Cross-country skiing at the 2006 Winter Olympics – Men's sprint

The men's sprint cross-country skiing competition at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, was held on 22 February at Pragelato.

Vasily Rochev was the defending world champion at this event, but he won in the classical style. The last free style sprint at the World Championships was won by Thobias Fredriksson in 2003, while Tor Arne Hetland was defending Olympic champion. Swede Björn Lind won the two most recent World Cup events, and also won the Olympic race, beating Frenchman Roddy Darragon to the line. Darragon won France's first cross-country skiing medal in the history of the Olympics, while Sweden took the bronze through Thobias Fredriksson.

Results

Qualifying Eighty skiers completed the 1.3 kilometre course in the qualifying portion of the event, with the top thirty advancing to the quarterfinals. Rank Name Country Time Notes 1 Björn Lind 2:13.53 Q 2 Andrew Newell 2:14.79 Q 3 Johan Kjølstad 2:15.11 Q 4 Vasily Rochev 2:16.19 Q 5 Cristian Zorzi 2:16.23 Q 6 Mikael Östberg 2:16.24 Q 7 Trond Iversen 2:16.25 Q 8 Loris Frasnelli 2:16.30 Q 9 Peter Larsson 2:16.62 Q 10 Roddy Darragon 2:16.76 Q 11 Renato Pasini 2:16.87 Q 12 Ola Vigen Hattestad 2:17.26 Q 13 Yuichi Onda 2:17.53 Q 14 Anti Saarepuu 2:17:75 Q 15 Tor Arne Hetland 2:17.91 Q 16 Chris Cook 2:18.46 Q 17 Freddy Schwienbacher 2:18.59 Q 18 Yevgeniy Koschevoy 2:18.88 Q 19 Thobias Fredriksson 2:18.90 Q 20 Martin Koukal 2:19.39 Q 21 Dušan Kožíšek 2:19.64 Q 22 Keijo Kurttila 2:19.94 Q 23 Janusz Krężelok 2:20.04 Q 24 Harald Wurm 2:20.11 Q 25 Martin Stockinger 2:20.18 Q 26 Lauri Pyykönen 2:20.21 Q 27 Ivan Alypov 2:20.21 Q 28 Sergey Novikov 2:20.29 Q 29 Lefteris Fafalis 2:20.33 Q 30 Christoph Eigenmann 2:20.46 Q 31 Drew Goldsack 2:20.62 32 Sean Crooks 2:20.70 33 Maciej Kreczmer 2:20.83 34 Pavel Korostelev 2:21.00 35 Nikolay Chebotko 2:21.23 36 Torin Koos 2:21.47 37 Devon Kershaw 2:21.49 38 Peeter Kümmel 2:21.60 39 Nejc Brodar 2:21.94 40 Ivan Bilosyuk 2:21.97 41 Priit Narusk 2:22.19 42 Vitaly Martsyv 2:22.30 43 Shunsuke Komamura 2:22.38 44 Zoltan Tagscherer 2:22.69 45 Yevgeni Safonov 2:22.99 46 Lars Flora 2:23.02 47 Phil Widmer 2:23.79 48 Zhang Chengye 2:24.18 49 Martin Otcenas 2:24.77 50 Oļegs Maļuhins 2:24.88 51 Paul Murray 2:25.29 52 Alexander Lasutkin 2:25.79 53 Tian Ye 2:25.85 54 Aivar Rehemaa 2:26.09 55 Sergey Cherepanov 2:26.48 56 Joze Mehle 2:27.02 57 Oliver Kraas 2:27.68 58 Zhang Qing 2:27.90 59 Aleksej Novoselskij 2:28.04 60 Damir Jurcevic 2:28.21 61 Sami Jauhojärvi 2:28.42 62 Mikhail Gumenyak 2:28.72 63 Park Byung Joo 2:28.85 64 Muhammet Kızılarslan 2:28.94 65 Zsolt Antal 2:29.40 66 Olexandr Putsko 2:30.99 67 Sabahattin Oglago 2:31.10 68 Valts Eiduks 2:31.25 69 Mihai Galiceanu 2:31.43 70 Chen Haibin 2:32.01 71 Ivan Bariakov 2:32.18 72 Intars Spalviņš 2:32.26 73 Denis Klobucar 2:33.10 74 Olegs Andrejevs 2:33.23 75 Alen Abramovic 2:34.61 76 Jung Eui Myung 2:35.39 77 Ilie Bria 2:42.30 78 Bahadur Gupta 2:43.30 79 Hovhannes Sargsyan 2:47.68 80 Edmond Khachatryan 2:49.98

Quarterfinals

There were five quarterfinal races, each with six skiers. The top two in each heat advanced to the semifinals.

Quarterfinal 1 Rank Seed Athlete Result Notes 1 1 2:21.5 Q 2 10 2:21.9 Q 3 20 2:23.5 4 11 2:23.7 5 21 2:24.5 6 30 2:25.6

Quarterfinal 2 Rank Seed Athlete Result Notes 1 17 2:20.4 Q 2 14 2:20.7 Q 3 4 2:22.0 4 7 2:22.5 5 24 2:23.4 6 27 2:24.7

Quarterfinal 3 Rank Seed Athlete Result Notes 1 5 2:25.9 Q 2 15 2:26.1 Q 3 6 2:26.7 4 25 2:27.1 5 16 2:27.9 6 26 2:28.1

Quarterfinal 4 Rank Seed Athlete Result Notes 1 12 2:23.1 Q 2 19 2:23.2 Q 3 9 2:23.3 4 2 2:24.3 5 22 2:25.1 6 29 2:26.7

Quarterfinal 5 Rank Seed Athlete Result Notes 1 3 2:20.2 Q 2 8 2:20.4 Q 3 18 2:20.7 4 23 2:21.6 5 28 2:21.9 6 13 2:22.3

Semifinals

There were two semifinal races, each with five skiers. The top two in each semifinal advanced to the A Final, to compete for the top four places, while the third and fourth placed finishers advanced to the B Final, for places five through eight.

Semifinal 1 Rank Seed Athlete Result Notes 1 1 2:19.6 Q 2 10 2:19.9 Q 3 17 2:22.8 4 14 2:34.8 5 15 2:43.2

Semifinal 2 Rank Seed Athlete Result Notes 1 19 2:25.9 Q 2 5 2:26.1 Q 3 8 2:26.8 4 3 2:27.1 5 12 2:29.0

Finals

Björn Lind finished 0.6 seconds ahead of Roddy Darragon to win the Olympic gold medal in the cross-country sprint.

Final A Rank Seed Athlete Result 1 2:26.5 10 2:27.1 19 2:27.8 4 5 2:31.7

Final B Rank Seed Athlete Result 5 17 2:23.9 6 8 2:25.2 7 3 2:25.6 8 14 2:27.9

References