Nick Bendtsen of Wolcott had already been having a great senior year before he went to the the Class M championship on June 2, 2021. During the limited XC season the previous fall he had beaten out Conard's Gavin Sherry by a half second in the East Coast XC regional championship as Callum Sherry finished 3rd for a CT sweep of the top three places. Indoors, again in limited competition, he had placed 4th in the Adidas Indoor Nationals and then won the Ocean Breeze Invitational's 3200m in under 9 minutes.
Outdoors Bendtsen ran a sizzling 8:53.33 at the Henderson Invite in West Chester PA in May while finishing 3rd, and earlier at the end of April he had warmed up for big times ahead by placing 2nd in the 1600m behind Gavin Sherry with a time of 4:16.66 at the CT Distance Festival.
In the Class M championship, only New Fairfield's Patrick Gibbons and 800m winner Haddam-Killingworth's Matt Jennings managed to stay with Bendtsen for very long in the 1600m, but at the end he was flying away to a 4:08.47 time that missed the state record by just .05 seconds. Bendtsen followed up the win by capturing the 3200m over Gibbons with a solid 9:17.48 time to get the double.
A week later Bendtsen would run under the SR in the 1600m at the Open with a 4:06.09 time, but he would finish 2nd to Gavin Sherry's 4:01.88. In the 3200m, his 9:07.59 netted him a 3rd behind Sherry and Manchester's Aidan Puffer.
Bendtsen has gone on to run for Princeton, and one highlight for him was a 4:00.72 time in the BU Invite in mid February.