A surprise guest at the Cross-Country World Cup in Les Rousses (France), Antoine Cyr finished Saturday’s classic sprint in 22nd place after being eliminated in the quarter-finals. This is his second-best result of the season in the sprint after sixth place in Stage 5 of the Tour de Ski on January 6 in Val di Fiemme.

Frenchman Richard Jouve wowed the crowd as he won the final by just 9/100ths of a second over Norwegian and yellow jersey holder (World Cup leader) Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo. Paal Goldberg (+0.91s), also from Norway, joined them on the podium.

The best Canadian cross-country skiers were not supposed to be present at the World Cups held before the Worlds, except that when the Les Rousses stage was confirmed on the calendar, Cyr organized himself to be there as, unlike the already in Europe was the majority of his teammates.

“The stage wasn’t supposed to be held due to lack of snow, but they’ve had snowfall and cold temperatures for the last week so they put on a pretty impressive distance. Hats off to the whole organization!” acknowledged the only Canadian representative present at the Jura.

The Quebecer was 21st fastest in qualifying where he felt he was in “super good shape”.

“Qualifying is always a bit more complicated for me, so I was satisfied this morning. […] (In the quarterfinals) I positioned myself very well at the start and led the wave for a long time. Then I made a technical mistake and was passed on the downhill because I didn’t have the skis to compete with my competitors (due to poor ski choice).”

The 24-year-old athlete will return to the track in Sunday’s classic 20-kilometer mass start.

“I have high expectations and we’ll see how it goes. If things are going well, all the better and I’ll move on from that moment and if there are things to correct I’ll pull out my notepad and make the corrections to the training plan. The course suits me well and I’m excited!”