Cross-country skiing at the 2022 Winter Olympics – Men's 50 kilometre freestyle

The men's 50 kilometre freestyle competition in cross-country skiing at the 2022 Winter Olympics was held on 19 February, at the Kuyangshu Nordic Center and Biathlon Center in Taizicheng.[1] Alexander Bolshunov, representing the Russian Olympic Committee, won the event, and Ivan Yakimushkin, also of ROC, won silver, his first Olympic medal. Simen Hegstad Krüger of Norway won the bronze medal, competing in his first and only race at these Games after an illness. Bolshunov became only the second skier who won 30 km and 50 km at the same Olympics, after Russian Nikolay Zimyatov accomplished this in 1980.

Men's 50 kilometre freestyle
at the XXIV Olympic Winter Games
VenueKuyangshu Nordic Center and Biathlon Center,
Taizicheng
Date19 February
Competitors60 from 32 nations
Winning time1:11:32.7
Medalists
1st place, gold medalist(s) Alexander Bolshunov  ROC
2nd place, silver medalist(s) Ivan Yakimushkin  ROC
3rd place, bronze medalist(s) Simen Hegstad Krüger  Norway
← 2018
2026 →

This event was delayed by an hour and shortened to 28.4 km (17.65 mi) due to high winds and freezing temperature.[2] Temperature was −9 °F (−23 °C) or −25 °F (−32 °C) with windchill, while wind gusts varied within 17-30 mph (27-48 km/h), according to the local weather.[3] Athletes complained that the weather conditions were too severe, but many also criticized the decision to shorten the race.[4] 28th place finisher, Finland’s Remi Lindholm, suffered a frozen penis as a result of the extreme conditions.[5] The decision means that the gap between "proper" Olympic men's 50 km freestyle races will be at least sixteen years from Sochi 2014 to the 2030 Olympics. It also caused the rare occurrence that the women's 30-kilometre race, held the following day, was the longest cross-country skiing race in the Beijing Olympics both in course length and duration, despite women's distance races usually being significantly shorter than men's.

Summary

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The 50 km (31.07 mi) distance event alternates between classical style and free style skiing in succeeding Olympics, and in 2022 it was the free style event. The defending champion was Iivo Niskanen, who declined to compete due to favoring classical style. The silver medalist, Alexander Bolshunov, qualified for the Olympics but the bronze medalist, Andrey Larkov, did not. The overall leader of the 2021–22 FIS Cross-Country World Cup before the Olympics was Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, and the distance leader was Bolshunov. The season was dominated by the Norwegians and Russians, who together took 20 podium places in distance events out of 24, and three more podium places were taken by Niskanen. Emil Iversen was the 2021 World Champion in 50 km classical.

At 15 km (9.32 mi), a group of 14 skiers were within 6 seconds of each other and had a gap of 6 seconds to the next pursuer and almost half a minute to the rest of the skiers in the race. This group included all four ROC skiers. At 21 km (13.05 mi), only 10 skiers remained in the leading group. Even when they were entering the stadium, Bolshunov, Artem Maltsev, Yakimushkin, Sjur Røthe, and Krueger were skiing in a group. Bolshunov was the fastest at the finish line.

Qualification

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Results

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The race was scheduled for 14:00, but the start was delayed to 15:00 and the race distance shortened to 28.4 km due to inclement weather.[6]

Rank Bib Name Country Time Deficit
  2 Alexander Bolshunov   ROC 1:11:32.7
  3 Ivan Yakimushkin   ROC 1:11:38.2 +5.5
  4 Simen Hegstad Krüger   Norway 1:11:39.7 +7.0
4 5 Artem Maltsev   ROC 1:11:43.4 +10.7
5 7 Sjur Røthe   Norway 1:11:48.5 +15.8
6 6 Denis Spitsov   ROC 1:11:58.9 +26.2
7 14 Clément Parisse   France 1:12:01.5 +28.8
8 27 Scott Patterson   United States 1:12:06.6 +33.9
9 22 William Poromaa   Sweden 1:12:29.1 +56.4
10 15 Maurice Manificat   France 1:12:30.3 +57.6
11 20 Roman Furger   Switzerland 1:13:24.8 +1:52.1
12 12 Andrew Musgrave   Great Britain 1:13:29.3 +1:56.6
13 8 Hans Christer Holund   Norway 1:13:30.2 +1:57.5
14 17 Dario Cologna   Switzerland 1:13:31.1 +1:58.4
15 31 Jules Lapierre   France 1:13:50.3 +2:17.6
16 18 Jens Burman   Sweden 1:14:22.3 +2:49.6
17 25 Jason Rüesch   Switzerland 1:14:48.4 +3:15.7
18 28 Giandomenico Salvadori   Italy 1:14:49.1 +3:16.4
19 21 Perttu Hyvärinen   Finland 1:14:49.5 +3:16.8
20 16 Jonas Dobler   Germany 1:14:50.0 +3:17.3
21 33 Imanol Rojo   Spain 1:14:50.5 +3:17.8
22 34 Candide Pralong   Switzerland 1:14:50.5 +3:17.8
23 38 Snorri Einarsson   Iceland 1:14:51.6 +3:18.9
24 26 Naoto Baba   Japan 1:14:52.7 +3:20.0
25 24 Irineu Esteve Altimiras   Andorra 1:15:09.8 +3:37.1
26 19 Florian Notz   Germany 1:15:32.2 +3:59.5
27 46 Olivier Léveillé   Canada 1:15:54.3 +4:21.6
28 37 Remi Lindholm   Finland 1:15:55.6 +4:22.9
29 30 Thomas Maloney Westgård   Ireland 1:15:59.0 +4:26.3
30 35 Dominik Bury   Poland 1:16:01.0 +4:28.3
31 10 Friedrich Moch   Germany 1:16:03.6 +4:30.9
32 32 Paolo Ventura   Italy 1:16:05.4 +4:32.7
33 11 Lucas Bögl   Germany 1:16:11.5 +4:38.8
34 23 Adrien Backscheider   France 1:16:16.6 +4:43.9
35 42 Rémi Drolet   Canada 1:16:27.1 +4:54.4
36 47 Alvar Johannes Alev   Estonia 1:16:28.4 +4:55.7
37 36 Petr Knop   Czech Republic 1:16:35.0 +5:02.3
38 13 Calle Halfvarsson   Sweden 1:16:47.6 +5:14.9
39 29 Leo Johansson   Sweden 1:17:16.5 +5:43.8
40 44 Ján Koristek   Slovakia 1:17:26.0 +5:53.3
41 39 Chen Degen   China 1:18:14.1 +6:41.4
42 40 Adam Fellner   Czech Republic 1:18:14.3 +6:41.6
43 43 Yevgeniy Velichko   Kazakhstan 1:18:43.8 +7:11.1
44 41 Raimo Vīgants   Latvia 1:18:55.2 +7:22.5
45 51 Hadesi Badelihan   China 1:19:45.9 +8:13.2
46 45 Wang Qiang   China 1:19:53.5 +8:20.8
47 56 Thibaut de Marre   Belgium 1:19:53.8 +8:21.1
48 50 Liu Rongsheng   China 1:19:58.5 +8:25.8
49 61 Mark Chanloung   Thailand 1:20:11.5 +8:38.8
50 48 Mateusz Haratyk   Poland 1:20:24.0 +8:51.3
51 58 Seve de Campo   Australia 1:21:02.5 +9:29.8
52 49 Strahinja Erić   Bosnia and Herzegovina 1:21:07.6 +9:34.9
53 55 Phillip Bellingham   Australia 1:23:03.8 +11:31.1
54 54 Roberts Slotiņš   Latvia 1:24:46.4 +13:13.7
55 57 Ádám Kónya   Hungary 1:25:21.4 +13:48.7
56 53 Stavre Jada   North Macedonia 1:25:41.8 +14:09.1
57 60 Marko Skender   Croatia 1:30:34.5 +19:01.8
58 59 Manex Silva   Brazil 1:33:11.8 +21:39.1
59 52 Apostolos Angelis   Greece 1:34:04.2 +22:31.5
1 Johannes Høsflot Klæbo   Norway Did not finish
9 Michal Novák   Czech Republic Did not start

References

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  1. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 February 2022. Retrieved 10 December 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. ^ O'connor, Philip (19 February 2022). "Cross-country skiing-Men's 50km race delayed, shortened to 28.4 km due to high winds". Reuters. Retrieved 19 February 2022.
  3. ^ "Minus-33 with wind chill? 'Gusty day' wreaks havoc on skiing events at Beijing Olympics". USA Today. It varied, but competition temperatures hovered around -9 Fahrenheit, but with the wind it felt like -25. Wind gusts varied from 17-30 mph, according to the weather app from Chongli.
  4. ^ Musgrave, Andrew [@musgraveandrew] (19 February 2022). "FIS have just shortened the Olympic 50km to a 28km because it's a bit cold and windy. I don't see that that will make it any warmer or less windy.🤷♂️ What a f@*king joke!" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 21 February 2022. Retrieved 22 February 2022 – via Twitter.
  5. ^ "Winter Olympics: Finnish skier Remi Lindholm suffers frozen penis in men's 50km cross-country". BBC. Perhaps the worst part of it all for Finland's Remi Lindholm is that it was not even the first time it had happened.
  6. ^ "Final results" (PDF). Data.fis-ski.com. Retrieved 19 February 2022.