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For nearly two hours on Saturday, 77 men disappeared into a stubborn curtain of fog that clung to the hillsides above Oslo, their figures swallowed by the mist somewhere between the stadium and the high point at Frognerseteren. When it was over, only one emerged with his arms in the air, and it was the one freestyle specialist who had been topping shorter freestyle distance races most of the season.
Einar Hedegart, the 24-year-old former biathlete who only committed fully to cross-country skiing in November, surged past Harald Oestberg Amundsen in the final meters to win the Holmenkollen 50 k Freestyle in 1:51:38.2 — his first victory on cross-country skiing’s most storied stage, in just his seventh World Cup start.
“This is the greatest feeling I’ve ever had,” Hedegart said after the finish. “This is just a nostalgia stadium. [A] legendary race, almost all my heroes have won this race, and especially Petter Northug. This might be the reason why I’ve been so motivated my whole life to be a cross-country skier.”
But the result that will echo loudest across the sport happened away from Oslo. Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo, the overall World Cup leader, was home nursing a mild concussion from a hard crash in the Drammen sprint two days earlier. Klaebo, who has already compiled a nearly perfect season, winning the Tour de Ski, all six Olympic races, secured the FIS Overall Crystal Globe, the FIS Sprint Crystal Globe, and only needed to keep racing the remaining distance races to take the clean sweep of the season with the FIS Distance Crystal Globe. BUT his absence from the start line meant zero points scored in the distance standing today. And with Amundsen’s second-place finish today, the distance crystal globe race was blown wide open: Amundsen now leads the distance standings by three points, 939 to 936, with two distance races remaining at the World Cup Finals in Lake Placid.
Klaebo posted to Instagram yesterday: “Took a fall yesterday and hit my head pretty hard, but luckily everything is all good in the hood. Ended up with a concussion, so I’ll take some days off from both training and the internet just to make sure everything settles properly. Only got one head, so have to take good care of it.”
He had been scheduled to fly to the United States on Sunday, but will now stay in Norway for a few extra days, hoping to recover in time for Lake Placid.
A Race Defined by Fog
The Holmenkollen 50 k — first raced in 1888, a fixture of the World Cup since 1982, and a race that draws an estimated 100,000 fans to the forested hills above Oslo — returned to the calendar Saturday after a one-year absence. For the first time, the men’s and women’s 50 k races were held on the same day, the women starting 45 minutes behind the men in a format designed to create an all-day spectacle. The fog, however, had other ideas. Conditions were so thick that spectators along the course could hear the racers before they could see them.
The course — six laps of 8.3 km with 334 meters of climbing per lap — was firm and fast after overnight salting despite an air temperature of 5.0°C. The salted, compact surface was ideal for skating, and the winning time of 1:51:38 came in roughly four minutes faster than the last time the Holmenkollen 50 k was contested in freestyle.
Through the first three laps, the race unfolded as a cautious tactical affair. A large pack of roughly 40 skiers stayed together, with Martin Loewstroem Nyenget, Mattis Stenshagen, and Federico Pellegrino taking turns at the front. The first athlete to make a decisive tactical move was Iver Tildheim Andersen, who changed skis early at the stadium after the third lap while the rest of the pack continued through. The fresh skis gave Andersen a burst, and when the lead group stopped for their own ski exchange one lap later, he suddenly found himself alone at the front with a roughly 15-second advantage.
“Just stick with the field as long as possible and then hopefully be in position when the group starts swarming,” Hedegart said of his plan. “But today I was really offside, like 70 percent of the race. So I was lucky that no one took a gap.”
The chase group — reduced to roughly eight athletes, all Norwegian once France’s Victor Lovera fell off the pace — gradually closed on Andersen through the fifth lap, with Hedegart, Simen Hegstad Krueger, Amundsen, Nyenget, Andreas Fjorden Ree, and Kasper Andersson Herland trading pulls at the front. By the time the group reached the final lap, they had swallowed Andersen, and the race became a question of who had saved enough for the final kilometers.
Krueger’s Late Charge and Hedegart’s Final Kick
Krueger, who was celebrating his 33rd birthday the day before, was omitted from the Norwegian Olympic team despite multiple Olympic medals in his career and was the winner of the last freestyle Holmenkollen 50 k. He drove the pace through the final lap. He pushed hard over the climbs near the iconic Holmenkollen church, stringing out the group and shedding Andersen off the back. But Krueger couldn’t sustain the pressure all the way to the finish, and as the group of seven came around the final corner and up the short, steep ramp before the descent into the home stretch, the sprint was on.
Amundsen launched first, throwing everything he had at the final few hundred meters. But Hedegart, who had looked labored at points earlier in the race, found a gear no one could match. He came alongside Amundsen, took the lead in front of the grandstand crowd, and raised his fist in celebration as he skied across the line.
“I felt, like, better,” Hedegart said of his position in the back of the pack through much of the race. “So I was just laying in the field, and I had to remind myself he did the same,” he added, referring to his idol Northug, whose trademark move was stalking from behind before unleashing a devastating sprint.
Hedegart crossed in 1:51:38.2. Amundsen finished four-tenths of a second behind. Nyenget was third at +1.1. Ree took fourth (+1.5), followed by Herland (+2.1), Krueger (+3.0), Moseby (+4.8), and Andersen (+16.8) after his brave solo effort. Norway swept the top eight positions.
France’s Lovera was the first non-Norwegian in ninth (+48.1), followed by AIN athlete Savelii Korostelev in 10th (+1:24.2).
Ketterson Fights for 11th in His Adopted Home
Zak Ketterson, who spent the summer and fall living and training in Oslo, found himself in the thick of a battle for 11th place, a fight he learned about from coaches stationed along the fog-shrouded course.
“I had heard from coaches on the side of the trail that our pack was fighting for 11th, and that was super cool,” Ketterson said. “I actually felt pretty fresh at the end and thought my finishing sprint would be pretty good, but I didn’t time it well and got really boxed in on the last couple turns into the finish.”
Ketterson ultimately finished 18th (+1:54.2), part of a chase pack that came across the line within seconds of each other. He said everyone in the group knew a sprint was coming on the final lap.
The fog made the tactical picture nearly impossible to read. “I couldn’t see more than 10 meters in front of me,” Ketterson said. “It definitely made it difficult to assess where I was relative to the leaders in the later laps. It also made some of the corners feel way sketchier because you couldn’t really choose an optimal line with such limited visibility.”
For Ketterson, the race carried personal significance beyond the result. Having trained on the Holmenkollen course through the Norwegian summer and fall, he knew every climb and descent intimately. “This is definitely one of the most iconic and cool races we get to do,” he said. “It was especially special for me this year since I trained on this course all summer and fall living in Oslo. The highlight was definitely having my wife Julie and her family out there cheering me on.”
What made the performance all the more impressive was the state of his body coming in. “I honestly feel like I am really running on fumes,” Ketterson said. “To be honest, I was not sure if I would even start this race in the morning. I felt so bad, and honestly, my body has felt super up and down in the last few weeks. I’m really curious to see how my body responds to this race. I was pleasantly surprised by how decent it felt, but I feel like the next week could go either way. Especially with the international travel tomorrow.”
The Rest of the North Americans
Hunter Wonders was 45th (+5:46.9), Kevin Bolger was 48th (+6:51.3), and Brian Bushey was 59th (+12:24.9).
Canada’s Xavier McKeever finished 41st (+5:11.4), while Thomas Stephen was 43rd (+5:18.1).
Distance Globe: Three Points
The ramifications of Saturday’s race land squarely on the crystal globe picture. Before the race, Klaebo held a 128-point lead over Amundsen in the distance standings and a 636-point lead in the overall. With Klaebo watching from home, Amundsen’s 131-point haul (including bonus points) vaulted him into the distance lead: Amundsen now sits at 939 points, three ahead of Klaebo’s 936. Nyenget climbed to 914 in third.
Klaebo’s overall World Cup lead, at 2,071 points to Amundsen’s 1,566, remains secure with a 505-point cushion. But the distance globe — awarded to the season’s best across distance events only — will come down to the final two races: a 10 k Classic Interval Start and a 20 k Freestyle Mass Start in Lake Placid, March 20-22.
If Klaebo can travel to Lake Placid and race, he’ll have every opportunity to reclaim the lead. If the concussion keeps him out, the distance globe is likely to belong to Amundsen.
A Star Made for This Stage
Hedegart’s career trajectory is one of the season’s best stories. A junior biathlon world champion who struggled with his shooting, he drifted toward cross-country skiing after a surprising second-place finish at the Holmenkollen World Cup last season. He spent the summer training with a cross-country team while bringing his rifle to every camp, undecided. In November, after winning the popular pre-World Cup cross-country race in Beitostoelen, Norway, by a wide margin and missing eight of 20 shots in a biathlon event, he committed to leaving the rifle at home.
Since then: an Olympic bronze in the 10 k Freestyle behind Klaebo, a team sprint gold partnered with Klaebo, victories in the Engadin Marathon, and now the Holmenkollen 50 k — a distance he had never raced at the World Cup level. He was asked whether his approach of sitting back resembled Northug’s famous stalking tactics.
“Yeah, I felt like Petter,” Hedegart said. “So I was just lying in the field, and I had to remind myself he did the same.”
For a race that dates to 1888, that has been won by the sport’s mythical stars, and that is contested before the King of Norway in a stadium surrounded by 100,000 fans, there is no small amount of weight to what happened Saturday at the Holmenkollen. Hedegart is, by every measure, now a cross-country skier.
The season concludes with the World Cup Finals in Lake Placid, New York, March 20-22. Three races remain. The distance globe is separated by three points. And the world waits to see whether Klaebo can make it to the start line.
Holmenkollen Men’s 50 k Freestyle FINAL RESULTS
FIS Men’s Crystal Globe SPRINT STANDINGS
FIS Men’s Crystal Globe DISTANCE STANDINGS
FIS Men’s Crystal Globe OVERALL STANDINGS
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