(Reuters) – Norway showed it remains the dominant force in men’s cross country skiing as the country claimed the top ten spots in the World Cup 50km mass start free in Oslo on Saturday.
Simen Hegstad Krueger won the race 5.7 seconds ahead of Hans Christer Holund in front of a noisy home crowd at the Holmenkollen Arena.
“This race is something special and we know what’s waiting for us up these hills and it’s so much fun to race there even though it hurts in the last laps, and the crowd is amazing,” Krueger said.
Martin Loewstroem Nyenget took third, 12.6 seconds behind Krueger and completed a clean sweep on the podium for Norway with King Harald, who greeted the winner afterwards, watching on.
Britain’s Andrew Musgrave was the leading non-Norwegian, finishing in 11th place, two minutes and 38.8 seconds behind Krueger.
(Reporting by Tommy Lund in Gdansk; Editing by Toby Davis)
