Petter Northug from Norway took already his third medal in the FIS Nordic Junior Ski World Championships 2005 in Friday’s 10 km competition.
After one gold medal in the 20 km pursuit competition on Monday before and one silver medal in the sprint competition, he celebrated a great victory once again with 30 seconds difference to the second placed Japanese Keishin. The gold medal winner’s teammate Emil Hegle Svendsen finished the race third 35.6 seconds behind Northug. In the finish, the both Norwegians were loudly celebrated by their other teammates and fans.
– The 10 km one is my favourite competition, I had kind of expected a really good result for it, but the golden medal came as a total surprise! I had thought of maybe getting one medal overall in this competition, now I have two gold and one silver medal, I’m so totally happy and surprised about that!, said the most successful athlete of this year’s JWSC in the press conference after the flower giving ceremony.
– I was a little bit tired yesterday, but now it was ok again. I had enough power and tried to open hard, Northug said when he was asked if he wasn’t tired still from the last two competitions. The Finn Toni Narvainen, who ended on the 46th place, said that he still felt tired because of the hard race on Monday before.
– Today was my first race here and I’m really really satisfied for the result. I wouldn’t have expected this medal although I knew my shape is very well, said the bronze medallist Svendsen who is actually a biathlete. He just finished the biathlon Junior World Championships where he won two golden medals. To the question, if he will be the next Ole-Einar Björndalen, the young Norwegian laughed and affirmed.
It was obvious to see, that the Japanese silver medal winner was extremely satisfied and also surprised with the result of the race. After having found out, that he was second, he even started to cry. In the flower giving ceremony, he screamed and smiled.
– I was just so excited because I would never have expected to be second!, he said.
RESULTS: http://www.jwsc2005.net/listat/CCMen10kmFOfficalResults.pdf
Source: www.jwsc2005.net
