MILAN (AP) — Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo set the record for the most golds by one athlete in a single winter olympics as the Norwegian star completed his historic gold medal sweep of the men’s cross-country skiing events on Saturday.
Klaebo’s triumph in the 50-kilometre mass start race was his sixth victory at the Milan Cortina Games and shattered the nearly 50-year record set by American speed skater Eric Heidenwho won five golds in the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics.
Klaebo’s teammates, Martin Loewstroem Nyenget, took silver, and Emil Iversen won bronze in a Norwegian sweep.
The win extends Klaebo’s record for most career Winter Olympic gold medals to 11 over three Games. The previous record had been eight, which Klaebo broke Feb. 15.
Klaebo has the second-most Olympic golds overall. US swimming great Michael Phelps has 23.
Jordan Stolz missed out on his chance to become the first man since 1994 to collect three gold medals in long track speedskating at one Olympics, with the American finishing fourth in the mass start behind 40-year-old champion Jorrit Bergsma of the Netherlands.
Bergsma is the oldest man to win a speedskating goldfinishing ahead of Viktor Hald Thorup of Denmark and Italy’s Andrea Giovannini.
The gold in the women’s mass start also went to a Dutch skater: reigning world champion Marijke Groenewoud. Ivanie Blondin of Canada was the silver medalist for the second Games in a row, followed by Mia Manganello of the US with the bronze.
The United States Olympic team won its record-breaking 11th gold medal of the Games when the trio of Kaila Kuhn, Connor Curran and Chris Lillis took the title in mixed aerials.
The 11th gold breaks the country’s record set at the last Olympics on US soil — in Salt Lake City in 2002.
Top-ranked Canada beat the US, for the bronze medal in women’s curling after being upset by Sweden in the semifinals.
Rachel Homan’s team won 10-7 to deny the American women their first medal in the event.
Emily Harrop finally got her hands on an Olympic gold medal, combining with Thibault Anselmet to win the mixed relay for France as part of ski mountaineering’s Olympic debut.
Harrop and Anselmet finished the Stelvio course in a time of 26 minutes, 57.44 seconds, holding off the Swiss team of Marianne Fatton and Jon Kistler by 11.86 seconds. Spanish racers Ana Alonso Rodriguez and Oriol Cardona Coll captured the bronze.
Harrop had been favored to win the individual sprint race on Thursday and the first-ever skimo Olympic medal but finished behind Fatton. Anselmet was third in his race, with Cardona Coll claiming gold.
Freeskiers Simone Deromedis and Federico Tomasoni added to the Olympic host country’s medal haul with a 1-2 finish in the men’s skicross final.
Deromedis dominated the four-skier final to win gold while Tomasoni needed a photo-finish to claim silver after stretching to barely beat Alex Fiva. They both celebrated with Italian flags draped over their shoulders as snow fell.
Deromedis gave Italy its 10th gold medal of the Milan Cortina Olympics, while he and Tomasoni brought Italy’s overall haul to 29.
