Klaebo and Sundling out to dominate Sprint Classics

Olympic Sprint champions Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo (NOR) and Jonna Sundling (SWE) will be looking to dominate the Men’s and Women’s Sprint Classics at the Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium at Milano Cortina 2026 on Tuesday.

While Klaebo could secure his seventh Olympic gold medal, having won his sixth with a brilliant sprint to the finish of the Men’s 10km + 10km Skiathlon on Sunday, Sundling will lead a potential Swedish one-two at the top of the women’s podium along with team-mate Maja Dahlqvist, who won silver behind her at Beijing 2022.

However, there will be plenty of rivals with high hopes of an upset in both races. “I want to have the belief I can beat him,” said Sweden’s Alvar Myhlback of Klaebo. “At the same time, he is the one man who is incredibly hard to beat.

“If you can match him up the hill and around that corner, I’m not afraid of him in the home straight.”

Myhlback is making his Olympic debut along with team-mate Edvin Anger, who is similarly hungry to catch Klaebo. Anger will also want to make up for a disappointing start at Milano Cortina 2026 after his fall in Sunday’s Men’s 10km + 10km Skiathlon, where Klaebo sprinted away from his opponents in the final kilometer.

“He shows he’s in shape,” said Anger. “He does it incredibly fast, but then again, the skiers he skied away from weren’t sprinters. It would’ve been nice to try to keep up there.”

Four-time Olympian Federico Pellegrino will have home support to push him to go one better in the Sprint, having won silver at both Beijing 2022 and PyeongChang 2018.

Norway has another strong sprinter in Erik Valnes, who took home Olympic gold at Beijing 2022 in the Men’s Team Sprint Classic with Klaebo.

In the women’s Sprint Classic, Sundling will be the one with a target on her back.

She will also have to deal with fending off a team-mate in the form of Dahlqvist, who won three gold medals at the 2025 FIS Nordic Ski World Championships in Trondheim, Norway, and plans to “dare to go for it” at Milano Cortina 2026.

While the team will be hoping to have as many Swedes as possible in the final, Dahlqvist added that “everyone is going for themselves” and that “it does help” to have already had the experience of a first Olympic Winter Games.

The 31-year-old, who won silver in the Women’s Team Sprint Classic and bronze in the Women’s 4 x 5km Relay together with Sundling at Beijing 2022, once believed that those medals would be the limit of her Olympic silverware.

“No one can take that from me and I can dare to go for it in a different way this time. At that time, I didn’t think I’d race at another Olympics. I thought I was old by then already.”

On how the Swedes collaborate during the Sprint, Dahlqvist said: “We usually want to have as many Swedes as possible in the final, but in the final, everyone is going for themselves. It’s a team sport, but it’s also very much an individual sport.”

Together with the Beijing 2022 bronze medalist and four-time Olympian, Jessie Diggins (USA), also in the line-up, it is set to be an exciting replay for the top spots.

While Diggins plans to retire at the end of this season, Dahlqvist is aiming to call time on her career after next year’s world championships. “I hope I will feel satisfied by then,” she said. “But I don’t know if you can just decide that. We will have to see.”

Along with fellow Swedes Linn Svahn and Johanna Hagstroem, another sprinter in the running to upset the previous podium winners is Norway’s Kristine Stavaas Skistad, who will be making her first Olympic appearance but has shown recent form with more than one World Cup win this season. She also has a world championship silver to her name in the Women’s Sprint Free from Trondheim 2025.

On whether the course could fit Skistad to rival his Swedish team-mates, Anger said: “I do think it would fit her, but I’d have a hard time believing she’d keep up if the Swedish women are in shape.

“I know how strong they are, all four Swedish [sprint] women. If one of them has a top day, then it will be hard to keep up.”

For the full Cross-Country schedule for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games click here.