February 25, 2010 (Whistler, BC) – While the weather changed from snow to rain to snow to even sun for a short respite, Norway, Sweden, Italy, and Finland powered their way around the spectator-friendly relay course with Marit Bjoergen pulling the Norwegians into a spectacular finish as she skated across the line well ahead of the field to her third gold medal of the games and her fourth overall.
This victory gives Norway four golds, one silver and a bronze so far in cross-country skiing, and adds Bjoergen’s name to any history book on great Olympic athletes. Good thing the King of Norway was in the crowd as was the King of Sweden. Bjoergen is nearly royalty now too as she may become the “Queen of the Vancouver Games” if no other female athlete reaches her medal count.
The Norwegian team finished the 20 km event in 55:19:5, while Germany, who pushed the pace at all times, was second 24:6 seconds back. The Finns, who won their first medal in Nordic skiing and their first medal of the Games, were third 30:4 back.
After working with Germany for much of the race to push the pace, Italy faded to 4th position 45:4 back, while Sweden, after leading during the first and third leg placed a disappointing 5th 59:4 seconds back. Poland took 6th at 1:09 minutes back. The American team of Kikkan Randall, Holly Brooks, Morgan Arritola placed 12th, which was two places higher than their 2009 finish at the World Championships, while a young Canadian team of Daria Gaiazova, Perianne Jones, Chandra Crawford and Madeleine Williams placed last 4:45:5 minutes behind the flying Scandinavians.
The first 5km classic leg saw Sweden’s Anna Olsson set a 14:47 pace while Norway’s Vikeke Skofterud was right on her ski’s tails. Germany Karin Zeller was 6:6 seconds back of them at the hand-off with Randall and Italy’s Arianna Follis immediately behind. With Justyna Kowalczyk skiing the second leg for Poland, that country took the lead with Italy’s Marianna Longa chasing, nearly 30 seconds back. Finland’s Virpi Kuitunen and France’s Karine Laurent Philippot were 6 seconds back of Longa, while Norway’s Therese Johaug chased on her own, at 46:2 seconds back.
Kowalczyk’s teammate Paulina Maciuszek couldn’t keep the pace and dropped to 13th spot while Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla, who has won two medals already at these games, powered her team into first place with Finland’s Ritta-Liisa Roponen 13.2 seconds back and Germany’s Miriam Gossner chasing her 27:0 back. Kallas’ time of 12:25 proved to be the fastest 5km skate of the event. Once second back was Norway’s Kristin Stoermer Steira, who closed the gap between the Swedes and Norwegians by 18 seconds.
Sweden’s anchor Ida Ingemarsdotter was no match for the Bjoergen train, and neither were Germany’s Claudia Nystad or Finland’s Aino-Kaisa Saarinen as the Norwegian caught and then dropped each skier. As she skied into the last 200 metres, Bjoergen was given a Norwegian flag. She came across the line triumphant in putting Norway back on the gold medal podium after its drought in Torino.
“It has been so great, I wouldn’t dream of one gold medal and now I have three, so this has been a wonderful Games,” said Bjoergen. “I knew Germany and Finland were behind and they were strong teams but at the first climb I knew I had five seconds. It was a big day for me and the last lap was awesome. I’m flying.” Literally she did fly as she jumped once she came over the finish line.
Bjoergen’s teammate Softerud, who was their lead-off skier, added “I was the first lap. It was important to be leading the group and I managed to do that.” Johaug, who was the second leg, said it helped having Kowalczyk in her race. “I think I could do a really good race today and Justyna is very fast and I keep up, so I’m very happy with my performance.”
Third leg Stoermer-Steira said she felt she needed to “go hard and race fast all the way to give Marit some seconds in her final lap. I struggled in the last 2.5 km but most importantly was to get some seconds between Germany, Sweden and Finland. It was a real team victory.”
Germany’s Nystad, who won the gold medal in the team sprint with Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle just days earlier, felt much like the Norwegians about her silver medal. “I’m proud of my girls and me. We had a good ski tactic, the skis were good, the girls were good, the weather was not so good, but we are very happy.” At the start of her leg Nystad decided to draft behind Saarinen of Finland for the first 2.5km and then when she felt the Finn faltered on a downhill corner, “tried to make it tactical to save my energy. When I realized the Finnish girl was a little bit tired, I tried to attack and I hoped that no one would follow.”
When asked about winning two medals so far at these Games, Sachenbacher-Stehle replied, “It’s absolutely crazy. I did not expect this. In the beginning it did not run too well for us, but then we had the success in the team event and now even this. Crazy. We didn’t have anything to lose. The first gold was absolutely unexpected and now this.” Sachenbacher-Stehle, while not on the German Olympic Biathlon Team, is an excellent biathlete and still competes in both sports. In Germany biathlon is very popular, but she added, “I think that everybody who watched the cross-country competitions here has seen that there is way more suspense in cross-country than in biathlon. But they’ve both got their minuses and pluses, so we’ll see.
Bronze medalist Aino-Kaisa Saarinen said things worked well for the Finnish team. “This was an exciting race. I tried to fight for the second place but the Germans were a little bit better. We had a good glide on our skis. It was an amazing day and anything can happen in the relay.”
The women’s team saved Finland from the embarrassment of being a Nordic country with no medals at the Olympics. “It’s been a long time [since Finland won] an Olympic medal in cross-country skiing – twenty-two years. We did not have that good a start for cross-country skiing. It was a good fight and hard-fought to win a medal.”
The American team was unavailable for comment, but Chandra Crawford, who skied the third leg for Canada said “this is the exact four girls who raced for Canada at the 2003 Junior World Championships in Sweden. We’ve been through up’s and down’s for seven years. Hopefully we’ll be together in 2014.”
But clearly with the departure of Sara Renner after her 30-km race on Saturday and Crawford’s string of injuries taking her out of competition for over a year, the women’s program lacks depth and Crawford acknowledges that. “We’re going to have to build more of a training group like the men, or like Beckie and Sara did. We’re going to have to do some hard planning to get ourselves on the right page.”
Full results here.
Results (brief)
1. Norway (Vibeke W Skofterud, Therese Johaug, Kristin Stoermer Steira, Marit Bjoergen) 55:19.5
2. Germany (Katrin Zeller, Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle, Miriam Gossner, Claudia Nystad) +24.6
3. Finland (Pirjo Muranen, Virpi Kuitunen, Riitta-Liisa Roponen, Aino-Kaisa Saarinen) +30.4
12. USA (Kikkan Randall, Holly Brooks, Morgan Arritola, Caitlin Compton) +3:38.0
16. Canada (Daria Gaiazova, Perianne Jones, Chandra Crawford, Madeleine Williams) +4:45.5