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By Lukas Sæther Pigott
Norwegian winter sport is hitting its stride, as the nation had already surpassed their own record for gold medals in a single Olympics with their 17th on Friday. In addition to that, they went into today’s 50-kilometer mass start classic race as favorites yet again.
While some predicted that the Norwegian men might sweep all the podiums in the individual races in Val di Fiemme, this had not yet happened. Thanks to an emerging French star, an Italian veteran, and two Americans putting on a show, this has thankfully been an Olympics with much more to talk about than just Norway, Norway, Norway.
Today however, Norway, Norway, Norway was precisely how it played out, with Johannes Høsflot Klæbo yet again on the top of the podium, followed this time by Martin Løwstrøm Nyenget and Emil Iversen.
“I’m lost for words” was what pretty much everyone of the many members of “Team Klæbo” were telling the Norwegian media after his impressive win, along with giving the impression that this was against the odds
“Just look at the start list: there are a lot of people struggling with illness. There is a big toll on the body in an Olympics like this” Håkon Klæbo told NRK.
With the likes of Frederico Pellegrino, Ben Ogden, William Poromaa, Iivo Niskanen, and Harald Østberg Amundsen either not starting or not finishing today, sickness has been a struggle for many during the Games.
Despite doubts surrounding whether Klæbo could make it to the start today, when he did he focused on his goal and completed it, but not without a cost. Racing every event has to take a toll on the body and the lungs.
A clearly affected Klæbo told NRK after the race: “I didn’t feel like it would be possible to be able to replicate what happened in Trondheim,” before adding, “I think my body has gone into defence mode.”
“I don’t know. I don’t have words for it. I’m so tired, I don’t feel like myself,” he continued. “I felt like it went so fast today, it became the worst possible race for me.”
The one who made it the worst possible race for Klæbo was his teammate Nyenget, who did exactly what he had to do — make the race as hard as possible. Try to shake off Klæbo before the final hill.
“A silver is also pretty good” was a slightly disappointed Nyenget’s revelation after his final Olympic race.
When asked about Klæbo he said, “He does it time and time again.”
“He does all the distances and there is a lot happening around” Nyenget said, referring to all the media and other obligations that follow winning medals at the Olympics. “All credit to him. I tried on almost every hill, so I have to be happy.”
An elated Iversen, who managed to take an Individual Olympic medal against the odds, was his usual self with the media after the race.
“I’m very tired: It’s been so crazy.” He noted that, “There’s a mile down to the rest!” as well as, “I think we got some TV time today.” He seemed almost in disbelief at what they had managed to do. “I’m so thankful for everyone and proud of myself,” he added. “Nobody regrets being a part of Team Ivers!”
“I’ve managed the impossible,” Iversen summed it up. “I’ve come back from the depths, and nobody can take that away from me.”
With roughly six inches of wet new snow falling on Thursday, entirely new conditions awaited the 62 skiers ready to take on the last race of the Olympics.
Ben Ogden had to pull out of the race due to sickness a few hours before his planned start. That meant that Gus Schumacher and Hunter Wonders would be the only Americans taking on a tough 50km race.
(As for the rest of the roster: the sprinters, Jack Young and JC Schoonmaker, had already left the venue; John Steel Hagenbuch was doing EISA races in New England for Dartmouth; and Zak Ketterson and Zanden McMullen caught the same cold as Ogden. That left just the APU pairing of Schumacher and Wonders.)
Already after a few minutes of racing, one of the biggest pre-race favorites, Nyenget, set up the pace and quickly got a gap of 8 seconds. Klæbo decided that he couldn’t let him get a gap, despite there being 48km left to race, and chased him down, stringing out the field and opening up gaps here and there while doing so.
Despite Nyenget getting brought back shortly after, the pace injection in the field set the tone for the rest of the race — it was going to be hard.
With 7.2km and the first lap completed there were around 20 skiers with contact to the leading group. Schumacher was comfortably in the group while Wonders was just losing contact.
Early on in the race it became evident that there were substantial differences in the skis, with the Norwegians, unsurprisingly, having seemingly extremely good skis while others were struggling both up and down the hills.
On the first big hill of the second lap Canadian Thomas Stephens set the pace with Iivo Niskanen taking over and setting a half-hard pace for the rest of the 7.2-kilometer lap.
Despite being sick in the last few days, Niskanen was still considered by many the best chance of someone capable of challenging the Norwegians. Having impressively won Olympic gold in each of the last three Games, today was his chance to continue his streak.
Unfortunately for him, that was not to be. On the third lap Nyenget again set the pace on the hill out of the stadium with only Iversen, Klæbo, and Savelii Korostolev able to keep up. Just as Frenchman Victor Lovera was about to catch up to the leading quartet, the camera cut to Niskanen stopping and it became quickly apparent that there would be a DNF behind his name on the results list.
Immediately afterward the screen cut to Amundsen, who had also called it a day after struggling with sickness, a mere 30 meters up the hill from Niskanen.
A few minutes later, the camera caught a shot of them discussing how to get back to the stadium. Luckily Norwegian assistant women’s trainer and ski legend himself, Pål Gunnar Mikkelsplass, was there to send them in the right direction.
With a group of five now in front, a trio of Andrew Musgrave (Great Britain) and Frenchmen Mathis Desloges and Theo Schely took up the chase. They were joined by Schumacher and Antoine Cyr, plus Arsi Ruuskanen and Florian Notz.
In the front group, Korostelev, in his first ever official 50km race, was visibly struggling with both grip and glide on his skis. On the final hills of the third lap, Victor Lovera had to let a gap open up, and shortly after so did Korostolev.
“I am dead. Just three words.” was what the 22-year-old Russian skier told NRK after the race.
Korostelev skied a strong race to finish in fifth, but clearly struggled in the later stages of the race: He lost 39 seconds and fourth place to Theo Schely in the last kilometer alone.
“Maybe the hardest race,” Korostelev said afterwards. “I don’t think I have ever walked to the finish before. I would like to do the same as Amundsen and Iivo (Niskanen). The three Norwegians were so strong. Then I just walk to finish.”
What can you say about Klæbo?
“Just two words. No, just one: Gold.”
With four out of seven laps completed the Norwegian trio, who had by this point a lead of over a minute on the field, had a chance to go in and change skis, but Nyenget went straight through out into a new lap without a ski exchange.
Talking to the media after the race Nyenget explained his decision saying, “I didn’t want to take a risk with switching skis as I had a more aggressive klister underneath my second pair.” He added, “Everyone wanted to change, but I tried to go first through, and hoped that someone else would so that I could see how they were. But that didn’t happen.”
Behind the Norwegian trio everyone else changed skis, meaning hopefully better grip and better glide.
After a lap of Nyenget setting a steady pace he again refused to change skis, with Iversen and Klæbo not daring to change skis and risk having worse skis while Nyenget got a gap.
On the penultimate lap Klæbo and Iversen were seemingly struggling to keep on Nyenget, but managed to stay with Nyenget who again set the pace the entire lap.
Into the last lap Nyenget again went first through with the others following, meaning that all three Norwegians would ski the entire 50km on the same skis.
Nyenget saved his energy for the steepest hill of the course. The seventh and final time up the long climb, he upped the pace. Iversen, finally broken, fell off the back here, and could only watch as his two compatriots opened up a gap.
Coming into the last kilometer Nyenget led into the final hill, Zorzi Hill, named after local legend Cristian Zorzi, but yet again, Klæbo put in an overly convincing application to have it called Klæbo Hill. He pulled away and soloed into the finish to make it a historic six out of six golds in Val di Fiemme this month.
His 12th Olympic gold and 12th global championship gold in a row was won with a time of 2:06:44.8, with Nyenget nine seconds back and Iversen 30 seconds adrift
Theo Schely finished fourth, 2:37 behind, ahead of Korostelev. The Russian national, who is competing here as a neutral athlete, was followed by Andrew Musgrave, Ruuskanen, Lovera, and Gustaf Berglund (Sweden).
“I would have loved a top ten, but I gave it everything” Tony Cyr (bib 19, above) told Nordic Insights after a solid race that ended in an 11th place for him. “It’s such a hard course, just tough conditions,” he continued, clearly still feeling the hurt. “I was icing quite a bit. I just went above and beyond this race.”
What makes this course so hard?
While it’s not the first time this question has been put to an athlete in the mixed zone, it’s always interesting to get new insights.
“When you do the Zorzi climb, lap the stadium, and then all the way back to the top, that’s like a six-minute effort. You don’t see that often on a World Cup or like a championship course. Even China [Beijing Olympics], one of the toughest courses I’ve ever skied, didn’t have that long of an effort.”
Not far behind Cyr, in 13th place and 7:26 behind Klæbo, Gus Schumacher crossed the finish line for the last time in an Olympics which has been a successful outing for him, taking home a silver medal from the team sprint and negotiating a good deal of mental strain across both good days and bad.
“It’s the best 50km, conditions-wise, I think I’ve ever done,” he told reporters in the mixed zone. “That’s not saying much, because Trondheim, Planica, and Oberstdorf were brutal. Today it was a little tricky, like there were dry spots and wetter spots, but in general it was good skiing.”
What is it like to wake up on the last day and realize that you have to close things out with a 50km now?
“I just don’t really think about it,” was his simple answer. “I just sort of like to go through the motions and try not to warm up too much, basically. I find it’s easiest for me to come with a fight when I don’t think about what’s about to happen.”
“I definitely sort of feel like my energy waned halfway through,” Schumacher noted, “and it was a little hard to keep pushing and skiing well, but I feel like I can understand that: iI’s been a pretty heavy mental load the last two weeks.”
Despite his recent effort, he was able to pull out a metaphor for his last races.
“If I’ve got a flame, it was ripping a couple days ago, and halfway through the race it felt like a little candle,” said the 25-year-old. “I was just trying to ski as best I could but it was hard to fight.”
When asked how it was coming into the finish alone, not having to fight for places, he said, “It was nice to have a chill finish to the Olympics. At the top of the hill it was definitely relieving to feel like I’m done and to sort of acknowledge these people that have been cheering for two weeks straight.”
Canadian Thomas Stephen ended up crossing the line in 17th, another strong performance from the Canadian. Just ahead of him was another Canadian, Joe Davies from Pemberton, B.C., now racing for Team GB.
“It was hot at the start. Unfortunately, it just split up right on that first lap and I wasn’t ready for it” Davies told Nordic Insights, referencing Nyenget’s attack on the first hill that strung the field out.
“Maybe burned a couple matches early on, but then settled in quite nicely with Gustav Berglund for the middle part of the race,” he analyzed.
“I was feeling quite good, tried to give it a push on lap six, and then just the cramps came. Unfortunately, there’s nothing I could do, and I was just trying to wiggle my way to the finish and not lose too many places.”
Someone else who also struggled with cramps was Hunter Wonders.
“I’m alive. Barely.” were his first words to media after the race.
“I didn’t think I was going to finish there for a little while. It was definitely the most boxed I’ve ever been in a race.”
What kind of race was it for you?
“I knew it was gonna be hard. Lap three I was like, Okay, I’m feeling this. I’m gonna try and settle in. And it just got so much progressively harder each lap.”
It was clearly not just Korostelev struggling with skis today. “Early on my skis were definitely not very fast and I was getting dropped on the long downhills,” Wonders said. “I had a pretty good kick, and after the ski exchange my skis were a lot more comparable in speed, but I was just fatigued.”
As for his cramps he said, “I’ve never had so many cramps in my life, and it was all firing at different times: the hip flexors, the hamstrings, the quads, the forearms, the biceps and triceps, just everything at different times. Even in the tuck: every time I brought my arms up, it was something else.”
“It never looked very pretty out there, it obviously wasn’t what I was looking for, but I completed a race that four years ago I was really jumping at the bit to be able to compete in at the Olympics.”
If this had not been the Olympics 50km, would you have thought about just saying, That’s enough?
“Probably not,” Wonders said. “I’ve never dropped out of a ski race and I don’t want to unless I’m vomiting on the side of the trail. That’s something I’ve been able to pride myself on.”
Summing up his Olympics he said, “I’m proud that I was able to make it here in the season, stay healthy for the last two weeks. There was some rough go of it for the team in the last week, and I was just under a lot of stress after kind of bookending the Olympics” by racing in the skiathlon on day two and not again until today.
With Wonders spending the middle twelve days of the Games not racing, it must have been a long two weeks watching teammates bring home medals while you have to stay healthy and keep focused on the goal.
“In the very beginning and the very end, it just puts a lot of pressure” on you, he said. “The whole two weeks of sitting in your hotel room trying to do everything right, and you just never know. I’m happy that I was able to stay healthy enough to race” was his conclusion. That plus:
“It’s time to recover.”
Soon it will be time to recover for all, but first the women have their first ever Olympic 50km. Jessie Diggins is starting in bib number 1 in her last ever Olympic race. She will be joined by the APU trio of Rosie Brennan, Kendall Kramer, and Hailey Swirbul in the closing event of the Olympics. The Swedes trot out Frida Karlsson, of course, along with Ebba Andersson, Jonna Sundling, and Emma Ribom. Other likely top contenders include Teresa Stadlober of Austria, Astrid Øyre Slind and Heidi Weng of Norway, and Kerttu Niskanen of Finland.
Update: Karlsson is sick and will not be racing.
Stay tuned, 10 a.m. Sunday CET time.
You’re reading this on Nordic Insights, one man’s labor of love dedicated to publicizing American skiing. We started with nothing and now we’re at the Olympics. You can read more about our first three years here, and donate to the Olympics fund here. Thank you for consideration, and, especially, for reading.
