July 19, 2012 – The USA’s Liz Stephen landed in 3rd place on the podium at the 7.5km Lysebotn Opp, the opening round of the Blink Festival, a popular three-day rollerski race event in Norway, that was won by local star Therese Johaug.

According to Kikkan Randall, who invited Stephen to race with her at the Blink competition, “Liz scored a podium today in the epic uphill battle up Lysboten Opp!! Yeehaw. As you can see, we’re not having any fun over here at all.”

Johaug was the clear winner of the uphill roller skiing climb with a time of 32:34, almost a minute ahead of her compatriot Heidi Weng. Stephen had a stellar performance to claim the bronze at 01:01 off the pace.

The men’s competition was much more dramatic and more of a race as Maurice Manificat led the French skiers to success and dominated the men’s competition in 29:02.5. Jean Marc Gaillard lost to Manificat by only +1.8 sec to finish second. Curdin Perl of Switzerland crossed the finish line +5.8 sec behind the winner in third.

Women’s results HERE.
Men’s results HERE.
More photos HERE.

With files from FIS XC