If you happen to haven’t been following the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Video games, Norwegian cross-country skier Johannes Høsflot Klæbo has been completely dominant, profitable the primary two males’s Nordic snowboarding gold medals within the 20 km skiathlon and the dash basic.
On Tuesday, Klæbo produced one of the vital jaw-dropping moments of the Video games, utilizing a herringbone-style uphill working method to interrupt away from the sector within the males’s dash basic ultimate. In accordance with NBC Sports activities, the 29-year-old averaged round 17 km/h (roughly 5:40 per mile tempo) up a seven per cent gradient to drop countryman Oskar Vike and American Ben Ogden on his approach to his second gold medal of the Video games, and his third consecutive Olympic title within the dash self-discipline.
Actually, watch it for your self. The clip is spectacular, particularly contemplating Klæbo did it on a pair of basic skis with calculated grip wax. Klæbo’s transfer, a mix of the normal herringbone climbing method and outright working, is normally utilized by skiers solely when the hill is just too steep to climb. Klæbo simply occurs to be the most effective on the planet at it.
Canadians on their approach to get an iced espresso throughout a blizzard:
— Oh Canaduh (@CanaduhOh) February 11, 2026
“An absolute specimen… I couldn’t think about the coaching classes,” wrote well-known American sports activities commentator Pat McAfee on X. “I can’t cease watching this,” added Days of Our Lives actress Alison Sweeney.
McAfee isn’t flawed. Klæbo is a generational athlete, and by the tip of those Video games, he could have a official case as the best Winter Olympian of all time. Nordic snowboarding is taken into account one of the vital demanding endurance sports activities on the planet, requiring an exponentially excessive VO₂ max. Whereas Klæbo’s precise VO₂ max has by no means been publicly launched, specialists estimate it to be within the 90s.
To our information, he’s by no means lined up for a monitor or street race, however based mostly on his engine and turnover, f he ever made the change, it’s laborious to think about he wouldn’t be aggressive with the world’s greatest 5K runners.
An absolute specimen…
I couldn’t think about the coaching classes 😂😂 https://t.co/MgSTTF9LRH
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) February 11, 2026
The Wall Avenue Journal has dubbed Klæbo “the Michael Phelps of the Winter Olympics,” and that comparability isn’t far off. He’s chasing six Olympic gold medals in cross-country snowboarding at these Video games, a feat no athlete has ever achieved. Finally 12 months’s FIS Nordic World Championships in Trondheim, Norway, Klæbo received all six males’s occasions, and he’s hoping to repeat that historic sweep in Milan.
To date, he’s two for 2. Up subsequent is the lads’s 10K free skate interval begin on Friday, adopted by two relay occasions with Group Norway and the 50 km basic mass begin, which can be his likelihood to cement his place in Olympic historical past.
