British Skier Andrew Young Awarded World Cup Podium After Successful Appeal

British skier Andrew Young has scored a rare cross country World Cup podium following a successful appeal of the results of the final race of the season in Quebec.

Young was originally placed fourth in the ‘winner of the day’ stage which closed out the 15km pursuit at the World Cup Finals on Sunday 24 March. American skier Simeon Hamilton was placed third despite starting the race in the same wave as Young and finishing behind the Brit at the finish line.

GB Snowsport officially contested the race results with FIS Appeals Commission for cross country today confirming that the appeal had been upheld.

Subsequently, FIS will be recalculating the timings from the event with Andrew Young elevated to third place and the relevant FIS points and prizemoney will be distributed accordingly.

“By their own admission FIS indicated in their decision that there is some confusion in the rules as to how the result was originally calculated,” said Dan Hunt, GB Snowsport performance director. “Importantly, there’s mechanisms in place to try and get the result corrected and we’re pleased that the Appeals Commission saw it the same way we did.

“It doesn’t give Andrew that podium moment back, but the recognition of him earning a top three place at a World Cup is ultimately what the appeal was all about and we achieved what we set out to do.”

The result is easily Young’s best in distance races at World Cup level and marks his second World Cup podium after finishing third in a sprint event in Italy in December 2015. It is just the fifth podium in cross country World Cup history for a British skier.

“It’s fantastic news that they’ve come around,” said Young. “It was all quite bizarre – you feel like you’ve worked pretty hard to get onto the podium but you hope common sense will prevail.

“Definitely one of the goals of the season was to get World Cup points in distance skiing, not just the sprints, so to now get a podium, it’s really satisfying to get that done.”

Young said that achieving such a groundbreaking result at the tail end of the season provides a wealth of motivation heading into the summer.

“When you get a good result before Christmas, sometimes that’s forgotten if you don’t finish off the season well, but to get a top three at World Cup Finals, it definitely gives you a bit more motivation and I’m already thinking of things we can do once the first of May comes around and we’re back at it.”