Norway and Klaebo win Team Sprint after crashes, chaos and comebacks in Lahti

Whatever the course, whatever the conditions, whatever the race – Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo is cross-country skiing’s main man of this or any other season.

Having won 12 World Cup races this season including all nine – yes, nine – of the sprint races he has entered, the sport’s undisputed star turned his attention to the Team Sprint in Lahti, Finland on Saturday. Different format, different partner – this was the first time Klaebo had paired up with Even Northug – same result.

It’s no coincidence that Norway have won every Men’s Team Sprint in the World Cup since 2015 – the year before Klaebo made his debut on the circuit – and have only failed to win one men’s team event since 2019, the 4x7.5km relay in Toblach, Italy in 2023.

It’s also no coincidence that Klaebo wasn’t racing that day – Norway have won every World Cup team race in which he has competed. Eight in total, five of them in Lahti, a course he considers “a little bit special”. And after securing his fifth individual victory at this venue in the Sprint Freestyle on Friday, it would have taken something extraordinary for the 28-year-old not to be standing on the top step of the podium again on Saturday.

As it turned out, after an accident-free women’s race, the Men’s Team Sprint did produce some extraordinary moments, with crashes, broken poles and comebacks. But none of them involved the man who has made the extraordinary ordinary this season; not least the six gold medals in as many events he won at the recent FIS Nordic Ski World Championships in Trondheim.

But, as he approaches 100 individual World Cup wins, having wrapped up the Crystal Globe and Tour de Ski, perhaps the most extraordinary thing is that Klaebo wants more; that he still has the motivation to race this season.

When asked after the Team Sprint how he would be celebrating his latest victory, Klaebo pointed out that it would have to wait until tomorrow. “I still have one 50K left,” he said of Sunday’s season finale.

With Northug and Klaebo having stayed in prime position for five laps, the latter decided on a different approach to Friday, when he overtook Valerio Grond (SUI) on the home straight. In the Team Sprint, the Swiss skier was again Klaebo’s closest rival, but a surprise attack ahead of the final downhill took the Norwegian ten metres clear in the blink of an eye.

His customary look over the shoulder and salute to the crowd took on an even more relaxed air this time, the broad grin on Klaebo’s face telling everybody that the winning margin was far greater than the 1.67 seconds suggested.

“It was chaos out there but it was fun as well,” Northug, who now has three Team Sprint victories to his name, said. “It was seven seconds or something between the 15 best teams so we knew this one was going to be very tight, and it was. But it was fun for me to send out Johannes in a good position for the final lap.

“I noticed the carnage behind me, a crash, and people were screaming. I was nervous today so I’m glad I’m ‘home’.”

Klaebo said: “I was really looking forward to racing with Evan today and like he said I had a perfect exchange there. I was third and could take it a little bit chilled on the first part of the lap there and at the end I had some power left so it was really fun. And I mean, it was an amazing crowd and a lot  of people out there cheering for us, which we really appreciate."

The ‘carnage’ Northug referred to applied in particular to the French teams. Renaud Jay, in his last race before retirement, crashed twice to his France 2 partner Lucas Chanavat with little chance of a podium place.

The race was even more eventful for France 1. “I broke my two poles at the beginning of the second lap, during the exchange,” Jules Chappaz explained. Richard [Jouve] gave me one and then I realized the other one was broken too so I did the first uphill with one pole and then a Swiss coach gave me another pole but I was a little bit behind the pack.”

This was an understatement: Chappaz was so far behind he seemed out of the race completely. “I chose to not panic,” he said of his stirring comeback. “I stayed in the race and I gave the relay to Richard in eighth, I think. Then Richard did a good job in his last lap to hand over to me in sixth and I knew I had some energy left. So gave it my best in the last 100m and we’re really happy to finish in third.”

In fact, Chappaz – who came into the race off the back of second places in the last two individual World Cup sprints – was travelling so fast on the home straight that, having overtaken Finland 1 and USA 2, he very nearly caught Grond in second place, finishing just 0.2s back.

The 2024-25 FIS Cross-Country World Cup season concludes on Sunday in Lahti with the Women’s and Men’s 50km Classic races.

Click here for the full results from Lahti.