As the Tour de France is about to begin tomorrow, I took some time off to watch a number of epic videos. First in line should be no other than the king himself, Björn Daehlie winning the 50 in the Nagano Olympics in 1998. Just look at his face after finishing!

The race was traditionally run on the last day of the Olympics. These two weeks were marred by bad weather conditions, but all of a sudden, this Sunday the sun was out in full swing. Also, it got horrendously hot and thus the snow got really wet. They were running three loops because of the wet snow (good times with individual start!) and they had to re-schedule the starting order also. Smirnov started first, the Jonsson, Daehlie and Hoffmann.

Jonsson got off to a slow start and was soon caught by Daehlie. But Hoffmann was also gaining ground, and all of a sudden, they were a group of three at half-way.

And what makes it miraculous is that it was of course Kung Björn, who won the race!

Daehlie drove hard, and soon after 33k, Hoffmann was dropped, but not by much, and he was doing his own race. At 41k, Jonsson tried to jump the old man, but with no success. Still ha pushed the tempo even harder. By 46k, Daehlie got dropped. As you can see on the video, Daehlie, albeit being dead tired, had the race against Jonsson kind of under control. But you don't often see such an exhausted man after finishing. Just look at his face in the snow: right-left-collapse. Masterful!

Although, I have always been rooting against the Norwegian cross-country skiers, Björn Daehlie is my idol since this very emotional Sunday morning.

Enjoy some Kjell-Erik Kristiansen commentary with Björn's golden moments!

A bejegyzés trackback címe:

Kommentek:

A hozzászólások a vonatkozó jogszabályok  értelmében felhasználói tartalomnak minősülnek, értük a szolgáltatás technikai  üzemeltetője semmilyen felelősséget nem vállal, azokat nem ellenőrzi. Kifogás esetén forduljon a blog szerkesztőjéhez. Részletek a  Felhasználási feltételekben és az adatvédelmi tájékoztatóban.