Skiathlon (30 kilometres), Men

As in the last three Winter Olympics, the 30 km skiathlon event consisted of a 15 km section in the classical technique, followed immediately, after a change of skis, by another 15 km in the freestyle technique. Among the favorites were the Swiss defending champion Dario Cologna, and Norway’s rising star Johannes Høsflot Klæbo. The 2017 world champion, and Tour de Ski winner Sergey Ustyugov, was not allowed to compete by the IOC, due to the finding of the McLaren-Report. In the 2017-18 season, only one men’s skiathlon was contested, at Lillehammer in December 2017 with four Norwegians finishing in the first four: Klæbo first, then triple World Cup winner Martin Johnsrud Sundby, followed by Hans Christer Holund and Simen Hegstad Krüger. Krüger was a relative newcomer, having won his first World Cup race in December 2017, over 15 km freestyle. In PyeongChang, nobody dared to break away from a large leading group for the first 25 km, with the favorites still cautious, and pace moderate. Krüger, less fancied than his compatriots, was involved in a fall, along with two OAR athletes, just a few hundred metres from the start. But with less than 5 km from the finish line, he got into a position where he was in with a chance to escape the pack, and he took it, and within just one kilometer, Krüger opened a gap of 22 seconds. The pursuers hesitated for too long as it was not until about 27 km that Sundby started the pursuit , with Holund close behind. But Krüger held on to his lead to become a surprise winner with Sundby second, just eight seconds behind and Holund in third, another two seconds adrift. Most of the favorites finished among the top ten: Maurice Manificat from France was fifth, Cologna sixth, Canadian Alex Harvey eighth, and Klæbo tenth.

With a clean sweep in the first men’s event, the Norwegians gave an indication of their superiority in the men’s cross-country in PyeongChang. Like other races in the first few days of the Games, it was characterized by ice cold weather of minus 13° C and stormy gusts of wind.