In what may well be the last World Cup race on adopted home soil in his World Cup career, cross-country ski beast Ivan Babikov had to go for it.
With his family cheering from the sidelines at the Canmore Nordic Centre, their hearts burst with pride as the tireless distance specialist took the lead at the 16 kilometre mark of Sunday’s ski-athlon (Dec. 16), pushing a 12-second gap between the lead pack.
“I thought I had to do something different today to have a good result in front of my home crowd, my family and friends,” said Babikov, who finished 12th in the grueling uphill race. “I tried. What can I say?”
Disappointed with a 20th place finish on Thursday (Dec. 13), Babikov took a different plan of attack in the ski-athlon, ending up 12th (1:17:55), seven seconds behind winner Maurice Manificat of France.
He cruised along in fifth through most of the classic ski portion of the race, timing his attack on two Russians who had broken away from the pack. After the transition to skate skis, Babikov pounced, catching the breakaway pair and the lead.
“There was a bunch of plans going on. I saw those guys. Those guys looked strong on the classic so I thought they’d be strong on the skate. But being by yourself and keeping the pack away is really hard,” Babikov said.
Head coach Justin Wadsworth was happy with Babikov’s race, which was the best of his year thus far. The hilly course was well-suited for his style, however, he couldn’t keep pace in the final push.
“When he went out on that skating leg trying to catch those top two guys, I thought, maybe he’s feeling really good. I thought he’d try and keep going, because one of our strategies for him was to attack on the last two laps to go and keep going no matter what, and I thought he just stepped up the game plan, because on an uphill skating course he has the ability to ski off anyone in the world on his best day,” Wadsworth said. “He’s been solid. The biggest improvement is he’s been so consistent this year. He’s been in the points every race. For sure he’s been close to top 15 in all the distance races.”
Meanwhile, seconds behind Babikov, Canada’s Graham Nishikawa was having the race of his life. He hung with the top distance racers in the world through the entire race and finished 15th (1:18.09).
“Graham Nishikawa, that kind of came out of nowhere. It was good to see,” Wadsworth said.
The results were a relief for the Canadians, who sat out big guns Devon Kershaw and Alex Harvey, resting them for the Tour de Ski. Both had poor performances in the sprints.
“It’s been a rough year so far, so it’s good to have those guys step up. (Sitting Kershaw and Harvey), it’s what we had to do. Those guys could barely warm up.
Several other Canadians had solid results on Sunday. Kevin Sandau was 34th, Para-lympian Brian McKeever (38th ), Graeme Killick (40th), Michael Somppi (41), Chris Hamilton (43), Jess Cockney (50), David Greer (51), Frederic Touchette (52), Knute Johnsgaard (56), Erik Carleton (59) and John Parry (61).
