February 16, 2019 (Cogne, ITA) – American Simi Hamilton raced to a fab fourth-place result in the men’s 1.6km Sprint FR at Cogne in the Aosta valley in Northern Italy home of winner Federico Pellegrino.

Canada’s Russell Kennedy had the World Cup race of his life with a career-best 12th-place result. Italy’s Francesco De Fabiani was second and Lucas Chanavat of France finished third.

It took 12 years until the FIS Cross-Country World Cup found its way back to the venue. “Yeah, very cool venue here in Italy. The mountains are spectacular, the thousands of Italian fans are some of the best I’ve ever ever seen on the World Cup, and you really can’t beat this weather. It’s just great being here, and I hope we have lots more World Cups like this in the future,” said Hamilton.

“I’m pretty happy with today. Obviously 4th is a tough place to be because you’re so close to the podium, but all in all it was still a really great day. My quarter was pretty wild. There was a ton of carnage in it and I was lucky to stay out of the mess. I felt like my best skiing of the day came in my semi. I made a good move at the top of the course and was able to stay out of trouble and ski strong to nail 2nd,” he continued.

“The final was tough. I was definitely feeling the quick turnaround from the 2nd semi to the final, and I was lacking a little bit of juice when DeFabiani made a move on the first long climb. Unfortunately I couldn’t close the gap up the to DeFabiani-Pellegrino-Chanavat train, so I just focused on doing everything I could to minimize the damage and maintain 4th. You never know what is going to happen in front of you, so I just focused on skiing the best race I could with the cards that I was dealt,” Hamilton concluded.

Kennedy, a 27-year-old Olympian, who also shared guiding duties for Brian McKeever at the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games, took advantage of hard and fast conditions along with a glorious blue bird day to earn a spot into the head-to-head heats with the top-30 athletes after posting the 12th-fastest qualifying time around 1.6-kilomtre track.

“It was awesome. That was crazy today,” laughed Kennedy , whose previous best World Cup finish was 36th in Quebec City. “I thought I could do a top-30 but definitely finishing 12th was a surprise. I’m just psyched. After my qualifier, I crossed the line and in my head I thought that was a sick race regardless of the result. Then I saw the result, so I was pretty excited.”

“I had little expectations, but I knew that my heat would be fast,” added Kennedy. “I’m not the greatest skier in the heats, but I was just trying to stay close. It was fast. I got a bit lucky, but that’s the way it goes, and I’ll take it.”

With the Nordic World Ski Championships in Seefeld, Austria around the corner Pellegrino, the Italian sprint expert, wanted to make a statement and show that he is ready to fight for the title of world champion. “Today was difficult to focus but I needed this energy by my people, by region, my valley, because I know now that when I go to Seefeld I have the responsibility to give everything that I can,” said Pellegrino said after his victory lap.

Results here.