Historic Haga wins first women's 50km race after thriller sprint finish

Ragnhild Gloeersen Haga won the women's 50km mass start free at the Coop FIS Cross-Country World Cup at Holmenkollen in Oslo, Norway, on Sunday, after a dramatic sprint finish.

The 32-year-old Norwegian claimed the historic victory in the first ever women's 50km World Cup race 0.3 second before teammate Astrid Oeyre Slind, who finished second. USA's Jessie Diggins grabbed the third place 0.5 second after the winner.

Haga compared the historic victory at the iconic Holmenkollen venue, not far from the centre of Oslo, to when she won two gold medals at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games.

"I think it's the second best day of my career after the Olympics in 2018, winning here on home soil," she said.

The thriler triumph was the first individual World Cup win for the Olympic 10km free and 4x5km relay champion.

Haga had played an anonymous role for most of the long race, where her teammate Margrethe Bergane did a lot of the work in the front along with Diggins, Slind and Teresa Stadlober from Austria, who picked up most of the valuable bonus points along the race.

Haga was in 15th position after 20km but made her way to the front group where she stayed in the back, gathering energy for the finish.

"I tried to save as much energy as I could because I understood that the last uphill, to (skiing area on top of the Holmenkollen mountain) Frognerseteren, was hard and then it was about to save energy for the last two kilometres," Haga said.

No-one managed to tear the front group up and with one kilometre left of the race, six skiers were within two seconds of each other, preparing to sprint for a place in the history books.

Slind had raced the 30km mass start classic at the 2023 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Planica, Slovenia, last Saturday, and flown to Sweden to finish fifth in the 90km race Vasaloppet on the Sunday. Passing the 49.1km mark, she was in front, Diggins and Stadlober behind her, with Haga still sitting in fourth place before Bergane and Norway's Nora Sanness.

Then Haga, who is Oslo-based, made a push to the front in the last hundred metres, to the joy of the home fans, including Norway's King Harald V. Thousands of hours training on the venue had paid off.

"I've done the sprint of the last 100 metres here so many times in training, so I knew that I was just doing all I could to win today," Haga said.

Diggins was more than happy with her place on the podium in the 50km debut, despite having been half a second from the top spot.

"That was so cool, to finally get to do 50k – I've been wanting to do this my whole career and I don't want to go back, now that we finally have true equality between the genders in our sport." she said.

"That was so awesome and to have my parents out there cheering was so special and I could hear them, which was amazing, because the crowd was really passionate and that's what we love about racing here."

Like many skiers, Diggins could feel that this distance was a new experience for her body.

"I was just going as hard as I could, and definitely struggling with some cramp in my body but that's what you would expect in a long race," she said.

"But I was giving it everything I had and I was so happy with today."

Stadlober won the fight for fourth place, finishing 0.6 second before Sanness as Bergane had to settle for sixth. Overall World Cup No.1 Tiril Udnes Weng from Norway finished in seventh place, 23.3 seconds after Haga but more than a minute before overall distance No.1 Kerttu Niskanen from Finland, who claimed the eight place.

With a third-place and 87 bonus points picked up, Diggins overtook Niskanen's second-place in the overall World Cup standings, hoping to give Weng a run for the money with six competitions left of the season.

"I'm just going to go as hard as I can and I expect she will go as hard as she can and that's what's awesome about it. That's so exciting," Diggins said.

Asked who is the favourite to win the crystal globe as the overall World Cup winner, however, Diggins wanted to tone down the expectations on herself.

"(That's) Tiril, for sure," she said.

Next up is the women's sprint classic in Drammen, Norway, on Tuesday 14 March.

Click here for full results from the women's 50km mass start free.