The Women's 15 kilometre freestyle mass start cross-country skiing competition at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, United States, was held on 9 February at Soldier Hollow.
All 60 skiers began at once in a mass start. 2002 was the first time that a mass start was held in the Olympics.
The Race This was the first Winter Olympic cross-country event skied entirely as a mass start race. Previously, this event was held at an interval start. It was also the first medal event across all sports in Salt Lake City, starting shortly before the men raced 30 km. The 2001 World Champion was Bente Skari of Norway elected not to contest this race, even though she had been the dominant female cross-country racer over the past five years.
The early leader in the race was Russian Yuliya Chepalova, but by 9 km, Italy's Stefania Belmondo, the 1999 World Champion in the event, moved ahead, until her pole broke at 10.5 km. She dropped back to 10th place, but trailed the leader, Larisa Lazutina, by only 10 seconds. Belmondo was given a pole by a French official but it was very long, so she struggled for over 500 metres until an Italian coach gave her one of her own poles. She then powered ahead, caught Lazutina and won a narrow victory by 1.8 seconds. Behind them, Czech skier Katerina Neumannová came in for the bronze medal. But Lazutina would not keep her silver medal. After the pursuit race, held six days later, she was found to have tested positive for darpopoietin, an erythropoietin analogue, and was disqualified in late 2003. Neumannová was moved up to silver medal, and Chepalova would get the bronze. Chepalova and fourth-placed Finland's Kaisa Varis failed drug tests later in their careers, but their Olympic results were left unaffected.
Results The race was started at 09:00.Final results
Rank Bib Name Country Time Deficit 3 Stefania Belmondo 39:54.4 4 Kateřina Neumannová 40:01.3 1 Yuliya Chepalova 40:02.7 4 10 Kaisa Varis 40:04.1 5 12 Svetlana Nageykina 40:17.9 6 7 Gabriella Paruzzi 40:25.7 7 8 Kristina Šmigun 40:33.6 8 20 Karine Philippot 40:38.6 9 18 Iryna Terelya 40:39.4 10 9 Sabina Valbusa 40:48.3 11 6 Olga Zavyalova 40:53.3 12 14 Evi Sachenbacher 40:57.6 +1:03.2 13 11 Yelena Burukhina 41:01.1 +1:06.7 14 5 Hilde Gjermundshaug Pedersen 41:47.8 +1:53.4 15 34 Natascia Leonardi Cortesi 41:56.3 +2:01.9 16 30 Antonella Confortola 41:57.8 +2:03.4 17 24 Vera Zyatikova 42:04.5 +2:10.1 18 27 Nataliya Zyatikova 42:04.5 +2:10.1 19 21 Riitta-Liisa Lassila 42:14.3 +2:19.9 20 43 Kateřina Hanušová 42:15.7 +2:21.3 21 15 Valentyna Shevchenko 42:16.0 +2:21.6 22 29 Sumiko Yokoyama 42:16.2 +2:21.8 23 44 Katrin Šmigun 42:25.6 +2:31.2 24 39 Annick Pierrel 42:26.7 +2:32.3 25 33 Oxana Yatskaya 42:46.0 +2:51.6 26 31 Claudia Nystad 42:49.5 +2:55.1 27 32 Kanoko Goto 42:50.4 +2:56.0 28 13 Vibeke Skofterud 42:50.9 +2:56.5 29 28 Nina Kemppel 42:53.1 +2:58.7 30 37 Anna-Carin Olofsson 42:53.8 +2:59.4 31 38 Brigitte Albrecht-Loretan 42:54.4 +3:00.0 32 35 Nataša Lačen 43:05.0 +3:10.6 33 26 Svetlana Shishkina 43:05.1 +3:10.7 34 36 Amanda Fortier 43:38.7 +3:44.3 35 58 Anke Reschwamm Schulze 43:53.1 +3:58.7 36 22 Anna Dahlberg 43:53.7 +3:59.3 37 41 Jaime Fortier 43:54.0 +3:59.6 38 25 Elin Ek 43:55.3 +4:00.9 39 23 Jenny Karin Olsson 43:57.7 +4:03.3 40 49 Nataliya Sviridova-Kalinovskaya 44:09.2 +4:14.8 41 46 Helena Erbenová 44:17.8 +4:23.4 42 42 Midori Furusawa 44:41.8 +4:47.4 43 50 Barbara Jones 45:04.3 +5:09.9 44 45 Vita Yakymchuk 45:26.7 +5:32.3 45 53 Darya Starostina 45:28.8 +5:34.4 46 47 Lee Chae-won 45:37.9 +5:43.5 47 56 Hou Yuxia 45:42.2 +5:47.8 48 52 Irina Terentjeva 45:45.4 +5:51.0 49 55 Nataliya Isachenko 45:51.4 +5:57.0 50 17 Marit Bjørgen 47:07.4 +7:13.0 51 48 Ilona Bublová 47:31.8 +7:37.4 52 54 Luan Zhengrong 47:43.7 +7:49.3 53 59 Kristina Joder 48:06.0 +8:11.6 54 57 Maja Kezele 48:43.1 +8:48.7 16 Maj Helen Sorkmo 19 Annmari Viljanmaa 40 Nobuko Fukuda 60 Elena Gorohova 51 Margarit Nikolyan 2 Larisa Lazutina 39:56.2
References