February 27, 2007 (Sapporo, Japan) – Axel Teichmann prevailed in a thrilling finish to the 30km pursuit at the World Championships in Sapporo Saturday. The German edged out compatriot Tobias Angerer and Italy’s Pietro Piller Cottrer as the top three finished within a second of each other.

After one hour 11 minutes of competition, just half a second separated Teichmann from Angerer, with Piller Cottrer a further four tenths back.

Jens Filbrich led after the first 15km in classic style, but faded just slightly on the freestyle part of the race, coming in fourth 3.2 seconds adrift. Petter Northug was fifth for Norway, 8.2 seconds off the pace, while Alexander Legkov could do no better than sixth, despite coming in less than 10 seconds behind the winner.

French hope Vincent Vittoz had a relatively disappointing day, filing in 10th, having lost time on the first half of the race and failed to claw his way back.

Among North American skiers, Kris Freeman (USA) was 19th across the finish line, back 1:08.00, followed by Canadians George Grey in 25th, back 2:17.90, Dan Roycroft (CAN) in 37th, back 4:17.00, and Brian McKeever (CAN) in 39th place, back 4:32.90. James Southam (USA) finished 47th, back 5:37.70, Lars Flora (USA) came in 49th, back:11.10, followed by Andrew Johnson (USA) in 50th, back 6:12.10 and David Nighbor (CAN) who finished 51st, back 6:55.50.

Perhaps the biggest story here is not who finished on the podium, but rather McKeever’s 39th place finish. As reported previously, the skier from Alberta is almost blind, having only about 10% vision.

A total of 58 skiers crossed the finish line while another 31 skiers did not finish. None of the DNFs were from Canada or the USA.