Despite Davos’s challenges, a fresh covering of snow, sub-zero temperatures and increasingly clear and still skies provided near-perfect conditions in the Swiss resort.
And Nyenget made the most of them. Going out 42nd in a 90-strong field, the 32-year-old claimed just his fourth individual victory in his 11th season of World Cup racing and his first win over this distance. It was his second victory of the season.
Nyenget and distance classic specialist Iivo Niskanen (FIN) were in a league of their own for most of the race, swapping the lead before Nyenget eventually moved clear.
He led by 1.3 seconds from the Finn after lap one with climbing specialist Hugo Lapalus (FRA) only 7.6 seconds back.
That lead had stretched to 2.8 seconds by the halfway point, but Niskanen clawed time back to hold a 1.2s advantage over Nyenget after lap two as the pair began to pull away from the rest of the field.
It was at this point that Nyenget began to turn the screw. By the next checkpoint (16.5km) his lead was 4.9s. At 18.5km, it was 6.4s. He eventually crossed the line in 55 minutes, 37.8 seconds, 13.1s ahead of Niskanen who blew up on the final climb.
“It was an amazing day,” Nyenget, who now leads the World Cup distance standings, said. “It was a really good race. I tried to focus on what I do in training – a 60-minute session, which is what I do back home. I had a really good day and incredibly good skis.
“The new course was the toughest I have done in Davos, and being 1500 metres above sea level, it’s even harder so it was a fight. But I managed to stay at the same pace throughout the whole race so I’m really happy about the performance.