Italy’s Belmondo Pole Vaults to Gold

Not only did the women’s 15-kilometer freestyle cross-country race at Soldier Hollow provide the first medal winners of the 2002 Olympic Games, it provided the first dramatic comeback, the first exciting finish and the first heartwarming story.

Stefania Belmondo of Italy overcame a broken pole that dropped her into 10th place two-thirds of the way into the race to come back and overtake Russia’s Larissa Lazutina on the final stretch for the gold medal with a winning time of 39 minutes 54.4 seconds.

That’s getting a replacement the hard way.

Belmondo, a four-time Olympian, had won seven previous medals, including a gold in the 30-kilometer race in 1992. She was asked to take that gold to a ceremony in the Italian Alps in October. The cold weather, the altitude, or a combination of both caused her medal to crumble into pieces.

“I said, ‘I’ve got to get another one,’” she said through a translator.

She was off to a clean beginning with the leaders in the mass start. It’s the first time the Olympics have used this format, which sends all of the racers off at the same time, lined up in rows according to their World Cup rankings. Previously, racers left in timed intervals and competed strictly against the clock.

In the mass start, “There’s a lot of pushing and shoving, a lot of physical contact out there,” said 30th-place finisher Nina Kemppel of Anchorage.

Even in the small leader pack that broke ahead, there was a lot of bumping and banging. Someone hit Belmondo’s pole, and it broke around the 10.5-kilometer mark.

“I thought the race was over,” Belmondo said.

“I cried from the bottom of my heart.”

A French spectator offered her one of his poles, but that didn’t work because the pole was too tall for the 5-foot-3 Belmondo. She pushed along with one pole for 600 or 700 meters and fell 8.8 seconds behind Lazutina at the 11.6-kilometer interval.

“I said to myself, ‘Oh my, the race is over. It’s over for sure,’” Belmondo said. “I felt exhausted.”

Then her trainer gave her a pole and she began to catch up. By the 13.7-kilometer mark she was only three-tenths of a second behind. As they headed down the final hill, she was just behind Lazutina. They were even as they came around the turn, then she sprinted down the stretch to the finish line ahead of Lazutina.

“I said, ‘I just can’t come in second this time,’” Belmondo said. “It has to be gold.”

She beat Lazutina, who has won five cross-country gold medals, by 1.8 seconds.

Katerina Neumannova of the Czech Republic won the bronze medal.

The men’s 30-kilometer freestyle cross-country race featured a blowout victory for Spain, courtesy of a German, an exciting duel between two Austrians and disappointment for Sweden and Norway.

Johann Muehlegg was born in Germany and competed for his native country through 1998, including the 1998 Olympics in Nagano. But he clashed with the German ski federation and decided to apply for Spanish citizenship.

Like a college transfer, he sat out a year of international competition until he became a naturalized Spaniard in November 1999 and he has competed for them ever since.

He surged ahead of everyone at the mass start and had a 16-second lead after 7.5 kilometers and led by almost 90 seconds halfway through the race. His final time of 1:09:28.9 beat the closest competitors by more than two minutes.

The battle for silver was much closer, as Austrian Christian Hoffmann and countryman Mikhail Botvinov fought each other until the final yards before Hoffmann crossed the finish line at 1:11:31, 1.3 seconds before Botvinov.

Sweden Per Elofsson, the reigning World Cup champion and a gold medal favorite, dropped out of the race after two laps, saying he couldn’t generate any energy.

“I was going well in the first lap, then my body froze,” Elofsson said. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

The top finisher for Norway, which usually dominates cross-country skiing, was Kristen Skjeldal, who finished fourth.

The best American finisher was Andrew Johnson of Greensboro, Vt., in 22nd place.