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| Event type

15 kilometres (Freestyle), Men

Date16 February 2018 — 15:00
StatusOlympic
LocationAlpensia Cross-Country Centre, Alpensia Resort, Mountain Cluster, Daegwallyeong
Participants119 from 62 countries
DetailsCourse Length: 15,232 m
Height Differential: 58 m
Intermediate 1: 1.5 km
Intermediate 2: 6.0 km
Intermediate 3: 7.5 km
Intermediate 4: 9.8 km
Intermediate 5: 13.5 km
Maximum Climb: 35 m
Total Climbing: 578 m

For the third consecutive Olympics, 31 years old Dario Cologna secured the gold for Switzerland in the men’s 15 km. making him the first male cross-country skier to win the Tour de Ski and an individual Olympic gold medal in the same season. While the Norwegians dominated with a clean sweep in the first cross-country event, the 30 km skiathlon, the gold medalist Simen Hegstad Krüger, had to settle for second place in the 15 km. The other two Norwegian medalists in the skiathlon, Martin Johnsrud Sundby and Hans Christer Holund went home empty handed after placing fourth and sixth, respectively, in the 15 km.

At these Games, the 15 km event was the only men’s cross-country event in which skiers started at 30 second intervals, and was, this time, run in the freestyle technique. After a cautious start, Cologna took the lead at the 6.0 km mark and remained in the lead until the end of the race. He gradually extended his margin to 18.3 sec at the finish line. A fierce struggle for the silver and bronze medals took place behind him. In the first phase of the race, French veteran Maurice Manificat set the fastest pace, holding on to second place until the 9.8 km mark, but eventually dropped to fifth place. Also, Holund and Sundby were in the top three at different stages of the race. But the actual medal winners Krüger and Russian newcomer, and dark horse, Denis Spitsov, came from behind. Krüger was amongst the leading three for the first time at the 9.8 km mark while Spitsov was still in fifth place at the last split time at 13.5 km. After competing just one World Cup season, the Russian’s bronze medal was quite a remarkable achievement, although he had won an Under-23 World title earlier in the year.

The first finisher on the leader board was Switzerland’s Roman Furger, setting the mark as an early starter with number 20, before eventually ending up on 12th place. Due to the sequence of the numbers, Spitsov later clocked the fastest time, but within minutes, was out-performed by Krüger and Cologna. The latter was one of the favorites at the start and had the advantage of being in control of the race and also being aware of the split times of his opponents.

Norway’s top man for the short distances, and already decorated with the gold in the sprint, Johannes Høsflot Klæbo was not in this race. He was given a break in view of the prestigious relay scheduled for two days after the 15 km. Depression spread among the Swedish cross-country skiers after suffering another bitter defeat. They didn’t come anywhere near the medals, with their best runner, Marcus Hellner doing no better than eighth. There was disappointment also for the 2017 50 km world champion, Canada’s Alex Harvey who, after another good race, could only finish seventh, 35 seconds behind Cologna. After five World Championships medals, he went home from his third Olympic Games without a medal.

PosNumberCompetitorNOCTime
168Dario ColognaSUI33:43.9Gold
260Simen Hegstad KrügerNOR34:02.2Silver
348Denis SpitsovROC34:06.9Bronze
462Martin Johnsrud SundbyNOR34:08.8
570Maurice ManificatFRA34:10.9
664Hans Christer HolundNOR34:18.4
766Alex HarveyCAN34:19.4
852Marcus HellnerSWE34:22.6
944Calle HalfvarssonSWE34:44.5
1042Matti HeikkinenFIN34:45.4
1150Daniel RickardssonSWE34:55.1
1220Roman FurgerSUI34:56.3
1338Keishin YoshidaJPN34:59.1
1431Andrey MelnichenkoROC35:02.1
1533Lucas BöglGER35:04.7
1639Martin JakšCZE35:05.2
1729Adrien BackscheiderFRA35:12.0
1846Finn-Hågen KroghNOR35:14.4
1936Jens BurmanSWE35:15.7
2054Andrey LarkovROC35:25.1
2127Scott PattersonUSA35:28.0
2258Jean-Marc GaillardFRA35:35.2
2355Petr KnopCZE35:35.5
2428Andreas KatzGER35:38.3
2540Clément ParisseFRA35:39.0
2622Irineu Esteve AltimirasAND35:40.7
2756Andrew MusgraveGBR35:51.0
286Aleš RazýmCZE35:59.0
2937Lari LehtonenFIN36:01.8
307Sebastian EisenlauerGER36:03.8
3169Dominik BuryPOL36:11.1
3234Toni LiversSUI36:14.5
3321Perttu HyvärinenFIN36:17.2
3413Veselin TsinzovBUL36:17.3
3519Paul PepeneROU36:19.1
365Graeme KillickCAN36:23.3
3749Bernhard TritscherAUT36:24.7
3815Mikhail SiamionauBLR36:25.8
3935Erik BjornsenUSA36:28.6
4074Alin Florin CioancăROU36:31.9
414Mirco BertolinaITA36:33.5
4271Kim MagnusKOR36:39.0
431Michal NovákCZE36:42.4
4489Krešimir CrnkovićCRO36:44.7
4514Noah HoffmanUSA36:45.2
4632Aleksey VitsenkoROC36:46.4
4726Candide PralongSUI36:47.7
4818Anssi PentsinenFIN36:54.9
4990Martin VögeliLIE36:57.0
5065Edi DadićCRO36:57.2
5111Vitaly PukhkaloKAZ36:57.4
5216Yury AstapenkaBLR37:04.0
5312Snorri EinarssonISL37:05.6
5457Andrew YoungGBR37:13.1
553Raido RänkelEST37:21.9
5667Stefan ZelgerITA37:27.9
5717Yevgeny VelichkoKAZ37:28.6
5861Imanol RojoESP37:35.5
5976Thomas Maloney WestgårdIRL37:36.6
6059Denis VolotkaKAZ37:39.8
6172Indulis BikšeLAT37:44.7
6294Thierry LangerBEL37:45.0
6373Peter MlynárSVK37:46.2
642Damir RastićSRB37:47.5
6580Knute JohnsgaardCAN37:48.5
6683Callum WatsonAUS37:53.9
6724Devon KershawCAN38:01.5
688Sergio RigoniITA38:03.0
6953Aliaksandr VoranauBLR38:05.5
7043Tyler KornfieldUSA38:17.9
7187Callum SmithGBR38:20.9
7282Mladen PlakalovićBIH38:27.7
7381Phil BellinghamAUS38:36.2
7477Kamil BuryPOL38:38.7
7598Mark ChanloungTHA38:40.8
7685Miroslav ŠulekSVK38:44.0
7779Apostolos AngelisGRE38:56.4
7897Maciej StaręgaPOL38:58.9
7991Mikayel MikayelyanARM39:01.4
8047Oleksiy KrasovskyiUKR39:05.3
8195Kim Eun-HoKOR39:07.9
8245Andriy OrlykUKR39:11.3
8384Andrej SegečSVK39:13.4
8486Miha ŠimencSLO39:16.9
8596Ádám KónyaHUN39:27.2
8699Martin MøllerDEN39:35.4
8778Seyed Sattar SeydIRI39:39.1
8863Hamza DursunTUR40:05.3
8951Ömer AyçiçekTUR40:28.7
9092Mantas StroliaLTU40:31.4
9141Yordan ChuchuganovBUL40:39.6
92102Modestas VaičiulisLTU40:53.0
93100Batmönkhiin AchbadrakhMGL41:40.4
94104Sun QinghaiCHN41:55.7
9593Stavre JadaMKD42:14.2
96103Matías ZuloagaARG42:27.5
97117Han Chun-GyongPRK42:29.2
98101Yonathan FernándezCHI42:49.9
99116Jagdish SinghIND43:00.3
100106Tucker MurphyBER43:05.7
101111Timo GrönlundBOL43:18.4
102109Nicolae GaiducMDA43:43.3
103118Pak Il-CholPRK43:43.4
104119Syed HumanPAK45:19.1
105108Samer TawkLBN47:03.4
106105Victor SantosBRA47:09.9
107113Samir AzzimaniMAR47:39.9
108107Klaus JungbluthECU53:30.1
109112Kequyen LamPOR54:34.1
110110Pita TaufatofuaTGA56:41.1
111114Sebastián UprimnyCOL58:08.1
112115Germán MadrazoMEX59:35.4
DNF75Marti VigoESP
DNF30Dietmar NöcklerITA
DQ25Karel TammjärvEST[35:29.4]1
DQ23Max HaukeAUT[35:57.5]2
DQ9Dominik BaldaufAUT[36:31.2]3
DQ10Andreas VeerpaluEST[37:16.2]4
DQ88Wang QiangCHN[39:00.7]5