FALUN, Sweden, 20 March 2005 — Axel Teichmann of Germany returned from a layoff to clinch the cross-country skiing World Cup title in the final race, a double pursuit won by Evgeni Dementiev of Russia.
Teichmann finished seventh and ahead of his rivals Tor Arne Hetland of Norway and Vincent Vittoz, the discipline world champion from France, to lift the trophy although he had to sit out the last seven races due to a flu. On the women’s side, Norwegian heroine Marit Bjoergen was assured of the title long before yesterday’s 2x7.5km race which she dominated for her 10th season win.
Dementiev claimed his first career win in a photo-finish with German Tobias Angerer, with both clocking 1 hour 14 minutes 2.5 seconds over the 2x15km distance.
Martin Bajcicak of Slovakia won another photo-finish for third place over Vittoz, but not even a place on the podium would have given the Frenchman enough points to leapfrog Teichmann atop the standings.
Earlier, Bjoergen shook off all rivals in the second half of the race to win in 40:51.7 minutes. Katerina Neumannova of the Czech Republic came second, 12.3 seconds behind, with Russian pursuit world champion Julija Tchepalova third on a 13.7-second deficit.
Bjoergen completed the season with 1,320 points, Neumannova placed second with 751 and Virpi Kuitunen of Finland was third with 725 points. Bjoergen won a total 10 season races for a career tally of 21 and also captured three world championship golds in her successful transformation from a sprint specialist to an all-rounder.
