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| Event type

10 kilometres, Women

Date 9 February 1968
StatusOlympic
LocationAutrans
Participants34 from 11 countries
DetailsCourse Length: ?
Height Differential: 139 m
Intermediate 1: 5.0 km
Maximum Climb: 70 m
Total Climbing: 320 m

The queen of cross country skiing at the 1964 games, Klavdiya Boyarskikh, collected two more gold medals at the 1966 World Championships in Oslo, and had also a strong season in 1966/67, winning the Holmenkollen 5 km race. To everybody’s surprise, she decided to end her sporting career just before the new Olympic season. There was newspaper speculation that this had something to do with the IOC decision in 1967 to introduce sex-testing at the forthcoming Olympic Games.

Toini Gustafsson, a Finnish-born athlete who was sent to Sweden as a 6-year old girl due to the intense fighting in the Continuation War around her birthplace of Suomussalmi in western Karelia, completely dominated the 10 km race. At the halfway point she had a clear lead, almost 15 seconds ahead of Marjatta Kajosmaa from Finland. In the second part of the race, Gustafsson was in a class of her own and won by a large margin, 1.08 ahead of the silver medallist, Berit Mørdre from Norway. Another Norwegian skier, Inger Aufles, secured the bronze medal 5 seconds behind Mørdre, securing the first ever Olympic medals for Norway in cross country skiing for ladies. The Soviet ladies ended up with no medals in a cross country event for ladies for the first time since they made their first Winter Olympic appearance in 1956. Their best skier, 25-year old Galina Kulakova, ended in a disappointing 6th place, 1:40 behind the winner.

PosNumberCompetitorNOCTime
133Toini GustafssonSWE36:46.5Gold
220Berit MørdreNOR37:54.6Silver
332Inger AuflesNOR37:59.9Bronze
417Barbro MartinssonSWE38:07.1
526Marjatta KajosmaaFIN38:09.0
629Galina KulakovaURS38:26.7
716Alevtina KolchinaURS38:52.9
810Babben Enger-DamonNOR38:54.4
923Christine NestlerGDR39:07.9
102Barbro TanoSWE39:09.6
1119Alevtina SmirnovaURS39:10.3
1215Senja PusulaFIN39:12.5
134Faadiya SalimzhanovaURS39:17.9
141Gudrun SchmidtGDR39:22.8
1511Britt StrandbergSWE39:25.7
1628Renate KöhlerGDR39:27.4
176Katharina MoNOR39:35.4
188Liisa SuihkonenFIN39:55.3
1927Stefania BiegunPOL39:55.4
2034Monika MrklasFRG39:58.2
2121Weronika BudnyPOL40:09.4
2214Anni UngerGDR40:36.8
2331Fujiko KatoJPN40:40.0
2418Éva BalázsHUN40:58.3
259Józefa CzerniawskaPOL40:59.9
2613Michaela EndlerFRG41:01.1
2730Nadezhda VasilevaBUL41:25.8
2825Tsvetana SotirovaBUL42:16.5
2912Roza DimovaBUL43:18.4
305Anna DurajPOL43:23.8
313Velichka PandevaBUL43:26.3
327Kirsten CarlsenDEN46:56.2
DNF22Helena KiviojaFIN
DNF24Barbara BarthelFRG