Therese Johaug was not disturbed by the snowfall and the deep snow and, as always, she went full speed from the start and was at least 6.5 seconds ahead of all the others after 1.7 kilometers. At the finish line, she was separated by 32 seconds from Natalia Nepryaeva and 40 seconds from Heidi Weng. "It was a great race. I am in good shape, but I was a bit tired after the tour. Today was a good day, the track and the snowfall were perfect", said the confident winner. "I like to race here, unfortunately it has been four years since we were here. I think tomorrow there will be a large group behind me and I will have to work hard to be ahead tomorrow", she was modest as usual. Ragnhild Haga (NOR, Fischer ***) finished fifth and achieved her best result in a long time. Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (NOR, Fischer ***) finished as sixth-fastest. Ebba Andersson (SWE, Fischer ***) may still have the after-effects of her illness in her body, which forced her to give up the Tour de Ski before the last stage, and finished ninth followed by local hero Katerina Razymova (CZE, Fischer ***) ,
Like Therese Johaug, Alexander Bolshunov today laid the basis for possibly two victories within 24 hours. Iivo Niskanen secured second place with a first-class freestyle race 24 seconds behind and will be Bolshunov's only competitor for the victory tomorrow in the classic pursuit race. Fourth place went to Andrey Melnichenko (RUS, Fischer ***), who had delivered a remote duel with Bolshunov for the first few kilometers. Perttu Hyvärinen (FIN, Fischer ****), who was on a par with Iivo Niskanen when he was young, celebrated his first top ten result in sixth. Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (NOR, Fischer ***) lost a lot of time on the last lap, but was the second best Norwegian in seventh before the two-time winner Simen Hegstad Krüger (NOR). He had been able to save energies a large part of the race behind his team-mate Gjøran Tefre (NOR, Fischer ***). Alexey Chervotkin (RUS, Fischer ***) and Didrik Tønseth (NOR, Fischer ***) completed the top ten.
* = Fischer skis
** = Fischer skis and bindings
*** = Fischer skis, bindings and boots
**** = Fischer skis, bindings, boots and poles
