Cross Country Skiing at the 2014 Winter Olympics

Dates 8 – 23 February 2014
Medal Events 12

The cross-country events took place at the Mountain Cluster at Krasnaya Polyana about 40 km north-east of the center of Sochi. The whole complex with the cross-country and biathlon stadium “Laura”, a huge function building, traverses and trails cost around 1.2 billion euros, paid by the state company Gazprom. The events were progressively affected by the warm weather, as competitors with sleeveless shirts became a common sight during the second half of the Games. The program was basically unchanged but – as has become common since the introduction of separate freestyle and classical events – events that were held in the classical style in Vancouver were held in freestyle in Sochi and vice-versa, with the events that combine both styles (skiathlon and relay) unchanged.

Norway slightly improved on their medal count from Vancouver, winning 5 gold, 2 silver and 4 bronze compared to 5-2-2 in Vancouver. Only the clean sweep in the ladies’ 30 km brought Norway level with their Swedish rivals with 11 medals each, but Norway leading by five golds to two. Norway’s Marit Bjørgen became the most decorated female in the Winter Olympics with 10 medals by winning 3 gold medals. While Norway dominated the ladies’ events, the men’s showing was relatively poor. With two gold medals in individual events, Swiss Dario Cologna was the star of the men’s events. If it had not been for a broken ski in the 50 km just 2 km from the finish line, he could have taken another medal, even another gold. Only the clean sweep in the last event saved the host nation Russia from a major disappointment in cross-country skiing. With only five medals, all in the men’s events, Russia could not improve their results from Vancouver. After the disaster for the Finnish men in Vancouver, they managed to win a gold medal in the men’s team sprint. In contrast, Germany was only outperformed by Norway and Sweden in Vancouver but won only a single bronze medal in Sochi, in the ladies’ relay. The medals were shared between nine European nations with France winning their first cross-country medal but formerly successful countries like Italy and the Czech Republic fell out of the medal standings.

During the Olympic Winter Games, Ukrainian Marina Malets-Lisohor had a positive drug test for the banned stimulant trimetazidine, which was added to the list of prohibited substances at the beginning of 2014. The Austrian skier Johannes Dürr tested positive for using the blood-boosting drug EPO prior to the Games, with the result released after he ran to eighth place in the skiathlon.

Events

Event Status Date Participants NOCs
Sprint (Freestyle), Men Olympic 11 February 2014 86 40
15 kilometres (Classical), Men Olympic 14 February 2014 91 45
50 kilometres (Mass Start, Freestyle), Men Olympic 23 February 2014 64 26
30 kilometres Skiathlon, Men Olympic 9 February 2014 68 30
4 × 10 kilometres Relay, Men Olympic 16 February 2014 64 16
Team Sprint (Classical), Men Olympic 19 February 2014 44 22
Sprint (Freestyle), Women Olympic 11 February 2014 67 31
10 kilometres (Classical), Women Olympic 13 February 2014 75 38
30 kilometres (Mass Start, Freestyle), Women Olympic 22 February 2014 57 24
15 kilometres Skiathlon, Women Olympic 8 February 2014 61 24
4 × 5 kilometres Relay, Women Olympic 15 February 2014 56 14
Team Sprint (Classical), Women Olympic 19 February 2014 34 17
298 (173/125) 54 (52/42)

Medals

Event Gold Silver Bronze
Sprint, Men Ola Vigen HattestadNOR Teodor PetersonSWE Emil JönssonSWE
15 kilometres, Men Dario ColognaSUI Johan OlssonSWE Daniel RickardssonSWE
50 kilometres, Men Aleksandr LegkovRUS Maksim VylegzhaninRUS Ilya ChernousovRUS
30 kilometres Skiathlon, Men Dario ColognaSUI Marcus HellnerSWE Martin Johnsrud SundbyNOR
4 × 10 kilometres Relay, Men SwedenSWE Russian FederationRUS FranceFRA
Team Sprint, Men FinlandFIN Russian FederationRUS SwedenSWE
Sprint, Women Maiken Caspersen FallaNOR Ingvild Flugstad ØstbergNOR Vesna FabjanSLO
10 kilometres, Women Justyna KowalczykPOL Charlotte KallaSWE Therese JohaugNOR
30 kilometres, Women Marit BjørgenNOR Therese JohaugNOR Kristin Størmer SteiraNOR
15 kilometres Skiathlon, Women Marit BjørgenNOR Charlotte KallaSWE Heidi WengNOR
4 × 5 kilometres Relay, Women SwedenSWE FinlandFIN GermanyGER
Team Sprint, Women NorwayNOR FinlandFIN SwedenSWE

Medal table

NOC Gold Silver Bronze Total
Norway NOR 5 2 4 11
Sweden SWE 2 5 4 11
Switzerland SUI 2 0 0 2
Russian Federation RUS 1 3 1 5
Finland FIN 1 2 0 3
Poland POL 1 0 0 1
France FRA 0 0 1 1
Germany GER 0 0 1 1
Slovenia SLO 0 0 1 1