Niskanen d''oro in the men's 50 km alternating

Nordic Skiing: All news

PyeongChang 2018: All news

Great performance by the Finnish Iivo Niskanen, who after a grueling race and the whole attack was able to win the gold medal, ahead of the Russians Bolshunov and Larkov.

Saturday 24 February 2018 5 minutes reading time

In the initial stages were the norge to take the lead to make the pace, sustained but not impossible. At the bottom of the group several second-tier athletes broke away, all the best instead remained together. In the following kilometers, however, they lost contact with the Finnish Matti Heikkinen, the Swede Calle Halfvarsson and the Azzurri Giandomenico Salvadori and Dietmar NÃ¶ckler. As happened at the opening of the relay, Maicol Rastelli decided to stand out, leading the platoon for several kilometers. At the passage to the 16 km all the top athletes decided to change the skis and once out of the stadium came the attack of Niskanen, a strong and prolonged acceleration that has skimmed the leading group significantly. Only Poltoranin was able to keep the pace of the Finnish, the two passed the command halfway through the race with 11 "ahead of Bolshunov, the first of the pursuers. Near the 30 km Niskanen detached his travel companion, behind Bolshunov went back to second position, all the others instead paid over 1'20 ". For several kilometers the Russian remained at a dozen seconds from the tread, which reached at km 37, where the two went with 50 "on Poltoranin and 2'05" on Harvey, Sundby, Holund and Larkov. In the last part the two leaders led a parallel race and their advantage grew progressively, Niskanen decided to change the skis two laps from the end but in a few hundred meters he went back to Bolshunov. The fight for the gold medal was resolved 3 km from the finish line, when Niskanen, just before the last climb, attacked, taking a few seconds of margin over his rival. Seconds that were enough to show up on the solo finish line and win the race. In the end Bolshunov, silver medalist, paid 18 ". In the meantime Poltoranin went into crisis and was reached and overtaken by the quartet composed by Larkov, Sundby, Harvey and Holund. These four were played the bronze on the final climb, where the Russian has shown to have an extra gear and, after detaching everyone, went to get the medal. The gaps were abysmal, Larkov crossed the line with 2''37 ", fourth place instead for Harvey 2''43" that beat the sprint Sundby and Holund. Behind them for over a minute he closed the first of the Swedes, Daniel Rickardsson 7th to 3''50 "Over the four minutes of the ranks of Jaks 8th, Cologna 9th and Iversen 10th Poltoranin was shipwrecked in 15th place . The Azzurri, after a good initial part, dropped significantly in the second half of the race. In the end the best was Salvadori 16th, 19th instead Rastelli, 21st NÃ¶ckler and 22nd De Fabiani. Tomorrow at 7:15 will start the 30 km C female, the last race of the Pyeongchang 2018 program.

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