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Therese Johaug won the first gold of Beijing 2022 with a dominant victory in the 15-kilometer cross-country skiing race in the women’s skiathlon, the Norwegian cruising to her first individual Olympic title in 44 minutes and 13.7 seconds.
The 33 year old is competing in her third Games, but missed PyeongChang 2018 due to a positive drug test in 2016.
“I’ve been training a lot for this for many, many years,” Johaug told reporters, “It’s been a special week for us, we just came here two days ago.
“At first I was really happy just to come here because we have the Covid in our team. I’ve trained thousands of hours for this and been away from home a lot over the years. So it’s beautiful to reach this goal.
“It means a lot. I’ve never had an Olympic gold medal, it’s my first one. I’m so happy.”
Austria’s Teresa Stadlober completed the podium, securing bronze with a 44:44.2 finish.
Three-way showdown
The Norwegian quartet of Marte Olsbu Roeiseland, Tiril Eckhoff, Tarjei Boe, and Johannes Thingnes finished in one hour, six minutes and 45.6 seconds, beating the French team to gold by just 0.9 seconds.
Boe had had to train for the race separately from his teammates after being identified as a Covid-19 close contact.
“To prepare for the relay, it was normal even if it was difficult for Johannes to be in his hotel room,” said Boe.
“I think he also loaded his batteries quite well. We saw today that maybe it was for the better that he was in quarantine so that he could relax and save his energy for the sprint.”
A mere 1.5 seconds behind Norway was the ROC, though it might have been gold rather than bronze had the team fallen away in the last stretch.
“It was an…
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Source : cnn
