Greatest of all time Klaebo wins sixth Olympic gold at Milano Cortina

Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo won his sixth Olympic gold out of six events at Milano Cortina 2026 as he led a Norwegian clean sweep of the Men’s 50km Mass Start Classic race at the Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium on Saturday.

The greatest Cross-Country skier of all time was pushed all the way by his team-mate Martin Lowestroem Nyenget, who pushed hard early on and then ultimately set the pace for Klaebo all the way to the finish line.

Having won six out of six golds at the FIS 2025 World Championships, he has now incredibly repeated the feat at the Winter Olympic Games, along with extending his total Olympic golds to 11, to come only second to American swimmer Michael Phelps who has 23, in the ranking of most Olympic gold medals among all athletes.

Emil Iversen was happy to end his Olympic career with bronze, as he began to struggle on the last lap, falling behind to leave his compatriots to battle it out for gold. As seen in so many of the races at Milano Cortina, Klaebo left it to the last hill climb to make his move, showing his superior strength and speed to power uphill in the last kilometer of the 50km distance.

“Mentally I’ve been in a better place than last year, I feel like I have a lot of fun racing out there even though I’ve been nervous in some of the competitions,” said Klaebo. “I’m always looking forward to going out there and fighting for a medal.

“I have a very supportive family and fiancée, so together we are making the right choices and the result of that is six gold medals.”

Nyenget smiled as he crossed the finish line behind Klaebo, in what was his first and final Olympics of his career, with the 33-year-old admitting “I will look back and be proud of the silver” as he was unable to upset his team-mate’s historic clean sweep.

“It’s been a dream of mine just to compete in the Olympics, I’ve been working hard for many years and to finally be here with three medals is fantastic,” said Nyenget. “This race today is the one I’ve been working in my mind the most.”

Iversen, who admitted feeling weaker in the last couple of laps, said of Norway’s clean sweep: “It’s unreal what we have done today. We got away from everybody else, and we were the three strongest skiers in the world. I am one of those three.”

The 34-year-old added he was proud to hold on for his first medal at Milano Cortina, to add to his silver medal in the men’s relay at Beijing 2022. “I have prepared for this my whole life. I’ve had a rollercoaster of a career the last years and everything led up to this day. I got the chance and I did it.”

All three leaders decided against switching to fresh skis on the last lap despite the course softening up in the warm weather, with the chasing group of Savelii Korostelev (AIN), and France’s Victor Lovera and Theo Schely deciding to change skis at the 28.8km mark, with the rest of the field then following suit.

Despite Korostelev being ahead of the chasing pack for the majority of the race after falling behind the leaders halfway through the race, he finished fifth after being overtaken by Schely, who crossed the line almost three minutes behind the Norwegian medalists.

The only 50km Olympic medalist to be involved in the race, from PyeongChang 2018, was Finland’s Iivo Niskanen who dropped out along with Norway’s Harald Oestberg Amundsen, unable to keep up with the fast pace at 15km.

On stopping his race alongside Amundsen, Niskanen said: “When I noticed I’m not going skiing for medals today, I figured it’s time to come to my senses so that I don’t kill myself out there.

“He also had a flu before the race, before the Olympics I guess, so we were there, just having a cough-off together.”

Illness had affected many of the athletes in the last of the men’s races with Italy’s Federico Pellegrino, USA’s Ben Ogden and Finland’s Ristomatti Hakola unable to make the start line.

Italy’s men’s team coach, Markus Cramer said of Pellegrino being unable to start the race: “I’m very sad for him of course because it was one of his main goals at his last Olympic Games to start the 50 kilometers to make a big result and now he’s not able to ski because yesterday he became sick with a high temperature.

“We waited until this morning but he was without energy and it was not possible. It is really a shame for him but also for us, and to watch on TV is really hard.”

For the results of the Men’s mass Start Classic click here.