TESSERO (Italy) – After ending a 50-year drought in men’s cross-country skiing, American Ben Ogden proved on Wednesday that it was no fluke by winning his second silver medal.
Teaming up with Gus Schumacher, the American men gave runaway favorites Norway some real competition and beat host nation Italy on home soil in their all-time Olympic Games winners in Milan Cortina.
“We proved today and all week that we are here to stay and that the American players are in good shape,” Ogden said. “So it was great.”
Ogden became the first American man to win a cross-country skiing medal at the Olympic Games in 50 years when he won silver in the sprint on February 10. Until then, Bill Koch, who won silver in 1976 in Innsbruck, was the only American man to medal in the sport.
The win in the men’s team sprint makes Ogden the most decorated male cross country skier in America.
The pair relay involves two legs for each skier, with Ogden starting the race and Schumacher concluding.
This meant that Schumacher was going head-to-head with Norwegian Johannes Hosflot Klebo, who has dominated the sport and continues to set new Olympic records. Claybaugh’s win on Wednesday was his 10th gold medal, breaking his own record for the most gold medals at a Winter Olympics.
While Schumacher stayed on Claybaugh’s tail until the final climb, his focus was: “Look at Claybaugh’s tail, pin it and follow it to the finish line.” “I did it and I’m really proud of it.”
Schumacher was unable to catch Clippo but overtook Italian Federico Pellegrino.
With 10 meters to go, he saw Ogden crossing the finish line to greet him and knew a medal was within reach. He crossed the line 1.4 seconds behind Claybaugh and collapsed in the snow. Ogden knelt down and embraced his colleague and friend.
“I’ll be the guy who gets beaten,” Schumacher joked. “That’s the problem with coming second, but yeah, I’m very happy about it.”
In recent years, the story of cross-country skiing in the United States has been about women and superstar Jessie Diggins, the current World Cup leader who is competing in her final Olympics.
Diggins is the most decorated American female cross-country skier with four medals, including a gold from 2018 in Pyeongchang in the team sprint with Kikan Randall, and a silver and two bronzes, including most recently last week at the start of the 10-kilometer interval.
Diggins and Julia Kern finished fifth in the women’s team sprint on Wednesday.
Ogden said the result was “huge” for skiing in the United States, and he hoped the victory on both coasts — he lives in Vermont and Schumacher in Alaska — would be an inspiration to all skiers.
“We hope everyone gets excited after seeing this because, you know, we proved this week that American skaters can do it just as well as anyone else, and that applies to every age, every generation, and every person in the U.S. skate community,” Ogden said. “So it’s going to be sick to go home.”
Ogden said it would not be another half century before the United States stood on the podium again. Based on these results, he may be right.
This story has been corrected to show that Diggins won two bronze medals and a silver, not two silver and a bronze.
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