Cross-Country Skiing 2018/Men's 15 km

Men's 15 km
General information
Sport	Cross-Country Skiing 2018
Date	16 February 2018
Competitors	119 athletes
Venue	Alpensia Cross-Country Skiing Centre
Previous medalists
Gold	Dario Cologna
Silver	Johan Olsson
Bronze	Daniel Richardsson
Conditions
Temperature	-1°C / 30.2°F
Length	15232 metres
Height	58 metres
Medalists
	Dario Cologna
	Simen Hegstad Krueger
	Denis Spitsov

The men's 15 km of Cross-Country Skiing 2018 during the 2018 Winter Olympics was held on 16 February 2018 in the Alpensia Cross-Country Skiing Centre. With 119 athletes competing, the event was won by Dario Cologna from Switzerland, with Simen Hegstad Krueger from Norway taking the silver medal and Denis Spitsov from Olympic Athletes from Russia taking bronze.

Format

The competition exists out of four rounds of 3.75 kilometres in the free technique. The athletes started 30 seconds from each other. The competitor with the fastest time after 15 kilometres is the winner.

Preview

One-hundred-and-nineteen athletes qualified for the event with a field that was quite open. 15 athletes from Matti Heikkinen to Maurice Manificat were seeded, with Manificat being ranked first as reigning world champion. This field also included the defending Olympic champion Dario Cologna, and the Norwegian hopefuls Simen Hegstad Krueger, Marin Johnsrud Sundby, Hans Christer Holund, and Finn Haagen Krogh as some of the main medal contenders, but Denis Spitsov, Andrew Musgrave, and Alex Harvey had also shown some great performance during the World Cup season. Other potential medal contenders or outsiders included Jean Marc Gaillard, Andrey Larkov, Marcus Hellner, and the Swedish delegation Daniel Rickardsson, Calle Halfvarsson, and Jens Burman.

Results

With all competitors starting at different times, it was difficult to keep track of the standings during the event. At the first time control halfway through the first lap, the time of Dominik Baldauf remained the fastest for a long time, ever since he took it from the first starter Michal Novak. With Clement Parisse and Calle Halfvarsson coming as close as within 4 seconds from Baldauf after 1.5 kilometres, eventually, it was Finn Haagen Krogh who was a second faster. The time of Krogh at the time control would be beaten only once, with world champion Maurice Manificat going a second below it. The time differences remained small, with medal contenders Daniel Rickardsson, Dario Cologna, Alex Harvey, Hans Christer Holund, and Martin Johnsrud Sundby keeping their deficit limited and within 4 seconds of Manificat.

At the six-kilometre mark, the fastest times followed each other almost back-to-back at the beginning, with Novak losing 4 seconds over Mirco Bertolina, who then lost another 6 seconds to Ales Razym and Sebastian Eisenlauer, before Baldauf took the lead at that point again. Baldauf had already won 30 seconds over the athlete who started before him, but his time at this time control wouldn't hold as long as it did previously. Yury Astapenka, who started only 5 minutes after Baldauf, was half a second faster than the Austrian, but Roman Furger took out almost half a minute of the fastest time at that point. The time of Furger would only be beaten by some of the seeded athletes, including Halfvarsson, who was 12 seconds faster, and Simen Hegstad Krueger, who won another 3 seconds over the Swede. His team mate Holund went under his time with 4 seconds, with only the defending Olympic champion Cologna being able to go faster up to that point. With the time differences between Cologna, Holund, Manificat, and Krueger coming up to over 15 seconds, it seemed like the first attack was made by the Swiss second seed.

Almost at the ten-kilometre mark, a similar story unfolded, with Bertolina taking the provisional best time from Novak, and Razym following him, but this time it was Furger who set the pace, 35 seconds faster than the Czech, and almost a minute faster than the athletes who started right before him. However, both Andrey Melnichenko and Lucas Boegl went under his time with around 15 seconds before the medal contenders passed that point. Halfvarsson was the first of the seeded athletes to go under the time of Boegl, but only by 8 seconds, with Denis Spitsov taking the opportunity with another 7 seconds on the fastest time. Krueger, who was the first of the top 4 of the last intermediate time control to have started, and would be indicative of the fierce battle between the world champion, the Olympic champion, and the Norwegian bloc at this point. With Cologna and Manificat going under the time of the fast Krueger, the Norwegians would take up the remaining places in the top 5 after 10 kilometres, with Holund fifth on almost 30 seconds of Cologna, but tightly followed by Harvey and Spitsov.

With the finish line within short distance, Novak, Bertolina, and Razym once again kept improving on the fastest times, and Furger was ultimately 63 seconds faster. Even Melnichenko and Boegl were not able to reach the time set by the Swiss skier, but unfortunately, a big surprise was quickly out of the question. The fifteenth seed Matti Heikkinen was 11 seconds faster at the finish line, and fourteenth seed Halfvarsson took another second off the best time. Denis Spitsov finished 38 seconds in front of the Swede by skiing an exceptional second half of the race, and he set a big challenge for the top 10 seeds. The time of the competitor representing the Olympic Athletes from Russia would only be improved by the fifth seed Krueger and the defending champion Cologna, with the latter taking the gold medal on 18 seconds from the Norwegian and 23 seconds on the Russian. Sundby finished less than two seconds from Spitsov, with Manificat, Holund, Harvey, and Hellner the only other skiers within a minute of the winner.

Dario Cologna won his fourth Olympic gold medal and was the first skier to win three consecutive gold medal in the same event. He also won the gold medal in the skiathlon in 2014. Simon Hegstad Krueger won his second Olympic medal, after winning the gold medal in the skiathlon at his Olympic debut, where Denis Spitsov finished fourth. The Russian won his first Olympic medal in only his second event. Martin Johnsrud Sundby and Hans Christer Holund had won the remaining medals in the skiathlon, and now finished just outside of the podium. Maurice Manificat had almost won his second Olympic medal, after winning the bronze medal in the men's relay in 2014, but finished on the fifth place.

Result	Athlete	Nationality	Time
	Dario Cologna	Switzerland	33:43.9
	Simen Hegstad Krueger	Norway	34:02.2
	Denis Spitsov	Olympic Athletes from Russia	34:06.9
4	Martin Johnsrud Sundby	Norway	34:08.8
5	Maurice Manificat	France	34:10.9
6	Hans Christer Holund	Norway	34:18.4
7	Alex Harvey	Canada	34:19.4
8	Marcus Hellner	Sweden	34:22.6
9	Calle Halfvarsson	Sweden	34:44.5
10	Matti Heikkinen	Finland	34:45.4
11	Daniel Rickardsson	Sweden	34:55.1
12	Roman Furger	Switzerland	34:56.3
13	Keishin Yoshida	Japan	34:59.1
14	Andrey Melnichenko	Olympic Athletes from Russia	35:02.1
15	Lucas Boegl	Germany	35:04.7
16	Martin Jaks	Czech Republic	35:05.2
17	Adrien Backscheider	France	35:12.0
18	Finn Haagen Krogh	Norway	35:14.4
19	Jens Burman	Sweden	35:15.7
20	Andrey Larkov	Olympic Athletes from Russia	35:25.1
21	Scott Patterson	United States	35:28.0
22	Jean Marc Gaillard	France	35:35.2
23	Petr Knop	Czech Republic	35:35.5
24	Andreas Katz	Germany	35:38.3
25	Clement Parisse	France	35:39.0
26	Irineu Esteve Altimiras	Andorra	35:40.7
27	Andrew Musgrave	Great Britain	35:51.0
28	Ales Razym	Czech Republic	35:59.0
29	Lari Lehtonen	Finland	36:01.8
30	Sebastian Eisenlauer	Germany	36:03.8
31	Dominik Bury	Poland	36:11.1
32	Toni Livers	Switzerland	36:14.5
33	Perttu Hyvarinen	Finland	36:17.2
34	Veselin Tsinzov	Bulgaria	36:17.3
35	Paul Constantin Pepene	Romania	36:19.1
36	Graeme Killick	Canada	36:23.3
37	Bernhard Tritscher	Austria	36:24.7
38	Michail Semenov	Belarus	36:25.8
39	Erik Bjornsen	United States	36:28.6
40	Alin Florin Cioanca	Romania	36:31.9
41	Mirco Bertolina	Italy	36:33.5
42	Kim Magnus	South Korea	36:39.0
43	Michal Novak	Czech Republic	36:42.4
44	Kresimir Crnkovic	Croatia	36:44.7
45	Noah Hoffman	United States	36:45.2
46	Alexey Vitsenko	Olympic Athletes from Russia	36:46.4
47	Candide Pralong	Switzerland	36:47.7
48	Anssi Pentsinen	Finland	36:54.9
49	Martin Voegeli	Liechtenstein	36:57.0
50	Edi Dadic	Croatia	36:57.2
51	Vitaliy Pukhkalo	Kazakhstan	36:57.4
52	Yury Astapenka	Belarus	37:04.0
53	Snorri Eythor Einarsson	Iceland	37:05.6
54	Andrew Young	Great Britain	37:13.1
55	Raido Rankel	Estonia	37:21.9
56	Stefan Zelger	Italy	37:27.9
57	Yevgeniy Velichko	Kazakhstan	37:28.6
58	Imanol Rojo	Spain	37:35.5
59	Thomas Maloney Westgaard	Ireland	37:36.6
60	Denis Volotka	Kazakhstan	37:39.8
61	Indulis Bikse	Latvia	37:44.7
62	Thierry Langer	Belgium	37:45.0
63	Peter Mlynar	Slovakia	37:46.2
64	Damir Rastic	Serbia	37:47.5
65	Knute Johnsgaard	Canada	37:48.5
66	Callum Watson	Australia	37:53.9
67	Devon Kershaw	Canada	38:01.5
68	Sergio Rigoni	Italy	38:03.0
69	Aliaksandr Voranau	Belarus	38:05.5
70	Tyler Kornfield	United States	38:17.9
71	Callum Smith	Great Britain	38:20.9
72	Mladen Plakalovic	Bosnia and Herzegovina	38:27.7
73	Phillip Bellingham	Australia	38:36.2
74	Kamil Bury	Poland	38:38.7
75	Mark Chanloung	Thailand	38:40.8
76	Miroslav Sulek	Slovakia	38:44.0
77	Apostolos Angelis	Greece	38:56.4
78	Maciej Starega	Poland	38:58.9
79	Mikayel Mikayelyan	Armenia	39:01.4
80	Oleksii Krasovskyi	Ukraine	39:05.3
81	Kim Eun-ho	South Korea	39:07.9
82	Andrii Orlyk	Ukraine	39:11.3
83	Andrej Segec	Slovakia	39:13.4
84	Miha Simenc	Slovenia	39:16.9
85	Adam Konya	Hungary	39:27.2
86	Martin Moeller	Denmark	39:35.4
87	Seyed Sattar Seyd	Iran	39:39.1
88	Hamza Dursun	Turkey	40:05.3
89	Omer Aycicek	Turkey	40:28.7
90	Mantas Strolia	Lithuania	40:31.4
91	Yordan Chuchuganov	Bulgaria	40:39.6
92	Modestas Vaiciulis	Lithuania	40:53.0
93	Achbadrakh Batmunkh	Mongolia	41:40.4
94	Sun Qinghai	China	41:55.7
95	Stavre Jada	Macedonia	42:14.2
96	Matias Zuloaga	Argentina	42:27.5
97	Han Chun Gyong	North Korea	42:29.2
98	Yonathan Jesus Fernandez	Chile	42:49.9
99	Jagdish Singh	India	43:00.3
100	Tucker Murphy	Bermuda	43:05.7
101	Timo Juhani Gronlund	Bolivia	43:18.4
102	Nicolae Gaiduc	Moldova	43:43.3
103	Pak Il Chol	North Korea	43:43.4
104	Syed Human	Pakistan	45:19.1
105	Samer Tawk	Lebanon	47:03.4
106	Victor Santos	Brazil	47:09.9
107	Samir Azzimani	Morocco	47:39.9
108	Klaus Jungbluth Rodriguez	Ecuador	53:30.1
109	Kequyen Lam	Portugal	54:35.1
110	Pita Taufatofua	Tonga	56:41.1
111	Sebastian Uprimny	Colombia	58:08.1
112	German Madrazo	Mexico	59:35.4
-	Dietmar Noeckler	Italy	DNF
-	Marti Vigo del Arco	Spain	DNF
-	Karel Tammjarv	Estonia	DQ
-	Max Hauke	Austria	DQ
-	Dominik Baldauf	Austria	DQ
-	Andreas Veerpalu	Estonia	DQ
-	Wang Qiang	China	DQ