15 kilometres (Mass Start, Freestyle), Women

This was the first Winter Olympic cross-country event skied entirely as a mass start race, which would later become the standard for most events. It was also the first cross-country event in Salt Lake City, starting shortly before the men raced 30 km. The 2001 World Champion was Norway’s Bente Skari-Martinsen, who had been the dominant female cross-country racer over the past five years. But she elected not to contest this race in Salt Lake City, which left the event open.

The early leader in the race was Russian Yuliya Chepalova, but by 9 km, Italy’s Stefania Belmondo, the 1999 World Champion in the event, moved ahead, until her pole broke at 10.5 km. She dropped back to 10th place, but fortunately trailed the leader, Larisa Lazutina, by only 10 seconds. Belmondo was given a pole by a French official but it was very long, so she struggled for over 500 metres until an Italian coach gave her one of her own poles. She then powered ahead, caught Lazutina and won a narrow victory by 1.8 seconds. Behind them, Czech skier Kateřina Neumannová came in for the bronze medal. But Lazutina would not keep her silver medal. After the pursuit race, held six days later, she was found to have tested positive for darpopoietin, an erythropoietin analogue, and was disqualified in late 2003. Neumannová was moved up to silver, and Chepalova would get the bronze. At the 2003 World Championships, the event was won by the woman who wasn’t there, Bente Skari-Martinsen.