The Swedish men will have to wait for their first medal in Val di Fiemme. The form doesn't seem to be quite there, and the blue-and-yellow skiers have also had trouble finding their footing. In Friday's freestyle half-marathon, William Poromaa was on his way to a decent placing when he fell just over halfway through the race.
"It's a shame. It feels like I had something decent in me today," Poromaa tells SVT.
Despite this, he was the best Swede, but still clearly over a minute behind the winner.
Masterful finish
Which, as expected, was Norwegian.
His name was, as usual, Johannes Høsflot Klæbo.
At the only distance where he was not a big gold favorite in advance, Klæbo showed again that he has mastered everything in cross-country skiing.
"I'm at a loss for words. I don't know what to say; it's incredible how it flows," the Norwegian tells SVT.
"It's perhaps the distance I thought about the most, the one I was least fond of. Then it means a little extra."
The pre-race favorite Einar Hedegart, the former biathlete who dominated the distance this winter, was in the driver's seat for a long time but was crushed by Klæbo's masterful finish. With less than three kilometers left, Hedegart, who had Klæbo's times to go by, was just over five seconds ahead. At the finish he was 14 seconds behind and had to settle for bronze in his Olympic debut. Frenchman Mathis Desloges took silver, five seconds from victory.
Copied Kirvesniemi
Once before, it has happened that a cross-country skier won three individual golds at one and the same Olympics. Finnish Marja-Liisa Kirvesniemi (formerly Hämäläinen) won 5, 10 and 20 kilometers during the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics.
Now Johannes Høsflot Klæbo has matched the feat after previously also winning the skiathlon and sprint in Val di Fiemme.
Further emphasizing the 29-year-old's place in skiing history, it was also his ninth consecutive championship gold medal and his eighth Olympic gold medal overall. Only cross-country skiers Bjørn Dæhlie and Marit Bjørgen and biathlete Ole Einar Bjørndalen have as many among all Winter Olympians.
And there could be three more gold medals for Klæbo in the Olympics, if he sweeps clean just like in the World Championships in Trondheim a year ago.
"It could be six. This was probably the most difficult one," Klæbo tells SVT with a smile.
Swedish placings: William Poromaa 20th (+1:15), Gustaf Berglund 29th (+1:37), Truls Gisselman 40th (+1:59) and Edvin Anger 42nd (+2:00).
Anger was despondent, with only two days until the Olympic relay:
"I'm not where I want to be; I'm kind of out of shape," he tells SVT.
