15 kilometres, Men

Defending champion Thomas Wassberg chose to save himself for the 50 km race and did not participate. His great rival from the 1980 games, Juha Mieto, who lost to Wassberg in 1980 by the closest possible margin, one one hundredth of a second, was present. The Finnish veteran, now 34, was still hoping for an Olympic gold medal. Another Finn, Harri Kirvesniemi, was in the lead after 5.8 km, six seconds ahead of the new 22-year-old Swedish cross-country star Gunde Svan. The Finns were doing well, Aki Karvonen in third position, only two seconds behind Svan, and Mieto followed in fourth place, ahead of the 30 km winner Nikolay Zimyatov. At the next intermediate checkpoint, Svan had taken over the lead, but it was very close. Kirvesniemi was in second and Karvonen in third place, only five and seven seconds behind the leader. Mieto was still fourth, 20 seconds behind. Zimyatov had slowed down to eighth, 50 seconds behind the young Swedish leader. In the final stages of the race Svan skied brilliantly, maintaining the Swedish tradition and secured his country’s sixth Olympic gold medal at the distance. Karvonen finished stronger than Kirvesniemi and was rewarded with the silver medal, Mieto once again missed the podium in fourth place. The Norwegian Ove Aunli finished with the fifth best time, but was disqualified for using skating strokes over the last 200 m.

In 1984, Gunde Svan was at the dawn of a great career which would last for seven more seasons. He remains, thru 2009, the youngest male Olympic cross-country champion of all time, being 22 years, 1 month and 1 day old when he won the 1984 15 km race. Closest to him is Thomas Alsgaard from Norway, who won the 1994 30 km race when he was 22 years, 1 month and 4 days old.