Team USA wins silver, Johannes Høsflot Klæbo claims one other gold in Olympic cross-country snowboarding

TESERO, Italy — Ten days in the past, the United States males had not medaled in cross-country snowboarding in 50 years. Now, they’re going to head house from Italy with a minimum of two items of {hardware}, after Ben Ogden and Gus Schumacher gained silver within the workforce dash relay on Wednesday.

Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo gained the boys’s workforce dash alongside teammate Einar Hedegart for his fifth gold medal of those Olympics, having moved away from the pack within the ultimate lap of six. The victory brings him one gold medal away from a historic clear sweep of the cross-country occasions, he ought to win Saturday’s 50km race.

Klæbo, 29, had already damaged the all-time Winter Olympics gold medal file earlier within the Games. Wednesday’s victory marks his tenth gold, two away from some other athlete. His fifth gold in Milan Cortina ties US speedskater Eric Heiden’s file for many gold medals in a single Winter Olympics.

The workforce dash relay consists of six laps, with every athlete alternating to ski three legs every. The US chosen Schumacher to finish the anchor leg.

Hedegart gave Klæbo a slim lead getting into the sixth lap, however Schumacher put the Norwegian underneath strain throughout the ultimate loop. Cresting the ultimate hill in second, the American then held off Italian cross-country icon Federico Pellegrino to safe silver.

“I think I felt anxiety for the first time in my life,” mentioned the pair’s coach, Matt Whitcomb. “Tightness in my chest for the last several days — we were very nervous today.”

At the 2022 Olympics, Ogden and Schumacher completed ninth on this identical occasion. Four years later, they’ve completed seven higher. It’s the primary time the US has medaled within the occasion since Kikkan Randall and Jessie Diggins gained a historic gold within the ladies’s competitors in Beijing in 2018.

Randall and Schumacher are each from Alaska, and years in the past, Randall gave him a pair of his previous poles. Now, the torch — or quite the poles — have formally been handed from Randall, who retired in 2018, and Diggins, who plans to retire on the finish of this season, to Ogden and Schumacher.

Schumacher collapsed into the snow after crossing the road, Ogden draping himself over his exhausted teammate. Ogden, in the meantime, mentioned he was too drained himself to have a good time together with his signature again somersault off the rostrum.

“It’s insane,” mentioned Ogden. “Man, we proved today and all week we are here to stay, and the USA guys are in good shape, so it was awesome.”

Their success got here regardless of a breakdown within the tactical plan set forward of the race, by which the pair had deliberate to satisfy on the right-hand aspect of a crowded, chaotic alternate zone.

“Without fail, every single time we came in on the other side and had to cross through like 15 people,” Ogden mentioned. “Between us, we both realized it wasn’t working, but we couldn’t risk going to the left side and having him not see us. So we had to stick with it.”

The US workforce had raised expectations after qualifying for the ultimate over two seconds away from Norway earlier within the day, having additionally delivered the workforce’s first-ever World Cup podium on the occasion in Switzerland final month.

Ogden’s type, in the meantime, was self-evident after ending the US cross-country drought final week with a second-place end within the particular person dash, an emotional second for a workforce that has spent years build up its males’s program behind a bunch of younger athletes.

“(Ben) set me up in that last lap perfectly,” Schumacher mentioned. “So I had a reasonably easy job to do, and I’m actually glad I used to be in a position to do this.

“I had to show up today and believe I could do it, look at Klæbo’s butt and lock in and follow that to the finish line. I know I can ski technically just as well as him through the corners, and I felt I came into the hill with good speed.

“I was really proud I was able to stay in striking distance. … I felt pretty calm and light, like I was skiing free today.”

Schumacher had endured a tough start to the Games after crashing in the opening lap of the men’s skiathlon. He also missed out on qualifying for the knockout stages of the individual sprint two days later, while watching Ogden, his roommate at these Olympics, take silver.

“Getting a medal is huge but it’s a product of what I’ve done for the last 10 days,” Schumacher said. “They’ve not been that easy.”

“It’s really hard to have everything come together, and so it’s pretty amazing when it does,” Schumacher’s mother, Amy, told TheAthletic in the moments after the medal ceremony. She had been filming the race on FaceTime for Schumacher’s girlfriend.

“I love the idea that you have to feel the lows to feel the highs in life,” Amy said. “Embrace it.”

Ogden’s father, John, died of cancer in 2023. Before he died, he told his son he was capable of racing the best in the world.

“He would ship me these texts, or once we’d discuss on the telephone, he would lump me in with the perfect on this planet. He’d lump me with (Klæbo),” Ogden told TheAthletic last week. “He simply form of considered me and all these top-tier skiers as being form of the identical. And I did not consider it at first.”

Klæbo’s family agreed.

“Ben is getting closer and closer and closer,” said the Norwegian’s father, Haakon, after the individual sprint last week. “He’ll beat Johannes sooner or later. I do know Johannes was frightened within the dash due to the way in which he saved trying again at him within the closing dash. He was actually pushing him.”

Ogden will be 30 years old at his next Olympics, Schumacher 29. As the pair prepared to depart for their official press conference, they were asked whether it would be another 50 years before the next US men’s cross-country medal.

“Somebody asked me that last time, and I said no,” Ogden replied, his second silver medal on his chest. “And now right here we’re, 5 days later. So, no — I do not assume it’s going to be one other 50 years.”