Cross Country Skiing at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games:

The favorite was Norway’s Ola Vigen Hattestad, the 2009 World Champion and the sprint World Cup champion in the past two years. Perhaps the surprise of this event was the absence of any Swedish skiers in the final as they were thought to have good chances with Emil Jönsson and Björn Lind, who had featured in the World Cup in the past few seasons. The final was essentially a contest between three Norwegian skiers – Hattestad, Petter Northug and Øystein Pettersen, and two Russians Aleksandr Panzhinsky, who was the fastest qualifier, and Nikita Kryukov. If the Norwegians had a race plan, it was soon blown away by Panzhinsky who took a commanding lead at the start and maintained that lead for most of the race. The drama happened behind the leaders as Aleksey Poltoranin (KAZ) fell, taking down Hattestad with him. The other two Norwegians fell back by some distance, and going into the home straight Panzhinsky held the lead. However a tremendous surge by Kryukov saw him win by a fraction of a second on the line ahead of his compatriot. Northug finished in the bronze medal position, some distance behind the winner. There were some complaints about the schedule. The B-final had been eliminated and the final was held soon after the second semi-final, giving the qualifiers from the first semi-final a big advantage.