15 kilometres, Men

The 15 km cross-country race developed into the closest duel in the history of cross-country skiing. The two main roles in the drama were played by a young Swede, Thomas Wassberg, and a Finnish veteran with an impressive collection of silver medals from international championships, the big Juha Mieto, 197 cm tall and weighing around 100 kg. Wassberg started last of the 63 participants, half a minute behind the best Norwegian, Ove Aunli. Mieto, wearing start number 54, started half a minute behind the reigning world champion at the distance, the Pole Józef Łuszczek.

Wassberg started fast, and at the 5 km mark he had caught Aunli and was in the lead, three seconds ahead of Mieto. Łuszczek also had a strong opener, only ten seconds behind the leader, closely followed by a real surprise, the 19-year old West German Jochem Behle and the 30 km winner Nikolay Zimyatov. At 10 km Wassberg had increased his lead to 4.8 seconds. Mieto, still in second place, had almost caught Łuszczek, starting half a minute in front of him, but the Pole was still in third place, now 30 seconds behind the leader. Yevgeny Belyayev had advanced from 11th to fourth., and his teammate Zimyatov was down in sixth place. Aunli had been able to adjust his speed and was on Wassberg’s heels, advancing from 13th to fifth place. Only two seconds separated the four skiers behind Wassberg and Mieto 5 km from home. Young Behle had dropped down to ninth and was out of contention for the medals.

First of the favorites to finish was Zimyatov, looking very fresh at the finish and beating Belyayev’s final time by 12 seconds. But Mieto finished even faster. The Finn had passed Łuszczek, quickly left the Pole behind, and crossed the finish line in 41:57.64, beating Zimyatov’s time by 36 seconds. Could Wassberg respond to Mieto’s finish? The Swede, still skiing together with Aunli, was told 500 m from home that he had a one second lead over Mieto, and, fighting desperately, crossed the finish line in 41:57.63. He had won by the closest possible margin, one hundredth of a second! Aunli secured the bronze medal for Norway, beating Zimyatov by 5 seconds.

Wassberg, then 23, had made his Olympic début in 1976 as a teenager. Before the 1978 World Championships, he was severely injured in a car accident, but fought his way back to the international elite by hard and determined work. Mieto, starting in his third Olympics, ended his career with three individual silver medals in international championships, his 1976 Olympics relay gold medal his only championship victory. In 2007, this extremely popular athlete, who had six wins at Holmenkollen from 1973-1978, was elected a member of the Finnish parliament. At the 1972 Olympics he was involved in another close duel, losing the bronze medal by a margin of 0.06 seconds in the 15 km race. Wassberg proposed to Mieto that they could cut their medals in two parts and then melt them together as a mixed gold-silver medal. Mieto politely thanked him, but said no to the idea, and ended the 1980 season by winning the cross-country World Cup for the second time in a row. The International Skiing Federation (FIS) decided shortly after the 1980 Olympics that all times in cross-country races would henceforth be rounded to the nearest tenth of a second.