The men's 15 kilometre cross-country skiing competition at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, United States, was held on Sunday 17 February at the Mount Van Hoevenberg in Essex County, New York.
Favourites Józef Łuszczek of Poland was the 1978 World champion and Nikolay Bazhukov of the Soviet Union was the defending champion from the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria.
The Race Each skier started at half a minute intervals, skiing the entire 15 kilometre course. The race developed into the closest duel in the history of cross-country skiing. Thomas Wassberg of Sweden and Finnish veteran Juha Mieto fought a tight battle for the gold medal. Wassberg started last of the 63 participants, half a minute behind Norwegian Ove Aunli. Mieto, wearing bib 54, started half a minute behind the reigning world champion at the distance, Polish skier Józef Łuszczek.
Wassberg started fast, and at the 5 km mark he had caught Aunli by 30 seconds and was in the lead, three seconds ahead of Mieto. Łuszczek also had a strong opener, only ten seconds behind the leader, closely followed by the 19-year old West German Jochen Behle and the 30 km winner Nikolay Zimyatov. At 10 km Wassberg had increased his lead to 4.8 seconds. Mieto, still in second place, had almost caught Łuszczek, starting half a minute in front of him, but the Pole was still in third place, now 30 seconds behind Wassberg. Aunli had been able to adjust his speed by following Wassberg and advanced from 13th to fifth place. Only two seconds separated the four fastest skiers behind Wassberg and Mieto 5 km from home. Behle had dropped down to ninth at 10 km and was out of contention for the medals.
Juha Mieto passed Łuszczek and left him behind before crossing the finish line in 41:57.64, beating Zimyatov's time by 36 seconds. Thomas Wassberg, still skiing together with Aunli, was told 500 m from home that he had a one second lead over Mieto, and, fighting desperately, crossed the finish line in 41:57.63. He won the race by the closest possible margin, one hundredth of a second. Aunli secured the bronze medal for Norway, beating Zimyatov by 5 seconds.
Aftermath Wassberg proposed to Mieto that they could cut their medals in two parts and then melt them together as a mixed gold-silver medal. Mieto politely thanked him, but said no to the idea, and ended the 1980 season by winning the unofficial Cross-Country World Cup for the second consecutive time. The International Ski Federation (FIS) decided shortly after the 1980 Olympics that all times in cross-country races would henceforth be rounded to the nearest tenth of a second.
Results Sources: Rank Bib Name Country Time Deficit 63 Thomas Wassberg 41:57.63 54 Juha Mieto 41:57.64 62 Ove Aunli 42:28.62 41 Nikolay Zimyatov 42:33.96 14 Yevgeny Belyayev 42:46.02 53 Józef Łuszczek 42:59.03 2 Alexander Zavyalov 43:00.81 33 Harri Kirvesniemi 43:02.01 30 Oddvar Brå 43:05.64 10 5 Lars Erik Eriksen 43:11.51 11 29 Thomas Eriksson 43:11.88 12 40 Jochen Behle 43:16.05 13 58 Vasily Rochev 43:16.86 14 51 Jean-Paul Pierrat 43:32.53 15 59 Ivan Lebanov 43:37.32 16 49 Bill Koch 43:38.56 17 44 Benny Kohlberg 43:39.22 18 10 Sven-Erik Danielsson 43:41.21 19 11 Kari Härkönen 43:50.31 20 27 Pertti Teurajärvi 43:59.08 21 31 Wolfgang Müller 44:02.54 22 36 Stan Dunklee 44:03.84 23 39 Jiří Švub 44:20.15 24 50 Jiří Beran 44:27.78 25 22 Tim Caldwell 44:30.41 26 7 Peter Zipfel 44:38.23 27 55 Franz Renggli 44:38.66 28 47 Paul Fargeix 44:39.94 29 38 Konrad Hallenbarter 44:42.12 30 48 Tore Gullen 44:42.73 31 60 Maurilio De Zolt 44:43.19 32 15 Hansüli Kreuzer 44:44.66 33 12 Jim Galanes 44:46.48 34 3 Giorgio Vanzetta 44:52.18 35 4 Alfred Schindler 44:52.93 36 52 Dieter Notz 44:54.11 37 56 Alf-Gerd Deckert 45:00.40 38 45 Khristo Barzanov 45:05.21 39 37 Giulio Capitanio 45:10.40 40 1 František Šimon 45:12.09 41 43 Ivo Čarman 45:14.32 42 17 Gerard Durand-Poudret 45:47.26 43 42 Shiro Sato 46:15.29 44 20 Miloš Bečvář 46:18.13 45 8 Dominique Locatelli 47:06.72 46 25 Tone Ðuričič 47:38.45 47 21 Haukur Sigurðsson 47:44.00 48 19 Luvsandashiin Dorj 48:05.78 49 35 Charles MacIvor 48:37.57 50 23 Lin Guangho 48:38.36 51 13 Þröstur Jóhannesson 49:37.75 52 9 Michael Goode 49:47.20 53 28 Emiliano Morlans 50:42.33 54 32 Ingólfur Jónsson 50:51.50 55 6 José Giro 51:30.06 56 34 Marcos Luis Jerman 52:02.42 +10:04.79 57 24 Philip Jacklin 52:14.17 +10:16.54 58 46 Kim Nam-young 53:05.55 +11:07.92 59 18 Hwang Byung-dae 53:05.60 +11:07.97 60 26 Martín Tomás Jerman 53:38.47 +11:40.84 61 61 Matías José Jerman 55:50.61 +13:52.98 16 Giampaolo Rupil 57 Kim Dong-hwan
References
External links Final results (International Ski Federation)