February 28, 2008 (Mals, Italy) – On another warm day of racing in the Italian Alps American Liz Stephen lead the North American charge with a fabulous 3rd place finish in the women’s 15km mass start, followed closely by her teammates Tazlina Mannix in 8th, and Morgan Arritola in 11th. Evelyn Dong the 4th member of the US team was back in 36th as Russia’s Olga Tiagai Cologna won in 1:07:22.6.

Stephen from East Montpelier, VT from Burke Mountain Academy program, made history with her bronze performance. “I am speechless, because I would not have believed that we could finish on the podium in the race today. Finally, the United States has won a medal and that makes us happy and satisfied with these races,” said Stephen in a US Ski Team release.

“This is huge for us,” said U.S. Nordic Director Luke Bodensteiner in the same release. “Not long ago distance events and women’s results were glaring weaknesses. Last year Laura Valaas took silver at U23 in the sprint and now Liz has taken bronze in a distance race.”

The Canadians team minus lead skier Perianne Jones, who departed for the Lahti World Cup in Finland, placed Amanda Ammar in 28th and Kate Brennan in 40th. All three American skiers were consistently with the lead pack right from the start of the race until the last 3km when the Russian Tiagai put the hammer down and pulled away from Tarvonen and Stephen, who were then fighting it out for 2nd and 3rd. There were 50 finishers.

Men’s 30km Mass Start
The Men’s race was a pack of 14-15 skiers all within 2-4 seconds of each other for the first 20kms with the two Russians Chernousov and Parfenov working together.

Brent McMurtry (Can) was the only North American to make any sort of a challenge, as he was in 7th place with lead pack after 10km, but dropped back to 20th place over the next 10kms, and lost another six places in the final 10kms.

Chris Butler (Can) was the top NA finisher in 23rd place only 15 secs off the leader at 20kms but the pace became very intense for the last 10kms and he would lose over two minutes during the two 5km loops. But Butler still managed to improve his position by two places to 21st at the finish. There were 65 finishers in the race.

Stay tuned for the Junior World Relay championships taking place on Friday.

Results

Women

1. Olga Tiagai (Rus) 37:03.4
2. Silja Tarvonen (Fin) 37:24.2
3. Liz Stephen (USA) 37:25.1

8. Tazlina Manix (USA) 37:35.9
11. Morgan Arritola (USA) 37:50.3
28. Amanda Ammar (Can) 39:17.1
36. Evelyn Dong (USA) 40:20.5
40. Kate Brennan (Can) 41:17.5

Men

1. Dario Cologna (Sui) 1:07:22.6
2. Ilia Chernousov (Rus) 1:07:23.4
3. Maurice Maifcat (Fra) 1:07:25.2

21. Chris Butler (Can) 1:09:46.0
26. Brent McMurtry (Can) 1:10:08.7
30. Mike Sinnott (USA) 1:10:46.9
35. Ben True (USA) 1:11:43.5
50. Jesse Winter (Can) 1:14:26.8
58. Pate Neumann (Can) 1:16:43.3
62. Karl Nygren (USA) 1:17:40.8