SOLDIER HOLLOW ? On a course that whips around a Wild West replica complete with American Indian tepees and horse-drawn sleighs, a young American surprised his own team Saturday with the best men's U.S. Olympic cross country finish in a decade.
Andrew Johnson, ranked 120th in the world last year, finished Saturday's 30K mass start in 22nd place. Just days ago, Johnson, 24, sat alone for spells at a press conference while the media huddled around the team's decorated veterans.
Those veterans struggled on Soldier Hollow's hilly course, as did the world's top skier, Per Elofsson of Sweden, who was so tired he quit early.
Elofsson couldn't keep up with the blistering pace set by Spain's Johann Muehlegg, who destroyed the field of 78, finishing two minutes ahead of the next skier and winning Spain's first-ever Olympic cross country medal.
On the women's side, Italy's Stefania Belmondo, a forest ranger who grew up in a tiny village of 25 people, won the 15K mass start in a sprint to the finish with Russia's Larissa Lazutina. Four-time Olympian Nina Kemppel, of Anchorage, finished 30th.
Belmondo won the race despite breaking one of her poles with less than 5K left. Without a pole to push with, she slipped from first to 10th, about 7 seconds behind the leader.
"At that point I thought the race was over," she said. "I really cried. I cried like I've never did in my life before. I screamed. "
Belmondo pushed with one arm for about 600 meters before her trainer gave her a new pole. She regained her position and skied stride for stride with Lazutina coming into the stadium.
"At the final sprint I just said to myself, I just can't be second this time. It has to be gold and I gave it all I had."
It had to be gold, Belmondo said, because the gold medal she won at Albertville in 1992 mysteriously crumbled in her hands last fall at a ceremony in the Italian Alps. She needed another one, she said.
"I'm really happy for her," Kemppel said. "She's the type of person who wins and then finds our team to congratulate us."
Not finishing was sentimental favorite Prawat Nagvajara of Thailand, the country's first Winter Olympian. A computer engineering professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Nagvajara almost didn't make the race because of a problem with his paperwork.
Nagvajara arrived at Soldier Hollow with less than an hour before his race and scarfed down a Power Bar. He came into the stadium on his first lap three minutes off the pace, to the delight of 12,000 fans who lined the course and packed the stadium. Norwegians, Swedes, Spaniards and others clanked their cow bells and cheered as the 43-year-old professor from Drexel University in Philadelphia passed them.
Unfortunately for Nagvajara, he fell on the next hill and withdrew from the race before he could accomplish his goal of two times around the course without being lapped.
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