The women's finale started with a fall in which Natalia Nepryaeva (RUS, Fischer ***) lost all chances of getting another seconds on Johaug and Østberg. The Russian fell when the tracks narrowed on the starting track and there was no place between Jacobsen (NOR) and Diggins (USA). In the first climb, the Norwegian took command, followed by Sadie Maubet Bjornsen (USA, Fischer ***), local hero Lucia Scardoni (ITA, Fischer ***), Jessie Diggins and Anamarija Lampic, who initially watched the action from behind. On the second climb, Diggins overtook and skied next to the teammate, who had no chance of going past Jacobsen on the inside curve. After the descent to the stadium, Jacobsen and Diggins raced side by side onto the finish corridors, but Anamarija Lampic came out of the slipstream and passed both with faster skis on their left side. It was her second victory in this Tour de Ski. Sadie Maubet Bjornsen, who skied into the second-placed Norwegian in the same lane, changed lanes but was unable to intervene in the battle for the podium. Fifth-placed Lucia Scardoni achieved her best World Cup result in front of Natalia Nepryaeva, who could not approach the group.
The men's final was like the heats before: Alexander Bolshunov (RUS) set an extremely high pace from the start, trying to wear down Johannes Høsflot Klæbo. Unlike before, this time the Norwegian was hanging directly on the ski ends of the Russian, while he had also watched the action from behind in the semifinals. After the first climb, Sergey Ustiugov attacked in the flat part before the descent, before going first on the second climb. At the bottom of the hill, Klæbo was pushed a bit inside, so that he had to slow down and lined up behind both Russians. As a result, he could not use the uphill to attack, which was not a problem. Klæbo just did it like yesterday in the mass start: With fast skis, like Lampic, he glided past the competitors so that he was already in front when he switched to doublepoling. Sergey Ustiugov and Alexander Bolshunov again took second and third places, so the podium remained unchanged compared to the mass start. Gleb Retivykh (RUS, Fischer ***) and Andrey Melnichenko (RUS, Fischer ***) finished fifth and sixth.
In addition to the finalists, some other distance skiers also seized the opportunity with hardly any sprinters in the starting field and took one or another bonus seconds. Heidi Weng (NOR, Fischer ***), Therese Johaug (NOR, Fischer ***) and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (NOR, Fischer ***) made it to the semi-finals, and especially Johaug brought it to the best with finishing eleventh with 24 bonus seconds. After two strong performances in Val di Fiemme by Astrid Jacobsen and 54 bonus seconds in the sprint, the three-way fight in the Tour de Ski became a four-way battle: Before the final stage, Johaug leads three seconds ahead of Jacobsen and 14 seconds ahead of Nepryaeva, Østberg is 23 seconds behind and also Heidi Weng is not yet hopeless with a gap of 47 seconds. It's also exciting for the men: Sjur Røthe (NOR) made it to the semi-finals, took 22 seconds and can take his chance at Alpe Cermis from sixth, 2:01 minutes behind: Last year he was the fastest on the final climb, one minute faster than Bolshunov and even two minutes faster than Klæbo. The defending champion did his best today to take as many seconds as possible with 60 bonus seconds and also in the prologue: in the split time, only a few tenths faster than Bolshunov and others, he was six seconds faster than everyone else in the finish. It's tight on top of the overall ranking, Bolshunov one second ahead of Klæbo and 15 seconds ahead of Ustiugov.
