Once Andrew Musgrave had stopped beating himself up about the medal he felt slipped away on a brutal day in the mountains he made a promise to himself – and to us. “See you on the podium on Friday,” he said. Few had expected the British cross-country skier to be a serious contender in Sunday’s 15km+15km skiathlon in which competitors swap techniques from “classic” to “freestyle” halfway through the race. But with 5km remaining the 27-year-old from Scotland was deep in the mix in second, and feeling increasingly confident despite the trio of Norwegians around him.
Some wags in the press pack wondered whether the nation of Erik Thorstvedt, Magnus Carlsen and Roald Amundsen was about to take one hell of a beating in a sport in which they regard victory as almost a birthright. Musgrave, meanwhile, had tunnel‑vision eyes on a gold medal. It proved to be his undoing. For when Simen Hegstad Krüger made what turned out to be the decisive break on the final lap, Musgrave aggressively went with him while others sat back. The Briton’s tank then emptied and he ended up dropping back to seventh – still the best finish by a British cross-country skier in history, but far from what he wanted.
“It’s a decent result but I’m not at the Olympics to come seventh,” he said. “I’m here to a fight for a win. That’s why I do this. If you don’t believe you can win, then you’re not going to spend a thousand hours out training, suffering every week through interval sessions, and pushing pain limits every session.”
Few begrudged Kruger his win, especially given that he broke a ski pole in a crash seconds after the start. Having collected a replacement he slowly recovered his position in gusty conditions and temperatures that touched -16C before bringing home a Norwegian one-two-three with Martin Johnsrud Sundby second and Hans Christer Holund third.
Yet Musgrave’s belief that he can perform his favoured event well, the 15km free-ski, on Friday has only been reinforced. “I was in the fight for the medals here until the last couple of kilometres when this isn’t my best event,” he said. “So come Friday I should be in the fight for the victory.”
Musgrave knows it will be tough. He spends most of his time training in Norway, which makes him appreciate that he is a relative David taking on a team of Goliaths. “It’s just a completely different world for the Norwegians,” he said.
“It’s their national sport and you just can’t compare what we’ve got with what they’ve got. They have this massive support team. We’ve got one guy waxing all the skis and the Norwegians have got so many.”
While the skiathlon went ahead, the bad weather meant the men’s downhill – the blue riband event of these Games – had to be postponed until Thursday as 50mph gusts made it impossible for the gondolas which take the skiers up the mountain to be safely operated.
The weather also resulted in the cancellation of the women’s slopestyle qualification event, which meant Great Britain’s Aimee Fuller went straight into Monday’s final.
In the men’s event, meanwhile, the American teenager Red Gerard produced the performance of his life on his final run to move from 11th to take the gold medal. The Canadian pair Max Parrot and Mark McMorris took silver and bronze respectively. “I feel awesome and so stoked about today,” said Gerard, 17, who does much of his training in a facility built by him and his older brothers in the back garden of the family home in Colorado.
Until Gerard’s brilliant final run, McMorris looked set to win gold less than 12 months after he was left in intensive care with broken bones and a collapsed lung after crashing into a tree while snowboarding.
Comments made by Semen Elistratov are being investigated by Olympic officials, meanwhile, as the remarks appeared to break the rules about making political statements. Elistratov, competing for Olympic Athletes from Russia, took bronze in the 1500m short-track speed-skating before saying: “I dedicate this medal to all guys that have been excluded from these Games in such a hard and unfair way. This medal is for you.”
Elsewhere, the Dutch speed‑skater Sven Kramer completed a hat-trick of Olympic titles in the 5,000m to become the most successful skater in Winter Games history but insisted he was already looking ahead at doubling up in the 10,000m.
“Actually, I’m not, how do you say, pleased with the victory,” he said. “It’s a nice fact but I’m already looking forward to the next distance.” The Canadian Ted-Jan Bloemen was second, with Sverre Lunde Pederson taking bronze.
There was a shock in the men’s luge as a mistake by the two-times champion Felix Loch allowed David Gleirscher to claim Austria’s first gold in the discipline for 50 years. Loch led going into the final round and looked poised to match his fellow German Georg Hackl’s record of three successive luge gold medals. But his mistake was costly as the American Chris Mazdzer took silver and Germany’s Johannes Ludwig the bronze. Britain’s AJ Rosen and Rupert Staudinger finished 22nd and 33rd respectively.
