By Noah Eckstein
GRANÅSEN ARENA, Trondheim — Stupendous. Unparalleled. Completely insane.
These words carry compound meaning when applied to the men’s 50-kilometer skate race at World Championships on Saturday morning. On one hand, they describe Johannes Høsflot Klæbo’s long-awaited first 50km win ahead of Swedish foil William Poromaa and countryman Simen Hegstad Krüger, firmly stamping his claim as the best male skier of all time.
They also characterize the immensity of his six-race sweep this week, a feat never achieved before and likely never again. To win every single race, across techniques, across distances, speaks to a near-inhuman poise.
And they apply equally to the scene in the hills above Trondheim today, where, supposedly, as many as 120,000 fans gathered along the course to create a party like no other and cheer their hometown boy to victory. Truly, all of it — the noise, the flags, the smoke, the passion for this sport in its historical and spiritual homeland — created an atmosphere so electric and intoxicating and indescribable as to rise into the sublime.
[Read more: Photo Dump: Men’s 50km: Vibes, Man]
(all photos save Nyenget fall: Noah Eckstein; Nyenget: Lukas Pigott)
According to Mika Vermuelen of Austria, “in Norway, cross-country skiing is a religion. In the last two weeks, Granåsen was the Vatican.”
He’s right.
Afterward, the result seemed almost preordained. Of course Klæbo would win, avenging his controversial disqualification in this event in Oberstdorf in 2021 and sprint finish loss to Pål Goldberg in Planica in 2023. Of course he would sweep these World Championships. How could he not, after all, at home and with his currently untouchable form?
And to the complete cross-section of Norwegian society occupying the boggy forest, drunk on both life and a wide variety of strong liquids, it must have seemed that way too, charmed from the start, as living legend Bjorn Dæhlie himself foreran the course.
Things began auspiciously enough, with four Norwegian men bunched near the front in the opening kilometers. All four — Klæbo, Krüger, Martin Løwstrøm Nyenget, and Harald Østberg Amundsen — were serious contenders for the win coming into the day. The fifth, poor Golberg — awarded an automatic entry as the reigning 50km champion — had a day to forget and was sliding backward almost as soon as the race had begun.
The first two 8.3km laps, of six, were standard men’s pack skiing, with the Norwegians trading off at the front with Poromaa, Vermeulen, and Friedrich Moch of Germany.
On lap three, Finn Remi Lindholm, with ice in his veins (and in other places), decided that he’d had enough and skied off the front, eventually driving his gap up to over five seconds (Lindholm is shown off the front in the photo below). This was, frankly, a pretty bonkers thing to do considering there were still 30 kilometers left to race and the man has precisely two World Cup top-tens to his name.
Lindholm was eventually brought back, but skied a courageous race to eventually finish a remarkable seventh, so exhausted and shell-shocked that he was essentially unable to speak in the mixed zone.
Lindholm’s acceleration had blown up the pack, and by the halfway point the leading group was down to just 18 skiers. No U.S. men made it in.
It was a difficult day for the main American hope in the race, Gus Schumacher, who finished 26th. After the race, he described battling with conditions that most of the field described as the deepest slush they had ever skied in.
“It was rough,” he said. “It seemed like there were some spots out there that were actually shin deep. You can’t push that hard, but at the same time your legs feel like you just did a bunch of squats.”
When asked whether his frustrating day came down to body issues or ski issues, he responded, “I think a combination.”
Schumacher went on to allude to historical criticism of the performance of Rossignol skis in conditions like these, saying, “I haven’t really looked at hard results, but I was top three Rossi guys, probably [he was the third]. And skiing with Pål…defending World Champion, made me feel a bit better about it.” Notably, the top Rossi athletes on the day were Jason Rüesch in 18th and Victor Lovera in 21st; Schumacher and Golberg, in 26th and 27th, were the next-best athletes on the brand.
Back at the front, the lead group kept narrowing bit by bit, climb by climb. By the 30km mark, it was down to just eight, the four Norwegians joined by Poromaa, Lindholm, Andrew Musgrave of Great Britain, and Hugo Lapalus of France.
Lapalus was the next to drop off, followed by Lindhom and Musgrave, and the five Scandinavians set out in pursuit of just three medals. Lap four saw Amundsen and Poromaa pick the pace up a notch in an attempt to drop a flagging Klæbo.
In his press conference, Klæbo referenced this stretch as the crux of his race. “The fourth lap was probably the hardest one,” he said. “I saw we had the same time on the fourth lap as we had on the first one, and we had way better skis and the conditions were better on the first lap…I tried to save as much energy as I could in the steepest uphills, and then I tried to kind of catch the pack again a little bit in the in the easier parts of the tracks, but it was brutal out there.”
But hang tough he did, and the five leaders came through the lap for the final time all together. Amundsen, possibly rueing his efforts the lap before, slowly came unglued up the main climb, the flares flying out of the raucous student section doing little to help.
Down to four, the lead pack flew back down through the stadium on their way out to the final short loop. Just as they passed the main grandstand, Nyenget caught an edge in the bottomless sugar, cartwheeling across the trail and out of contention.
Back around and up the final hill, Poromaa went to the front, desperately trying to gain separation before the sprint.
He did manage to drop Krüger, but Klæbo — who later said he “started in the basement” but “got better and better during the day” — was still right there, stuck to his tails.
Up the finish straight, Klæbo did what Klæbo does, taking a monumental victory in front of what felt like the entirety of his hometown.
More importantly, he did it in front of his teary-eyed father (see below), who has devoted himself entirely — “cooking every single meal” as the two of them lived in isolation for 150 days — to delivering his son a perfect week.
Klæbo’s monastic preparation was not easy. “It’s been a pretty pretty boring life, to be honest,” he reflected. “I have really been putting all the energy into these six races. I think that’s also one of the reasons why it’s so emotional when you cross the finish line, finishing up something you really have worked hard for.
“I mean, I bought myself a big rollerski treadmill to be able to win this race,” he continued. “I have spent 100 days at altitude trying to become a better distance skier to win the 50km. So I think when all those things are put into context, it’s been really, really tough, but right now it’s worth every single day away from home.”
Asked what he’d like to eat now that the job is done, he said, “I don’t think I will celebrate with chicken and rice either today, because that’s been the meal now since Davos [nearly three months ago].”
It’s not easy being the GOAT, folks.
Poromaa, just behind in second place, was thrilled to take his second individual world championships medal. “It’s crazy, of course,” he said later. “I have dreamt about this, and to do this today with this crowd, it’s a dream coming true. It was special, also, going with the four Norwegians today, especially when the crowd was crazy out there.”
Krüger, on the last step of the podium, described the difficulty of the final lap. “It was a tough one, and I think we all were quite tired after a hard, tough race,” he remembered. “And the course was just getting softer and softer. Martin fell, which made my way to the podium a lot easier, but so I feel sorry for him. But at the same time, I’m really happy with my race, and to be able to get one medal from this championship, it’s been a dream to do it.”
Nyenget, looking formidable until his late-race crash, was inconsolable, crying into team staffers’ shoulders in the finish pen. He will walk away from this week with a silver from the skiathlon, but today’s wooden medal will surely sting.
Apart from Lindholm, perhaps the biggest surprise of the day was American Kevin Bolger, who worked his way up through the second half of the race to finish 22nd. For a man mostly known as a sprinter — with a World Cup distance PB of 23rd, from Falun just a few weeks ago — skiing a brutally attritional 50km, this is a deeply impressive result.
In the mixed zone, most finishers looked like they were coming back from war. Bolger, on the other hand, could have just wrapped up his morning jog, and seemed pleasantly surprised with his result. “I haven’t done a 50km in like 6 or 7 years, or maybe more, so I had zero expectations,” he said.
The 31-year-old went on to ponder this distance renaissance, which, in broad strokes, mirrors the late-career arc of one-time pure sprinters such as Marit Bjørgen or Kikkan Randall.
“I mean, I haven’t done much different in training for the last year or two,” Bolger mused, “so I’ve been asking my coach even now, Einar, just, like, what the fuck is going on? And we’re just trying to digest a little bit, but I think it’s just good training stacked over time — I hate that answer, but sometimes it’s that simple.”
For much of the rest of the field, American and otherwise, this race was an exercise in just soaking it all in (while, of course, suffering a great deal).
Luke Jager, probably the best quote on the World Cup even while literally shaking with exhaustion, summed it up nicely.
“It was so much worse [than expected], to be honest — I had pretty high expectations for how bad it was gonna be, and it was still just like, Oh my gosh,” he recounted, looking like he was about to keel over. “It’s something I’ll remember my whole life.”
Jager then got a little philosophical as he was herded toward a warm drink and some food: “Humans have an incredible capability to suffer. It’s good to be reminded of that every now and then.”
So, that’s that, then, for the men at least. The women race their own 50km tomorrow — U.S. starters will be Jessie Diggins, Sophia Laukli, Julia Kern, and Alayna Sonnesyn. In the meantime, though, the celebrations will begin.
“I’m gonna go find some beer and drink lots of it,” said Musgrave. “That’s what’s happening.”
You’re reading this on Nordic Insights, one man’s labor of love dedicated to publicizing American nordic skiing. Last season’s GoFundMe is literally the only reason why I turned a profit in years one and two of Nordic Insights, and in turn the only reason why there is a year three of Nordic Insights for you to be reading now: I was okay with working for very little money to get this love letter toAmerican cross-country skiing off the ground, but I didn’t want to lose money for the privilege of doing so. If you would like to support what remains a brutally shoestring operation, last season’s GoFundMe may be found here. Thank you for your consideration, and, especially, for reading.
