
11.	07:10	+00:17	Sergey CHEREPANOV	KAZ

Split 5

1.	06:20		Matti HEIKKINEN	FIN
2.	06:21	+00:01	Sami JAUHOJAERVI	FIN
3.	06:26	+00:06	Eldar ROENNING	NOR
4.	06:29	+00:09	Maurice MANIFICAT	FRA
5.	06:29	+00:09	Stanislav VOLZHENTSEV	RUS
6.	06:30	+00:11	Martin JOHNSRUD SUNDBY	NOR
7.	06:30	+00:11	Tero SIMILAE	FIN
8.	06:32	+00:12	Sergey CHEREPANOV	KAZ
9.	06:35	+00:15	Johan OLSSON	SWE
10.	06:35	+00:15	Karel TAMMJARV	EST
11.	06:35	+00:15	Lukas BAUER	CZE

Overall (unofficial results from live timing)

1.	38:15		Matti HEIKKINEN	FIN
2.	38:28	+00:13	Eldar ROENNING	NOR
3.	38:47	+00:32	Martin JOHNSRUD SUNDBY	NOR
4.	38:51	+00:37	Stanislav VOLZHENTSEV	RUS
5.	38:59	+00:44	Sami JAUHOJAERVI	FIN
6.	39:04	+00:49	Maurice MANIFICAT	FRA
7.	39:10	+00:55	Lukas BAUER	CZE
8.	39:11	+00:56	Ville NOUSIAINEN	FIN
9.	39:25	+01:10	Tobias ANGERER	GER
10.	39:26	+01:11	Maxim VYLEGZHANIN	RUS
11.	39:35	+01:20	Sergey CHEREPANOV	KAZ
12.	39:41	+01:26	Keishin YOSHIDA	JPN
13.	39:43	+01:28	Axel TEICHMANN	GER
14.	39:43	+01:29	Jaak MAE	EST
15.	39:45	+01:30	Petter ELIASSEN	NOR
16.	39:48	+01:33	Tero SIMILAE	FIN
17.	39:53	+01:38	Johan OLSSON	SWE
18.	39:55	+01:40	Martin JAKS	CZE
19.	40:12	+01:57	Martin BAJCICAK	SVK
20.	40:14	+01:59	Alexander LEGKOV	RUS
21.	40:15	+02:00	Sjur ROETHE	NOR
22.	40:23	+02:08	Anders SOEDERGREN	SWE
23.	40:23	+02:08	Algo KAERP	EST
24.	40:24	+02:10	Kris FREEMAN	USA
25.	40:27	+02:12	Dario COLOGNA	SUI
26.	40:30	+02:15	Karel TAMMJARV	EST
27.	40:33	+02:18	Giovanni GULLO	ITA
28.	40:41	+02:26	Kouhei SHIMIZU	JPN
29.	40:43	+02:28	Noah HOFFMAN	USA
30.	40:43	+02:28	Ivan BABIKOV	CAN
31.	40:45	+02:30	Alexey POLTORANIN	KAZ
32.	40:51	+02:36	Christophe PERRILLAT	FRA
33.	40:57	+02:42	Thomas MORIGGL	ITA
34.	41:01	+02:46	Marcus HELLNER	SWE
35.	41:05	+02:50	Michail SEMENOV	BLR