The men's 50 kilometre cross-country skiing competition at the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan, was held on Thursday 10 February at Makomanai Cross Country Events Site. Kalevi Oikarainen of Finland was the 1970 World champion and Ole Ellefsæter of Norway was the defending champion from the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble, France.
Each skier started at half a minute intervals, skiing the entire 50 kilometre course. Of the 40 athletes who started the race, seven did not finish. Pål Tyldum of Norway took his third medal of the Games; his first individual Olympic gold medal.
Results Sources: Rank Bib Name Country Time Deficit 40 Pål Tyldum 2:43:14.75 19 Magne Myrmo 2:43:29.45 37 Vyacheslav Vedenin 2:44:00.19 32 Reidar Hjermstad 2:44:14.51 27 Walter Demel 2:44:32.67 11 Werner Geeser 2:44:34.13 16 Lars-Arne Bölling 2:45:06.80 29 Fyodor Simashov 2:45:08.93 35 Gert-Dietmar Klause 2:46:17.43 10 2 Ole Ellefsæter 2:46:46.94 11 36 Hans-Erik Larsson 2:47:59.37 12 8 Hannu Taipale 2:48:24.83 13 5 Tord Backman 2:48:53.51 14 1 Ulrich Wenger 2:49:35.35 15 22 Ivan Pronin 2:49:45.59 16 12 Eberhard Klessen 2:49:53.01 17 9 Ivan Garanin 2:50:00.78 18 33 Rainer Gross 2:50:16.91 19 15 Ján Fajstavr 2:51:12.92 20 31 Gunnar Larsson 2:51:17.56 21 26 Elviro Blanc 2:51:25.19 22 39 Attilio Lombard 2:51:39.65 23 25 Louis Jäggi 2:53:00.78 24 13 Gene Morgan 2:54:01.52 25 4 Tonio Biondini 2:54:28.39 26 34 Giuseppe Dermon 2:56:24.21 27 41 Everett Dunklee 2:56:42.49 28 10 Petar Pankov 2:57:12.15 29 20 Seiji Kudo 2:57:42.62 30 24 Ján Michalko 2:58:31.83 31 21 Edgar Eckert 3:00:08.32 32 18 Teuvo Hatunen 3:00:41.72 33 28 Bob Gray 3:01:15.37 3 Joe McNulty 6 Ventseslav Stoyanov 14 Ulrico Kostner 17 Jean Jobez 23 Eero Mäntyranta 30 Motoharu Matsumura 38 Kalevi Oikarainen 7 Gerhard Gehring
References
External links Final results (International Ski Federation)