50 kilometres, Men

Almost everybody expected the 50 km race, the last of the cross country skiing events, would be a duel between the two great Nordic skiing heroes, Sweden’s Sixten Jernberg and Finland’s Veikko Hakulinen, with the Soviet skiers as the most dangerous opponents. The silver medalist from the 30 km race, Rolf Rämgård, and Finland’s Kalevi Hämäläinen, World Champion at 30 km 1958, were also counted among the outsiders. Norway’s hopes relied on the winner of the 50 km at Holmenkollen in 1959, 26-year old Sverre Stensheim, but Stensheim, with his disappointing 20th place in the 30 km race, was apparently feeling uncomfortable in the Californian highlands, as parts of the track were over 2000 m above sea level.

Jernberg was in front at the 10 km mark, 23 seconds ahead of Hämäläinen, with Hakulinen and Rämgård in third place, another 10 seconds behind. Nikolay Anikin followed closely in fifth place. But at the halfway point, Jernberg was struggling and had dropped down to fourth place, over a minute behind the leading Hämäläinen. Hakulinen had advanced to second place 22 seconds back, and Rämgård was still in third position, closely behind Hakulinen. At 35 km Hämäläinen had widened the gap down to Hakulinen to 34 seconds, and Rämgård could not keep up with pace of the Finnish duo. Jernberg had dropped further down to sixth place, now over three and a half minutes behind the leader. In the last 15 km, Hakulinen tried hard to catch Hämäläinen, but the latter fought bravely and was able to cling to the lead. At the finish he was 20 seconds ahead of Hakulinen, as the Finnish duo had the fastest finish of all. Rämgård, in spite of losing two more minutes to the two Finns, secured the bronze medal ahead of the third fastest finisher, his countryman Lennart Larsson. Jernberg also advanced on the final stage, finishing in fifth place. The race was totally dominated by the Finnish and Swedish skiers, both nations having three skiers each among the first six.