Pellegrino doubles up victory, Young hits best GB result
Dec 19, 2020·Cross-Country
With the fastest time in qualification, Lucas Chanavat (FRA) had set his intentions to set the pace in the upcoming heats. His biggest rival, Federico Pellerino from Italy - the current Sprint World Cup leader - set out on the course in a more cautious way. In the past two years, Pellegrino could not fully show his potential as he experienced falls and had to leave the stage to others. Motivated from the Sprint victory in Davos on the previous weekend, the conditions were set for spectacular and fair fights along the course with Federico Pellegrino in the lead. Indeed the Italian did not leave much room for tactical moves of his rivals.
The semi finals saw Pellegrino and Chanavat lined up in the same heat against their rivals but it was Andrew Young from Team Great Britain who spiced up the pace of the heat, ensuring himself a safe spot in the finals. With Pellegrino second, Chanavat moved to the “lucky looser” position. The second semi final driven by Alexander Bolshunov and Gleb Retivykh, set the even faster time and Chanavat was kicked out of the shaky spots. In his place, Simi Hamilton and Kevin Bolger qualified for the finals.
In the finals, the Italian did not leave much room for tactical moves of his rivals despite being constantly chased by Russian Gleb Retivikh who had his eyes set for the victory too. Similar to Lampic in the womens final, Andrew Young experienced a broken pole and the podium seemed out of sight when heading into the second lap of the course. However, Andrew Young did not give up easily and impressively fought back into top positions as the heat headed back towards the finish line. With only 0.53 seconds behind Pellegrino, Andrew Young writes history for the British Cross-Country team, achieving the best World Cup result ever. Gleb Retivykh returns to the Dresden podium after 2019 and takes the last remaining spot.
Top-10 check
Andrew Young (GBR) doubles up his podium strike from last weekend and hits the best World Cup result ever reached by a British skier in the Cross-Country World Cup with the second spot. Additionally, Young was fighting a broken pole in the finals and still managed to fight back to the top spot in the decisive final stretch.
Kevin Bolger (USA) reaches the Sprint F Finals for the first time and lands his best ind. World Cup result with the 6th place in Saturdays Sprint F.
Janik Riebli (SUI) took over the pace setter role in the semi-finals at his only 7th World Cup race. The 22 year-old Swiss got rewarded with a great 9th place.
