30 kilometres (Mass Start, Classical), Women

There was some controversy prior to the race when Justyna Kowalczyk (POL) raised questions about the legality of asthma drugs taken by her main rival Marit Bjørgen (NOR), although some commentators were reminded of Kowalczyk’s ban for drug related offenses in 2005. She had come back to win the 2009 World Championships in the event, had also won the distance World Cup in 2008-09, and was leading that competition coming into Vancouver, narrowly ahead of Bjørgen. At 20 km there will still a number of skiers in contention, but after ski changes Kowalczyk and Bjørgen began to pull away from the field, until only these two were in contention for the gold and silver. Bjørgen made the first move, pulling ahead of Kowalczyk with a few kilometres to go and gaining around a 6-second advantage, but the lead was never decisive and Kowalczyk caught up with her on the final climb. It then came down to a sprint to the line which Kowalczyk won, covering the course in a time of 1-30:33.7, just 0.3 seconds ahead of Bjørgen. The bronze medal was won by Aino-Kaisa Saarinen (FIN), her finishing time being over a minute behind the other medallists, but comfortably ahead of fourth placed Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle (GER). After the race, Kowalczyk apologized to Bjørgen for her accusations, “I am sorry, because it wasn’t such a good time for such a question and opinion. It wasn’t an attack on Marit. She is a very good athlete, but I was trying to talk about the asthma problem we have in cross-country, there are a lot of athletes sick with asthma.” Bjørgen also addressed the issue after the race, “That annoyed me a little bit, but for me it’s already yesterday’s news. I was a little bit disappointed in the beginning when she started this, but I have to forget it.”