A few days after the Tour de Ski's end, everyone has gone home and has begun to recover from these 12 full days. This 4th Tour de Ski was probably the most demanding for all of us, athletes, coaches and service men, but in the end, we enjoyed an exciting Tour de Ski. The fights for the overall standings stayed open up to the last day and last meters of the final climb.
The tour finally crowned the two top front runners. Lukas Bauer broke away by dominating the 2 last races and especially the 20km classic mass start. In the ladies race, Justyna Kowalczyk was probably the most consistent racer, comfortable in sprint and distance, in classic or free style.

From a more personal perspective, I am satisfied with the French team's results. Jean-Marc Gaillard raced again a very good tour with a 5th place in the final overall standing and was still fighting for the podium 1km before the finish line on the top of Alpe Cermis. From a general perspective, our other athletes were not in the fight for a top 10 in the final overall standing but all of them earned points in the different World Cup standings and were able to stand out at one point or another. At the end, these 8 Tour de Ski competitions will give us a lot of good information in the next days to select our Olympic Team.