Charlotte Kalla of Sweden captured victory in the first Cross-Country race over 10 km Free. She occupied front positions the whole race and was first in the finish with time of 24:58.4 sec. Kristina Smigun-Vaehi (EST) made an outstanding comeback and took silver with a time gap of 6.6 sec. Marit Bjoergen of Norway broke bad luck in big events and captured bronze medal 15.9 sec behind Kalla.

For the 22-year-old Kalla, native from the Gällivare region, it was her first Olympic start. She won Sweden’s first female gold medal since the Olympics in 1968. She took the race like a World Cup race and her tactic went totally out: "I tried to focus on my plan that I set up yesterday and take it as a World Cup competition and do everything as similar as possible. I tried to not focus so much on the time. Just doing my own race, because I couldn't do anything about the others."

Kristina Smigun-Vähi took her third Olympic medal and was very satisfied with her race after making her comeback at the beginning of this season. ""I am extremely happy. I feel that I am blessed to be here. I am so glad that I get the opportunity to start." Also Marit Bjoergen got her third Olympic medal.

In the Mens 15km event

Dario Alonso Cologna of Switzerland won the 15 km Freestyle with a victory of 24.6 second.over Pietro Piller Cottrer (ITA).  A tough fight between Bauer (CZE) and Hellner (SWE) took place for bronze. Hellner started very fast and was leading in first kilometers. He could not keep the pace till finish. Thus Lukas Bauer (CZE) with his consistent pace captured bronze 35.7 sec behind with Marcus Hellner another 1.5 seconds back in 4th.

 Ivan Babikov finished 8th to bring home the best Olympic performance ever for a Canadian man. Babikov was 18th after the first split and then kept improving. He was 13th with 2km to go and then finished in 8th.

The snow was transformed with round and crystals and high humidity and never set up solidly.  From the start the course was very soft with 3-8cm of sugar on the climbs and 10-20 cm ruts on the inside curve of the downhills for both men and women. Skiers needed great downhill technique and the ability to float over the corn.

Ski structure was very important. Testing showed that the difference between the best and the worst structure made as much of a difference as racing on straight flouros vs.hydrocarbon waxes.  

some text from www.fiscrosscountry.com