15 kilometres, Men

The newly crowned Olympic champion in 30 km, Sergey Savelyev, was not in the Soviet quartet for the 15 km race, as he chose to concentrate on the relay and the 50 km race. In his place was another unknown Soviet skier, 21-year old Yevgeny Belyayev. The defending Olympic Champion Sven-Åke Lundbäck was on the Swedish team, and the last World Champion on wooden skis, the 15 km gold medalist from the 1974 World Championships, Norwegian Magne Myrmo, was also among the 80 competitors, but none of them had shown signs of their former brilliance during the Olympic season. The Soviets were highly favored, and the Nordic hopes were the consistent Finn Juha Mieto and the Norwegian Ivar Formo, 1972 Olympic bronze medalist at the distance.

To everyone’s surprise, at 5 km, Arto Koivisto was in the lead, three seconds ahead of the Soviet Union’s Nikolay Bazhukov with his teammate Belyayev another three seconds behind. Another Soviet skier, Ivan Garanin, was in fourth place, and the first four had taken a clear lead over the rest of the field. At 10 km, Bazhukov had taken over the lead, four seconds ahead of Koivisto, with Belyayev third 14 seconds behind and Garanin still fourth. Formo was a distant fifth, almost 40 seconds behind Garanin. Inspired by his team leaders, Koivisto now tried hard to catch Bazhukov. Five kilometers from home they were equal, but then, in a downhill part of the track, Koivisto had to throw himself down to avoid a collision with a tourist who had found his way onto the Olympic track. He lost a lot of time, and Bazhukov finished 2.7 seconds ahead of the fast-finishing Belyayev, with Koivisto able to secure the bronze medal, 21 seconds behind the winner. Only Belyayev had a faster finish than the young American Bill Koch, who was in 15th place after 5 km, 12th after 10 km, advancing to sixth at the finish, only three seconds behind Formo, proving that his silver medal in the 30 km race three days earlier was certainly not just a stroke of good fortune. Defending champion Lundbäck ended in 30th place, and the World Champion on wooden skis from 1974, Magne Myrmo, was a distant 55th, five and a half minutes behind the winner.

The new Olympic Champion was only 22, and born in a village by the Pechora River in the Komi Republic in Northwest Russia. His first international appearance was the 1975 Holmenkollen 15 km race, ending in a modest 32nd place, 2½ minutes behind the winner Juha Mieto.