January 06, 2015 (Val Mustair, Switzerland) – Simi Hamilton scored a strong 8th as Italy’s Federico Pellegrino delivered a knockout punch besting Norway’s Petter Northug and Martin Johnsrud Sundby at the line in the men’s 1.4km Sprint FR turning the tables on Norway’s stronghold at the Tour de Ski. The feisty Italian came from behind as Sundby faltered and Northug was ready to pounce as he out-dueled them both by boot with a well-timed final lunge.

Hamilton raced well to finish third in his quarterfinal advancing to the semis as a Lucky Loser where he ended up fourth behind Evgeniy Belov (RUS), Calle Halfvarsson (SWE) and Maciej Starega (POL). His 8th place result is his best this year as Switzerland has been good to him – he won his first stage World Cup sprint at the Tour last year in Lenzerheide.

“For the most part, I’m happy with how the day turned out”, said Hamilton. “I didn’t feel great in the qualifier and a crash on one of the extremely icy corners didn’t help too much. But I knew that on such a long course, I still had a chance of making it through to the heats if I focused on getting up as fast as possible and skiing as hard as I could all the way through the line. It was bittersweet to actually make it through in the top 30, knowing that Andy’s [Newell] fall was what most likely kept me in there….”

“My body felt better once I started the quarters, but I definitely just felt a little flat all day. On such a long course, I chose to kind of hang in the back of the pack through 1+ laps and then put in a surge the second time up the steep climb to try to pick off some of the more tired guys in my heats. It worked better in my quarter than in my semi… I was running out of steam in that semi and with such icy corners from the top of the course to the finish stretch, it was nearly impossible to pass anyone in that last 800 meters,” recounted Hamilton.

“Obviously I would have been much happier with the day if it had ended like the race in Lenzerheide last year, but like I said, ski racing and courses are always different and you just have to pull out the positives from every day you’re out there. I feel like my fitness and speed are only getting better as we get closer to Falun, I’m healthy, and I’m really looking forward to getting in a few more sprints in the next couple weeks before we head into our Davos training camp pre-Ostersund and World Champs,” he added.

Canada’s Alex Harvey was next in 16th as he looked destined to make the semifinal but was pipped at the line by Simon Andersson from Sweden and did not advance. Teammate Devon Kershaw also qualified but finised 5th in his heat ending up 22nd while Len Valjas, who has been battling a cold all week, skied to 28th spot. Harvey now sits fifth overall.

“It was good to qualify for the heats, but I wanted a little more,” said Valjas, who has decided to pull out of the remaining four races on the cross-country ski grind through Europe. “I went out really fast today, and just had nothing left up the final hill. I just didn’t have the energy today, but I gave it all I had.”

The USA’s Erik Bjornsen was 59th, Ivan Babikov (Can) finished 73rd and top sprinter Andy Newell (USA) was an uncharacteristic 83rd due to a big crash that took him out of the running. According to U.S. XC Ski Team Head Coach Chris Grover, “Andy [Newell] fell on a corner on the second lap. Very disappointing because he was running fifth in the qualifications at the 1/2 way mark.”

We caught up with Newell later and he told us, “Yeah saying the Tour has been tough on me would be an understatement. The body has been feeling pretty crappy and I really struggled with crashes and skis in the first two stages. Even when I’m not feeling great sprinting tends to still go well so I was pumped to get a shot in the skate sprint but ended up crashing out (apparently with a top-5 time at the time of the crash). So it has really been frustrating for me.

“Regardless of any results this past week, something just isn’t working. I’ve been struggling with an allergic reaction the past few months and also a little sickness over Christmas so it’s hard to tell what kind of effect that might be having on my body while racing. But I haven’t felt good in a distance race in quite some time. Hoping to straighten things out before the next few sprint weekends,” he concluded.

Qualifications here.
Final results here.