January 04, 2015  (Obertsdorf, GER) – Canada’s Alex Harvey was skiing the near perfect race again but was edged out at the line by wily Norwegian star Petter Northug Jr., who surged from behind at the end for the victory by a mere 0.6s over his Canadian rival. Sweden’s Calle Halvarsson was third at 0.8 in the close battle to the line.

Harvey had good feelings at the start and knew it was going to be a good day when he saw that his skis were dialed as well. “The key to the Tour is recovery. I ate really well yesterday and this morning. I woke up really confident and I just really liked the feeling as soon as I put the skis on today,” said Harvey. “The wax techs did a great job. The skis were fast and perfect for the conditions.”

Once first-stage Prologue winner Dario Cologna (SUI) was caught by the chasers a fast pace proceeded but Harvey was ready and skied up front with all of the main contenders.

“I knew Sundby would want to close the gap early. We started really hard as I expected,” said Harvey adding it was an extremely fast pace for the first two of six laps around the 2.5-kilometre tricky track which features three sizeable hills.

“I was pretty tired early so just tried to ski more controlled in the third and fourth lap. The conditions were icy and even dirty in places so on the last lap I stayed out of trouble, especially up the final hill, to set myself up for good sprint for the finish.”

Cologna took the lead near the end while Northug was behind and moving up slowly. Then the lead changed hands as Sundby took over but faltered ceding the lead to Francesco de Fabiani (Ita). As the finishline approached more juggling at the front saw Northug surge past everyone with Harvey holding off Halvarsson for second.

Ivan Babikov (Can) moved up 27 spots to finish 30th while fellow Canuck Devon Kershaw was 36th, the USA’s Erik Bjornsen was 60th and Simi Hamilton was 61st, Len Valjas (CAN) was 83rd and American Andy Newell was 88th.

Full results here.