TESERO, Italy — Fresh off ending a 50‑year medal drought in men’s cross-country skiing for the United States, Ben Ogden proved it was no fluke by winning a second piece of silver Wednesday.
Ogden teamed up with Gus Schumacher as the Americans even gave runaway favorite Norway some real competition and held off host Italy in the home stretch for the U.S. men’s cross-country skiing program’s most successful Olympics ever.
“We just proved today and all week that we’re here to stay and that U.S. guys are in good form,” Ogden said. “So it was awesome.”
Ogden became the first American man to win a cross-country skiing medal in the Olympics in 50 years when he secured a silver in the sprint on Feb. 10 at the Milan Cortina Games. Until then, Bill Koch, who won silver in 1976 in Innsbruck, Austria, was the sole American man to medal in the sport.
The win in the men’s team sprint makes Ogden the most decorated U.S. male cross-country skier in Olympic history.
The two-man relay involved two legs by each skier, with Ogden starting the race and Schumacher closing.
That meant Schumacher was competing head to head with Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo, who has dominated the sport and keeps setting Olympic records. Klaebo’s win Wednesday was the 10th gold medal of his career, breaking his own mark for the most overall golds in the Winter Games.
As Schumacher stayed on Klaebo’s tail up the final climb, his focus was: “Look at Klaebo’s butt, and just lock in and follow that to the finish line. I did it, and I’m really proud of it.”
Schumacher couldn’t catch Klaebo, but he held off Italy’s Federico Pellegrino.
With 10 meters to go, he saw Ogden across the finish line to greet him and knew a medal was in hand. He crossed the line 1.4 seconds behind Klaebo and collapsed in the snow. Ogden dropped to his knees and hugged his teammate and friend.
“I’m going to be the guy that got beat,” Schumacher joked. “That’s the problem with being second, but yeah, I am so happy with it.”
In recent years, the story of U.S. cross-country skiing has been about the women and super star Jessie Diggins, the current World Cup leader who is in her final Olympics.
Diggins is the most decorated U.S. cross-country skier with four medals, including a gold from 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in the team sprint with Kikkan Randall, a silver and two bronze, including her most recent last week in the 10-kilometer interval start.
Diggins and Julia Kern finished fifth in the women’s team sprint Wednesday.
Ogden said the result was “huge” for U.S. skiingm and he hoped the bicoastal victory — he lives in Vermont and Schumacher lives in Alaska — will provide inspiration to all skiers.
“Everybody hopefully is going to get fired up after seeing this because, you know, like, this week we proved that American skiers can do it just like anybody else and that applies to every age, every generation, everybody that’s in the ski community in the U.S.,” Ogden said. “So it’s going to be sick to go home.”
Ogden said another half-century won’t pass before the U.S. steps on the podium again.
Based on these results, he might be right.