Sprint (Classical), Men

Just two days after his disappointing tenth place in the skiathlon, Norway’s new cross-country star Johannes Høsflot Klæbo won an expected gold medal in the men’s sprint in the classical style. The heavily favored 21-year-old secured first place in the shortest cross-country distance, to become the youngest ever Olympic cross-country gold medalist. In the final, Klæbo was in a dominant position at the final climb, and held on to the lead in a superb manner. The 2017 world champion Federico Pellegrino from Italy, was 1.3 seconds behind, but took silver after beating Aleksandr Bolshunov, Olympic Athlete from Russia, in a photo finish by just two hundreds of a second. Although Klæbo was only third in the 2017 World’s, he dominated the last two seasons of the World Cup in the classical, as well as in the freestyle. The three other finalists, Pål Golberg from Norway, Oskar Svensson from Sweden and Ristomatti Hakola from Finland, never seriously challenged the top three finishers.

Of the six finalists at the 2017 World Championships, all three competing in PyeongChang – Klæbo, Pellegrino and Hakola - appeared in the final again. Silver medalist Sergey Ustyugov from Russia had been suspended. Hakola clocked the fastest time in the qualification with Klæbo second. Maybe the most prominent skier, who did not qualify for the top 30 to advance to the PyeongChang quarter-finals was Canadian Alex Harvey in joint 32nd place. Klæbo proceeded to win both his quarter-final and semi-final heats. The only major clash came in heat five of the quarter-finals involving American Simi Hamilton, Finland’s Lauri Vuorinen and Russian Aleksey Vitsenko leaving only three contenders for two spots in the semi-final. The race was another disappointment for Sweden whose athletes again went home without a medal, and their potential favorite, and Sochi silver medalist, Teodor Peterson only fifth in the semi-final.