Anyway, leaving aside all the drama in the end, I thought the second half of the race was quite entertaining. It was interesting to see a guy like Iversen, who usually avoids doing work and relies on sprinting, trying to pull away from others for a while. And then Krüger caught back a 40-second deficit on the final lap. One could even half-wonder whether his team-mates were waiting for him to then attack together in the end?
And poor old Niskanen, who does a lot of work on uphill sections, but seemingly didn't have good enough skis downhill to compete with the best in the end. Burman had a good race. And also with the emergence of 20-y-o Poromaa I'd say it's been a few years since Swedish men skiing shows at least some positive signs after having been in doldrums for years.
Oh, and other Russians apart from Bolshunov were nowhere. Even Semikov, who was targetting this race.