Relay (4 × 10 kilometres), Men

After winning the prestigious relay at the last two Olympics, Sweden tried hard to complete the triple. However, in view of their previous performances in PyeongChang, Norway and the young Olympic Athletes from Russia were considered as favorites ahead of the Swedes. Since the introduction of two different styles in cross-country skiing, the relay consists of two legs in the classical style, and two in the freestyle. After the first 3.3 km lap, Kazakhstan’s best skier Aleksey Poltoranin increased the pace and dominated the field of 14 teams, closely followed by the Russian Andrey Larkov. To the first exchange, the third and fourth teams, Italy and France, came about ten seconds back and favorites Norway with Didrik Tønseth 18 seconds behind. In the third lap, Sweden’s Jens Burman started to lose contact and came to the first exchange 37 seconds behind the leader Poltoranin.

Aleksandr Bolshunov, the second skier for the OAR, quickly pulled away from the chasing group consisting of Italy, France and Norway’s veteran Martin Johnsrud Sundby. Sundby held back letting Maurice Manificat do most of the leader’s work. Due to the lack of co-operation in the chasing group, Bolshunov managed to extend his lead to 40 seconds at one stage before ending the second exchange nearly 25 seconds ahead of Italy’s Francesco De Fabiani, 28 seconds ahead of France, with Norway a further four seconds adrift, handing over to the third skier, the first freestyle skater. With almost two minutes behind at the half-way mark, Sweden had virtually given up on the battle for a medal.

On the third leg, skiathlon gold medalist Simen Hegstad Krüger took control and clocked the fastest time of the leg, almost 50 seconds faster than Aleksey Chervotkin for the Olympic Athletes from Russia. Led by Krüger, the chasing group closed in on Chervotkin on the second round of the leg, outrunning him on the climb from the stadium. The top three teams at the third exchange were Norway and France within one second of each other, and the OAR 16 seconds behind. While Frenchman Clément Parisse lost less than 5 seconds to the Norwegian front-runner, Italy’s Giandomenico Salvadori could not hold on to the top group and lost 1:20 min, slipping from second to fifth.

The fourth and final leg was determined by the tactics of Norway’s final skier Johannes Høsflot Klæbo. Already having won one gold in PyeongChang in the individual sprint, he started with a leisurely pace so that Adrien Backscheider from France had to take the lead allowing Denis Spitsov to close the gap again for the Olympic Athletes from Russia. Spitsov even took the lead, when the runners passed the stadium for the last time. With the now faster pace, Backscheider lost contact but eventually secured the bronze medal for France. On a small downhill stretch, Klæbo made one of his famous kick-starts and stormed to Norway’s first men’s relay gold since 2002 carrying the Norwegian flag over the finish line. Short distance specialist and double medalist in PyeongChang, Denis Spitsov, had to settle for silver, approximately 10 seconds behind, in what was a great success for the team of youngsters. The bronze medal for France was certainly based on their strength as a team. Finland came from behind and finished fourth, ahead of the disappointed Swedish team, and Germany. The Finns had to replace Ristomatti Hakola, sixth in the sprint, by Perttu Hyvarinen, who lost almost a minute on the first leg. Their last runner, Lari Lehtonen could not do anything more than keep Sweden and Germany at bay.

Like Sweden four years earlier in Sochi, Norway won both the women’s and men’s relays in PyeongChang. Klæbo would later also win gold in the team sprint, finishing with three gold medals in PyeongChang.