‘I need some time to process it’: Lucky 13 for Klaebo in Lahti caps off season for the ages
Mar 23, 2025·Cross-Country
Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo (NOR) signed off the FIS Cross Country World Cup season in fitting style with victory in the 50km Classic in Lahti, Finland on Sunday.
The 28-year-old came into this season as the undisputed sprint king of the sport but cemented his reputation as the greatest all-round men’s skier of all time with a clean sweep of medals at the FIS Nordic Ski World Championships on his home track in Trondheim.
With a fourth Tour de Ski title already in the bag, Klaebo wrapped up the overall World Cup title – his sixth – with Sprint Freestyle victory on Friday. But he still wasn’t finished, capping off the campaign with a third straight victory to make it 13 for the season and 98 in his World Cup career.
After a well-deserved rest, he will no doubt have his sights set on breaking the 100 barrier. And after that? So dominant is Klaebo at the moment that nobody would put another clean sweep at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympic Winter Games 2026 past him – and with it sporting immortality.
Nobody should have been surprised by Klaebo’s latest victory. After all, he won the last World Cup 50K race in Oslo a year ago. Yet his class, consistency and confidence continue to defy belief.
If he was finally going to run out of energy this season, it would be on this tough Lahti loop, 7.2km of undulations with the only flat section as the competitors cross the finish line.
But Klaebo has proved he is a man for all conditions and all courses. So, under sunny skies in southern Finland, with the snow beginning to melt and break up, it would be up to the other skiers to find a way to beat him.
When it comes to distance races, the proven formula is to try to break Klaebo early, not wait until a sprint to the finish when there will only be one winner. But every time somebody pushed the pace, there was Klaebo: rarely at the front, but never far behind.
By lap six, he was in a lead group of four, alongside three other Norwegians: the in-form Martin Loewstroem Nyenget, 2018 Olympic 30km Skiathlon champion Simen Hegstad Krueger and rising star Andreas Fjorden Ree.
Each took it in turns to push the pace, but each time Klaebo responded. The longer the race went on without a breakaway, the more confident he would become. By the final climb, it was as if the other three knew they would be fighting for second place.
By this point, Ree had dropped back and Klaebo had hit the front. He cruised round the tricky left-hand corner into the stadium section with his trademark smoothness and streaked away. Normally, Klaebo would wait until the home straight to look over his shoulder to check on the position of his rivals. This time, he used the tuck position in the final downhill to peer between his legs, where he saw Nyenget and Krueger already beaten.
As he has been able to do so many times this season, he slowed down to salute the crowd as he crossed the line, this time putting both ski poles in one hand and dropping them, mic style, to underline his supremacy.
“Man, that was a hard one,” Klaebo said. “The conditions were really good but it was soft and it was tough, and I felt like Martin [Loewstroem Nyenget] was putting on some pace quite early, so I felt like I was struggling for long time there. But I had amazing skis and I just wanted to finish up in a good way.
“And to win the overall and sprint World Cup titles, ah man. The overall is always special. Before this season there was one goal and that was the world championships and now the season is over, I had an amazing championship but also the Tour de Ski and the overall World Cup. It’s been an amazing season, it’s been crazy.”
Nyenget finished 0.5s behind Klaebo and, with last season’s Crystal Globe winner Harald Oestberg Amundsen (NOR) missing the race through illness, Krueger’s third place confirmed him as the distance World Cup winner for the season. Eric Valnes, meanwhile, finished 11th to leapfrog Federico Pellegrino (ITA), who finished 15th, into third in the overall standings behind Klaebo and Edvin Anger (SWE).
It has been a breakthrough season for the young Swede. Whether he can catch Klaebo, though, is another matter entirely.
Click here to see the final standings for the 2024/25 season.
Click here for the full results from Lahti.
