\n<\/p>\n
Norway\u2019s Johannes H\u00f8sflot Kl\u00e6bo won the men\u2019s team sprint alongside teammate Einar Hedegart for his fifth gold medal of these Olympics, having moved away from the pack in the final lap of six. The victory brings him one gold medal away from a historic clean sweep of the cross-country events, should he win Saturday\u2019s 50km race.<\/p>\n
Kl\u00e6bo, 29, had already broken the all-time Winter Olympics gold medal record earlier in the Games. Wednesday\u2019s victory marks his 10th gold, two clear of any other athlete. His fifth gold in Milan Cortina ties U.S. speedskater Eric Heiden\u2019s record for most gold medals in a single Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n
The team sprint relay consists of six laps, with each athlete alternating to ski three legs each. The U.S. selected Schumacher to complete the anchor leg.<\/p>\n
Hedegart gave Kl\u00e6bo a slim lead entering the sixth lap, but Schumacher put the Norwegian under pressure during the final loop. Cresting the final hill in second, the American then held off Italian cross-country icon Federico Pellegrino to secure silver.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I felt anxiety for the first time in my life,\u201d said the pair\u2019s coach, Matt Whitcomb. \u201cTightness in my chest for the last several days \u2014 we were very nervous today.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the 2022 Olympics, Ogden and Schumacher finished ninth in this same event. Four years later, they\u2019ve finished seven better. It\u2019s the first time the U.S. has medaled in the event since Kikkan Randall and Jessie Diggins won a historic gold in the women\u2019s competition in Beijing in 2018.<\/p>\n
Randall and Schumacher are both from Alaska, and years ago, Randall gave him a pair of her old poles. Now, the torch \u2014 or rather the poles \u2014 have officially been passed from Randall, who retired in 2018, and Diggins, who plans to retire at the end of this season, to Ogden and Schumacher.<\/p>\n
Schumacher collapsed into the snow after crossing the line, Ogden draping himself over his exhausted teammate. Ogden, meanwhile, said he was too tired himself to celebrate with his signature back somersault off the podium.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s insane,\u201d said Ogden. \u201cMan, we proved today and all week we are here to stay, and the USA guys are in good form, so it was awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their success came despite a breakdown in the tactical plan set ahead of the race, in which the pair had planned to meet on the right-hand side of a crowded, chaotic exchange zone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout fail, every single time we came in on the other side and had to cross through like 15 people,\u201d Ogden said. \u201cBetween us, we both realised it wasn\u2019t working, but we couldn\u2019t risk going to the left side and having him not see us. So we had to stick with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. team had raised expectations after qualifying for the final over two seconds clear of Norway earlier in the day, having also delivered the team\u2019s first-ever World Cup podium in the event in Switzerland last month.<\/p>\n
Ogden\u2019s form, meanwhile, was self-evident after ending the U.S. cross-country drought last week with a second-place finish in the individual sprint, an emotional moment for a team that has spent years building up its men\u2019s program behind a group of young athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Ben) set me up in that last lap perfectly,\u201d Schumacher said. \u201cSo I had a pretty simple job to do, and I\u2019m really glad I was able to do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to show up today and believe I could do it, look at Kl\u00e6bo\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really proud I was able to stay in striking distance. \u2026 I felt pretty calm and light, like I was skiing free today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schumacher had endured a tough start to the Games after crashing in the opening lap of the men\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting a medal is huge but it\u2019s a product of what I\u2019ve done for the last 10 days,\u201d Schumacher said. \u201cThey\u2019ve not been that easy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really hard to have everything come together, and so it\u2019s pretty amazing when it does,\u201d Schumacher\u2019s mother, Amy, told The Athletic<\/em> in the moments after the medal ceremony. She had been filming the race on FaceTime for Schumacher\u2019s girlfriend.<\/p>\n \u201cI love the idea that you have to feel the lows to feel the highs in life,\u201d Amy said. \u201cEmbrace it.\u201d<\/p>\n Ogden\u2019s father, John, died of cancer in 2023. Before he died, he told his son he was capable of racing the best in the world.<\/p>\n \u201cHe would send me these texts, or when we\u2019d talk on the phone, he would lump me in with the best in the world. He\u2019d lump me with (Kl\u00e6bo),\u201d Ogden told The Athletic<\/em> last week<\/a>. \u201cHe just sort of thought of me and all these top-tier skiers as being sort of the same. And I didn\u2019t believe it at first.\u201d<\/p>\n Kl\u00e6bo\u2019s family agreed.<\/p>\n \u201cBen is getting closer and closer and closer,\u201d said the Norwegian\u2019s father, Haakon, after the individual sprint last week. \u201cHe\u2019ll beat Johannes one day. I know Johannes was worried in the sprint because of the way he kept looking back at him in the closing sprint. He was really pushing him.\u201d<\/p>\n 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 U.S. men\u2019s cross-country medal.<\/p>\n \u201cSomebody asked me that last time, and I said no,\u201d Ogden replied, his second silver medal on his chest. \u201cAnd now here we are, five days later. So, no \u2014 I don\u2019t think it\u2019ll be another 50 years.\u201d\n<\/p><\/div>\n TESERO, Italy \u2014 Ten days ago, the United States men had not medaled in cross-country skiing in 50 years. Now, they\u2019ll head home from Italy with at least two pieces of hardware, after Ben Ogden and Gus Schumacher won silver in the team sprint relay on Wednesday. Norway\u2019s Johannes H\u00f8sflot Kl\u00e6bo won the men\u2019s team … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Team-USA-wins-silver-Johannes-Hosflot-Klaebo-claims-another-gold.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21033,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21031\/revisions\/21033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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