Norway’s Therese Johaug yesterday won the first gold medal of the Beijing Olympics, finishing first in the women’s 15km cross-country skiathlon, while her compatriots also took gold in the biathlon mixed relay.
Johaug fought wind and frigid temperatures to ski away from a chase group of four, winning in 44 minutes, 13.7 seconds.
Russian athlete Natalia Nepryaeva, the current overall World Cup leader, pulled away from the group on the last climb to take silver, 30.2 seconds behind Johaug. Teresa Stadlober of Austria followed just behind for the bronze medal.
Photo: AP
The skiathlon is a mass-start race that began with 7.5km of classic skiing. After two laps around the 3.75km course, racers came through the stadium and quickly switched to skate skis before heading out for another two laps.
Johaug has won 10 world championship titles, but had never before won an individual Olympic gold medal.
Nepryaeva is competing in her second Olympics. She won bronze in a relay race at the Pyeongchang Games. Stadlober is competing in her third Winter Games and won her first medal.
Kerttu Niskanen of Finland finished fourth and Frida Karlsson of Sweden was fifth, just ahead of Jessie Diggins of the US in sixth.
Johannes Thingnes Boe of Norway moved ahead of his French and Russian rivals in the final meters of the mixed relay to take gold in the first biathlon race of the Games.
Boe, Quentin Fillon Maillet of France and Eduard Latypov of the Russian team left the range close together after the last round of shooting and raced for position until the final stretch, when Boe sprinted for the win.
Norway, which came into the relay as the World Cup leader, also got strong performances from Marte Olsbu Roeiseland and Tarjei Boe, but they trailed early in the race when Tiril Eckhoff struggled on the range.
Fillon Maillet was joined on the French team by Emilien Jacquelin, Julia Simon and Anais Chevalier-Bouchet. The Russian team of Latypov, Uliana Nigmatullina, Kristina Reztsova and Alexander Loginov was leading after the last hand-off, but failed to hold on.
Temperatures at about minus-16°C and a steady wind blasted the skiers as they worked their way around the 2km course.
Sweden, Germany and Belarus followed the front three to the line while the US came in seventh.
Irene Schouten gave the mighty Dutch a gold medal in the first speedskating event of the Games, breaking a 20-year-old Olympic record in the women’s 3,000m.
Skating in the last of 10 pairs, Schouten turned in a blazing final lap to post the winning time of 3 minutes, 56.93 seconds.
Her time broke the previous Olympic mark of 3:57.70, set by Germany’s Claudia Pechstein at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
In a fitting bookend to the event, Pechstein skated in the opening pair to become the oldest female athlete in Olympic history at 49 years old.
The German finished last — more than 20 seconds behind the winner.
Italy’s Francesca Lollobrigida, pushing Schouten all the way in the final pair, held on for the silver in 3:58.06. The three-time Olympian is the great-niece of 94-year-old actress Gina Lollobrigida, who was an international star in the 1950s and 1960s.
The bronze went to Canada’s Isabelle Weidemann in 3:58.64.
Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic, the winner of six Olympic medals including three golds, held the top spot with two pairs to go, but failed to make the podium. She wound up fourth in 4:00.34.
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