Norway's Petter Northug dominated today's 30 km Free Individual start and edged out Maurice Manificat FRA and Lukas Bauer CZE.
Petter Northug's success today was combination of great shape, good tactics and excellent skis. Northug was savins energy in the uphills and was pushining hard in downhill sections. In the early stages of the race Sweden's Marcus Hellner was faster than the Norwegian in the climbs but he skis could measure with the ones of Northug. Northug showed again that he is very good in the easy parts of the course – and the skis must have been fantastic as well.
Step by step Petter Northug was increasing the pace and was building up the cap on runner ups. In the finish the Norwegian gained an impressive margin of +51.4 sec. Tough fight was taking place for second and third places. Maurice Manificat could maintain the gap on Lukas Bauer and defended the second place. Lukas Bauer was fighting hard with Marcus Hellner. The Czech prevailed and celebrates the first podium result this season.
Petter Northug NOR
I had a good race today. I was never before on the podium in a distance race here in Davos but finally I made it. I had good skies and I gave my best to push in the downhills as I am not so strong than Maurice in the uphill.
Maurice Manificat FRA
I am very satisfied with my competition. I like this long distance races in free technique and I was focused on this race, that was my first objective in this season. I tried to start not too fast and it worked out. I got faster and faster and then I heard that Lukas was close to me so I gave everything what I had. To make some video's in between all this World Cup stress is nice and I think then a bit about other things, that is a kind of relaxing.
Lukas Bauer CZE
I got faster and faster. I was actually not sure if it is enough for the podium but at the end I made it. I am happy with it. The longer races fit's me well and I like Davos.
