January 30, 2017 (Park City, Utah) – The USA’s Bill Harmeyer was 12th and Canada’s Étienne Hébert finished 17th in the Junior Men’s 1.6km CL Sprint won by Germany’s Janosch Brugger with an impressive come-from-behind victory over Norway’s Petter Stakston in second and fellow Norge, Herman Meyer, in third.

Stakston was the top qualifier as six North American men, four Americans and two Canucks, advanced to the quarter finals. Harmeyer led the charge in 11th, followed by Hébert in 13th, Logan Diekmann (USA) was 23rd, Reed Godfrey (CAN) placed 25th, Kamran Husain (US) was 27th, and Lance McKenney (US) finished 29th. Antoine Blais (CAN) missed the heats by 0.5 seconds in 31st, and Ty Godfrey (CAN) finished less than a second out in 36th.

In a fast first quarterfinal Harmeyer crossed the line in 4th and moved on to the semis as a Lucky Loser. Racing in the first semifinal he had the misfortune of breaking a pole on the course’s biggest climb and finished 6th in the heat behind Stakston of Norway.

Husain finished 6th in the second quarterfinal at 1.5 seconds behind Norwegian winner, Jo Svinås, while McKenney placed 4th in his fourth quarterfinal at 2.02 seconds behind Russian Egor Kazarinov. Diekmann finished 6th in his quarterfinal heat.

For the Canadians, Godfrey was 5th in the third quarterfinal at 7.59 seconds behind winner Vladislav Vechkanov of Russia while Hébert placed fourth in his quarterfinal at 1.43 seconds behind Norway’s Thomas Helland Larsen.

“It was a pretty awesome race for me today. I couldn’t expect any more from myself as that was pretty much the best race I have done all year,” said Hébert. “I just knew at the beginning of the race I wouldn’t be able to go with those guys in the final 100 meters. They were just too big so I tried to just go for it and I did. I was able to hold them off until about 200 metres when they passed me.”

In the Junior Men’s A Final, Brugger surprised Stakston at the line with a superb effort from behind claiming the top podium spot   as Germany dominated the sprints on day one. Norway’s Meyer rounded out the men’s podium with the bronze.

Tuesday’s events include the U23 Classic Sprint races, as well as HS100m ski jumping plus 10km xc race for the Nordic Combined athletes.

Results

Qualifications here.
Brackets here.
Overall here.