A real drama took place in third leg: Andrey Khramov, Thierry Gueorgiou and Martin Johansson all made a mistake, so the leader changed several times. After that Thierry Gueorgiou, Anders Nordberg and Martin Johansson took the lead together, when the Swedish got an injury: a stick of wood went into his leg. His opponents stopped to help him, soon Michal Smola joined them, so they all gave up their positions. Meanwhile Matthias Merz - who didn't know anything about the accident - with a clear and fast run came up to first place from the eighth one (changing a 3:44 gap behind for a 2:24 lead). Hramov saved silver for Russia, but he has to give up jogging into the finish, because Mats Haldin and Edgars Bertuks got really close to him. They were fighting from the middle part of the course and caught the last control together, but the Finnish one was stronger and got the bronze. Behind Latvia (this was their best place in WOC history ever) arrived Ádám Kovács with a great run coming up eight positions. Sixth place went to Poland making surprise.