30 kilometres (Mass Start, Freestyle), Women

After claiming gold in the very first final of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, the skiathlon, Norwegian Therese Johaug also won gold in the last race, the 30 kilometres mass start in freestyle. The women’s longest race had been brought forward to the morning to avoid the anticipated cold weather and worst of the wind. In 1:24:54.0, Johaug took her third Beijing gold with a brutal high tempo race and, as a result, won all distance races at these Games. It was also the last Olympic race of her career. At Vancouver in 2010, Johaug had won gold in the relay, and four years later in Sochi won silver over 30 km freestyle, and bronze over the 10 km classical. She was absent at PyeongChang 2018 due to a doping ban. Jessie Diggins from the USA secured second place 1:43.3 behind Johaug in Beijing, while bronze went to Kerttu Niskanen of Finland (+2:33.3).

At minus 14° C, Johaug took the lead right from the start and set an extremely high pace. In addition to Diggins, only the Swede Ebba Andersson and the Frenchwoman Delphine Claudel were able to keep up with her. But one by one Johaug shook off her chasers. Halfway through the race she was 27 seconds ahead of Diggins and 1:15 ahead of Andersson.

After three laps (22.5 km), she had increased her lead over Diggins to more than a minute and left her victory in no doubt. Behind Diggins, Andersson defended her third place until one km from the finish line. Ultimately, a group of five, with Niskanen, Claudel, Jonna Sundling, Tatyana Sorina, and Rosie Brennan closed in on her. They all finished within just over eight seconds of each other, with Niskanen prevailing in the final sprint. An exhausted Andersson fell back to eighth place.

Co-favourite Nataliya Nepryayeva capitulated to the difficult conditions. After having won a full set of medals in relay, skiathlon, and team sprint in Beijing, she dropped out before the end of the first round. At this point, she was already more than 40 seconds behind the leader, her skis didn’t seem to work at all.