Daehlie Has a Big Finish: Eight Golds

Bjorn Daehlie of Norway increased his Winter Olympics record to eight gold medals by winning the 50-kilometer cross-country race on the final day of the Nagano Games.

Steadily pulling through the leaders until he hit the front with about eight kilometers to go, the winningest athlete in the history of the Winter Games collapsed over the finish line Sunday in 2 hours 5 minutes 8.2 seconds.

Silver medalist Niklas Jonsson of Sweden was already there, and the two skiers seemed to exchange a few words of celebration and commiseration as they lay side by side in the snow.

Daehlie’s winning margin was 8.1 seconds. Daehlie, who won three golds at Albertville in 1992 and two at Lillehammer in ‘94, won the 10K classical here and also shared in the Norwegian 40K relay triumph.

The bronze medal went to Austria’s Christian Hoffmann, whom Daehlie overtook in the closing stages. After leading the Norwegian by two-tenths of a second at the 41.9K stage, Hoffmann came home 53.6 seconds behind in 2:06:01.8.

The medal was the 12th of Daehlie’s career. No one has won more Winter Games medals.

Russia’s Alexei Prokurorov, winner of the 30K Classical at the Calgary Olympics 10 years ago, led the field by nearly four seconds one-third of the way through the race.

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MEDALISTS

Cross-Country Skiing

MEN’S 50K

Gold: Bjorn Daehlie, Norway

Silver: Niklas Jonsson, Sweden

Bronze: Christian Hofmann, Austria