Norway's Johannes Klaebo ties Olympic record with 8th gold medal

TESERO, Italy -- Norway's Johannes Klaebo won the men's 10km freestyle cross-country ski race on Friday to earn his eighth Olympic title and equal the record for the most gold medals at the Winter Games.

Mathis Desloges of France won silver, his second of the Milan Cortina Olympics, while Norway's Einar Hedegart won the bronze.

The victory was the third of this Olympics for Klaebo, 29, and tied the Norwegian skier with three of his compatriots -- fellow cross-country skiers Marit Bjoergen and Bjorn Daehlie and biathlete Ole Einar Bjorndalen -- with eight gold medals overall. He is scheduled to ski in three more events and could take the outright lead for gold medals by an individual Olympian.

"Today is one of the toughest races we've done, and everyone was completely exhausted when we crossed the finish line. For me, today was really hard. I tried to open with control and at the end there it was really hard," said Klaebo, who won his first three Olympic golds at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games and two more at the 2022 Beijing Games.

"I'm really satisfied with being first. This is my first time winning a 10k in interval style."

Hedegart, a biathlete who shifted his focus to cross-country skiing and was considered one of Klaebo's biggest challengers, came close to taking victory, but lost steam on a climb in the final section of the race.

He ended up in third, 14 seconds behind the winner, with Desloges 4.9 seconds adrift in the interval-style race.

"I've never experienced this kind of dizziness. I was so dizzy the last two kilometers and I had nothing left in the tank, so it was just pain and suffering," Hedegart said.

"In the last 200m I didn't know if I was going to make it to the finish line, and even though it was only downhill I was so scared that I would pass out."

Skiers faced another day of warm weather, with temperatures hitting 42 degrees, prompting some to forgo their tops and only wear a race bib. Those starting earlier in the competition had an advantage as conditions deteriorated over the course of the race, causing several skiers to crash when going down hills.

Course officials decided against salting the track to make the snow more compact, as they had done the previous day for the women's 10km freestyle event.

--Reuters, special to Field Level Media