Norway’s cross-country skiing queen Therese Johaug has won her third gold medal at the Beijing Winter Games.
In the last Olympic race of her career, the 33-year-old won the “Marathon” over 30 kilometers, clearly ahead of Jessica Diggins (USA) and Kerttu Niskanen (Finland). As the best German, team sprint Olympic champion Victoria Carl ended up in twelfth place.
Johaug made the decisive attack after just nine kilometers and ran a lonely race from then on. At the finish, after 1:24:54.0 hours, she was a proud 1:43.3 minutes ahead of Diggins, it was the second-largest lead in Olympic thirties history.
Carl initially stayed in the first chasing group, but had to pay tribute to the high speed and the adverse conditions and finished a good five minutes behind Johaug.
Before the race, Johaug had announced that he would no longer be taking part in the Olympics in four years. The 14-time world champion had previously won gold in skiathlon and over 10 km classic in Beijing, these were her first Olympic victories since relay gold in Vancouver in 2010. In 2018 in Pyeongchang she only watched because of a doping ban.