February 20, 2017 (Otepää, Finland) – Canada’s Alex Harvey led the North Americans in the men’s 15km C individual start finishing 19th as Martin Johnsrud Sundby was king once again winning by 37.1 seconds over Finland’s Livo Niskanen. Fellow Norge, Hans Christer Holund, finished third at 49.1 seconds off Sundby’s mark.

“I have been in doubt this winter if I was going to get on the same level as last year. I have not had the same feeling as I occasionally had last winter. I’ve been looking for it, technically and physically, and today I am there,” Sundby told NRK news.

Harvey, at 1:50.0 off the pace was skiing in control for the first part of the competition, until being caught by Sundby. “I followed him up the biggest hill of the course and it put me in the red,” said Harvey. “Following Sundby like that who was on a crazy day and just starting his race proved to be too much for me, after that I blew up and just starting losing too much time.”

Niskanen was the only one close to Sundby in the race splits, skiing within 0.5 seconds at 5km, but by the halfway mark Sundby had a clear advantage that he only increased to the finish line.

Erik Bjornsen (USA) was the next North American after Harvey, finishing in 36th place (+3:12.1). Bjornsen told Trax that he was “…really hoping for a top 30 result today so when I fell short of that I was disappointed.”

Ben Lustgarten was the only other American starter, and in his rookie world cup distance race finished 66th at 5:34.1 back.

Canada started five men, including Harvey and the other four finished outside of the top 40. Graeme Killick was 47th (+3:44.6), Devon Kershaw placed 49th (+3:51.3), Knute Johnsgaard was 58th (+4:50.4), and Jess Cockney finished 72nd (+7:15).

Results here.