PRESQUE ISLE – Alex Harvey crossed the finish line of the 50-kilometer cross-country marathon Sunday and collapsed, so tired that someone had to take his skis off for him.

Then he went up to the great room of the Nordic Heritage Center and laid down some more.

Nobody, it seems – not even the youngest and most promising North Americans such as Harvey – can keep up with Kris Freeman.

Freeman, a 26-year-old from Andover, N.H., dropped Harvey with around three kilometers to go after the two ditched the main pack, then cruised to his second title of this North American and USSA long-distance cross country ski championships and fourth U.S. title of the season.

“He was just a little faster than the pace we had been going for 45K. I couldn’t match that speed,” Harvey said. “That’s where he broke away. It’s just his speed.”

The 18-year-old Harvey wound up second, which continued the youthful domination that also occurred in the 30K women’s race. A pair of 20-year-old U.S. national team members had a sprint to the finish, where Taz Mannix held off Liz Stephen for her second championship of the events here. Canada’s Brittany Webster, Friday’s overall women’s 15K pursuit winner who will be 20 in June, was third overall.

“I think we’re going to be racing against each other for a long time,” said Mannix, a student at Alaska Pacific University who was the top U.S. finisher in the women’s pursuit.

In the U.S. men’s competition – men’s and women’s awards were given for the top three overall and top U.S. finishers – Garrott Kuzzy took second (third overall) and sprint specialist Torin Koos was third. Mannix and Stephen were 1-2 in the U.S. women’s competition and former Maine Winter Sports Center skier Kate Whitcomb was third.

The Nordic Heritage course, which the women said was fast on one side and slower and slushier on the other during their 9 a.m. race, deteriorated in the men’s race, which started at 11 a.m. and finished under a strong sun after 1 p.m. Volunteers had to shovel snow on to some of the slushier spots of the course.

Freeman solidified his spot as the top U.S. long-distance skier this year with Sunday’s victory and Friday’s win in the 30K men’s pursuit. He also won two titles in January at the sprint nationals in Michigan.

“Four championships this year, I’m pretty happy about it, obviously,” said Freeman, a 2006 Olympian.

Freeman and Harvey looked strong early in a pack of six to 10 leaders that included Wilton’s David Chamberlain, who led at times. But the two eventual frontrunners opened up a 47-second lead on Kuzzy and Koos with one loop remaining.

“I was throwing little surges in the entire 50K and that was really what was breaking the pack up, when I went to the front and hammered hard,” Freeman said. “… I kept on throwing surges at [Harvey] and I knew I had hurt him pretty bad with about 5K to go. Then I put a little gap on him and I knew it was over.”

Harvey was excited to have stayed with Freeman for as long as he did, especially in his first-ever 50K. Harvey wound up 20.6 seconds behind Freeman’s time of 2 hours, 1 minute, 1.6 seconds.

“I knew the race would be good if I could stay with him for the first 30K,” Harvey said. “But I stayed with him for almost the whole race. … I felt comfortable with three [kilometers] to go. But then it’s all corners and hills and like, all

turn-y. He was almost jumping on top of the snow and I couldn’t match that.”

Alaska native Mannix and Vermont’s Stephen, who crossed the finish line 1.3 seconds after Mannix’s time of 1:20:03.7, both said they had fun trading leads and skiing in a trio with Webster.

“It seemed like I liked to lead [on the Presque Isle loop side] and Liz liked to lead [on the Fort Fairfield side],” Mannix said. “We did kind of switch off and on, and when you ski with people, you kind of figure out if it works, weaving and following and taking turns. That was really fun.”

At one point Webster got stuck in a pack as far as two kilometers back but was able to make up the distance.

“I had to make a break for it … I was kind of tired,” she said. “I don’t know if I should have hung out in the back as much as I did. I might not have been as tired.”

Webster dropped off with about 5K to go. Once it was just Stephen and Mannix, Stephen took an outside lane down to the finish line, but Mannix had opened up a gap and was too far ahead.