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

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Men's 50 kilometre freestyle
at the XXIV Olympic Winter Games
Cross country skiing pictogram.svg
Venue Kuyangshu Nordic Center and Biathlon Center,
Taizicheng
Date19 February
Competitors60 from 32 nations
Winning time1:11:32.7
Medalists
Gold medal icon.svg Alexander Bolshunov Olympic flag.svg  ROC
Silver medal icon.svg Ivan Yakimushkin Olympic flag.svg  ROC
Bronze medal icon.svg Simen Hegstad Krüger Flag of Norway.svg  Norway
  2018
2026  

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.

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

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

Results

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]

RankBibNameCountryTimeDeficit
Gold medal icon.svg2 Alexander Bolshunov Olympic flag.svg  ROC 1:11:32.7
Silver medal icon.svg3 Ivan Yakimushkin Olympic flag.svg  ROC 1:11:38.2+5.5
Bronze medal icon.svg4 Simen Hegstad Krüger Flag of Norway.svg  Norway 1:11:39.7+7.0
45 Artem Maltsev Olympic flag.svg  ROC 1:11:43.4+10.7
57 Sjur Røthe Flag of Norway.svg  Norway 1:11:48.5+15.8
66 Denis Spitsov Olympic flag.svg  ROC 1:11:58.9+26.2
714 Clément Parisse Flag of France.svg  France 1:12:01.5+28.8
827 Scott Patterson Flag of the United States.svg  United States 1:12:06.6+33.9
922 William Poromaa Flag of Sweden.svg  Sweden 1:12:29.1+56.4
1015 Maurice Manificat Flag of France.svg  France 1:12:30.3+57.6
1120 Roman Furger Flag of Switzerland.svg  Switzerland 1:13:24.8+1:52.1
1212 Andrew Musgrave Flag of the United Kingdom.svg  Great Britain 1:13:29.3+1:56.6
138 Hans Christer Holund Flag of Norway.svg  Norway 1:13:30.2+1:57.5
1417 Dario Cologna Flag of Switzerland.svg  Switzerland 1:13:31.1+1:58.4
1531 Jules Lapierre Flag of France.svg  France 1:13:50.3+2:17.6
1618 Jens Burman Flag of Sweden.svg  Sweden 1:14:22.3+2:49.6
1725 Jason Rüesch Flag of Switzerland.svg  Switzerland 1:14:48.4+3:15.7
1828 Giandomenico Salvadori Flag of Italy.svg  Italy 1:14:49.1+3:16.4
1921 Perttu Hyvärinen Flag of Finland.svg  Finland 1:14:49.5+3:16.8
2016 Jonas Dobler Flag of Germany.svg  Germany 1:14:50.0+3:17.3
2133 Imanol Rojo Flag of Spain.svg  Spain 1:14:50.5+3:17.8
2234 Candide Pralong Flag of Switzerland.svg  Switzerland 1:14:50.5+3:17.8
2338 Snorri Einarsson Flag of Iceland.svg  Iceland 1:14:51.6+3:18.9
2426 Naoto Baba Flag of Japan.svg  Japan 1:14:52.7+3:20.0
2524 Irineu Esteve Altimiras Flag of Andorra.svg  Andorra 1:15:09.8+3:37.1
2619 Florian Notz Flag of Germany.svg  Germany 1:15:32.2+3:59.5
2746 Olivier Léveillé Flag of Canada (Pantone).svg  Canada 1:15:54.3+4:21.6
2837 Remi Lindholm Flag of Finland.svg  Finland 1:15:55.6+4:22.9
2930 Thomas Maloney Westgård Flag of Ireland.svg  Ireland 1:15:59.0+4:26.3
3035 Dominik Bury Flag of Poland.svg  Poland 1:16:01.0+4:28.3
3110 Friedrich Moch Flag of Germany.svg  Germany 1:16:03.6+4:30.9
3232 Paolo Ventura Flag of Italy.svg  Italy 1:16:05.4+4:32.7
3311 Lucas Bögl Flag of Germany.svg  Germany 1:16:11.5+4:38.8
3423 Adrien Backscheider Flag of France.svg  France 1:16:16.6+4:43.9
3542 Rémi Drolet Flag of Canada (Pantone).svg  Canada 1:16:27.1+4:54.4
3647 Alvar Johannes Alev Flag of Estonia.svg  Estonia 1:16:28.4+4:55.7
3736 Petr Knop Flag of the Czech Republic.svg  Czech Republic 1:16:35.0+5:02.3
3813 Calle Halfvarsson Flag of Sweden.svg  Sweden 1:16:47.6+5:14.9
3929 Leo Johansson Flag of Sweden.svg  Sweden 1:17:16.5+5:43.8
4044 Ján Koristek Flag of Slovakia.svg  Slovakia 1:17:26.0+5:53.3
4139 Chen Degen Flag of the People's Republic of China.svg  China 1:18:14.1+6:41.4
4240 Adam Fellner Flag of the Czech Republic.svg  Czech Republic 1:18:14.3+6:41.6
4343 Yevgeniy Velichko Flag of Kazakhstan.svg  Kazakhstan 1:18:43.8+7:11.1
4441 Raimo Vīgants Flag of Latvia.svg  Latvia 1:18:55.2+7:22.5
4551 Hadesi Badelihan Flag of the People's Republic of China.svg  China 1:19:45.9+8:13.2
4645 Wang Qiang Flag of the People's Republic of China.svg  China 1:19:53.5+8:20.8
4756 Thibaut de Marre Flag of Belgium (civil).svg  Belgium 1:19:53.8+8:21.1
4850 Liu Rongsheng Flag of the People's Republic of China.svg  China 1:19:58.5+8:25.8
4961 Mark Chanloung Flag of Thailand.svg  Thailand 1:20:11.5+8:38.8
5048 Mateusz Haratyk Flag of Poland.svg  Poland 1:20:24.0+8:51.3
5158 Seve de Campo Flag of Australia.svg  Australia 1:21:02.5+9:29.8
5249 Strahinja Erić Flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina.svg  Bosnia and Herzegovina 1:21:07.6+9:34.9
5355 Phillip Bellingham Flag of Australia.svg  Australia 1:23:03.8+11:31.1
5454 Roberts Slotiņš Flag of Latvia.svg  Latvia 1:24:46.4+13:13.7
5557 Ádám Kónya Flag of Hungary.svg  Hungary 1:25:21.4+13:48.7
5653 Stavre Jada Flag of North Macedonia.svg  North Macedonia 1:25:41.8+14:09.1
5760 Marko Skender Flag of Croatia.svg  Croatia 1:30:34.5+19:01.8
5859 Manex Silva Flag of Brazil.svg  Brazil 1:33:11.8+21:39.1
5952 Apostolos Angelis Flag of Greece.svg  Greece 1:34:04.2+22:31.5
1 Johannes Høsflot Klæbo Flag of Norway.svg  Norway Did not finish
9 Michal Novák Flag of the Czech Republic.svg  Czech Republic Did not start

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References

  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.