Smetanina Wins a Record 10th Medal : Skiing: Her Unified Team earns the gold in the cross-country relay. The Siberian says she will retire, but her teammates have heard that before.

She struggled up the steep Olympic course on her nearly 40-year-old legs, slowly falling behind on the high-altitude cross-country trail.

But Raisa Smetanina got her place in history as the winner of the most medals ever in the Winter Olympics.

She also was believed to be the oldest woman to win a gold in the Winter Games, according to Olympic record keepers sent scurrying to the archives.

Smetanina, 39, won her 10th medal Monday, a gold in the women’s 4 x 5-kilometer cross-country relay, and her Unified Team teammates celebrated by tossing her in the air.

“It’s hard to battle for an Olympic medal, and you all saw how hard it was for me today,” she said after the race.

In her five Olympics, she has won four golds, five silvers and one bronze, and she says there will be no more. She is not planning to compete in the 1994 games at Lillehammer, Norway.

Her teammates will believe it when they see it. Smetanina has been talking about retiring since the 1980 games at Lake Placid.

Her 10-medal total surpasses Swedish cross-country champion Sixten Jernberg’s record by one medal. He won four golds, three silvers and two bronze medals in three Games beginning in 1956.