Cross Country Skiing at the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Games:

This was the final women’s cross-country event in Lillehammer. The 1993 World Champion was Italy’s Stefania Belmondo but she was not entered in this event. In her absence, the favorites were considered the other medalists from the 1993 Worlds, her teammate Manuela Di Centa, and Russian Lyubov Yegorova. Di Centa already had four medals in Lillehammer and had won the 15 km 11 days previously. Di Centa was fast from the start, leading at every checkpoint. But she never led by much, closely chased throughout by Norway’s Marit Wold, who started only two positions later. In the end they would win the gold and silver medals, Di Centa winning her second gold of the 1994 Winter Olympics. This would be Wold’s only individual Olympic medal in her career, but she would win a bronze in the event at the 1997 World Championships. The bronze medal here went to an old warhorse, Finland’s Marja-Liisa Kirvesniemi-Hämäläinen, who had won all three individual events at the 1984 Winter Olympics. This was the seventh, and final, Olympic medal of her career. Yegorova was never a factor. She was eighth at the first checkpoint, and still seventh halfway through, before finishing fifth.