The Women's 15 kilometre

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mass start

cross-country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing where skiers rely on their own locomotion to move across snow-covered terrain, rather than using ski lifts or other forms of assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreation ...

competition at the

2002 Winter Olympics The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Salt Lake 2002 ( arp, Niico'ooowu' 2002; Gosiute Shoshoni: ''Tit'-so-pi 2002''; nv, Sooléí 2002; Shoshoni: ''Soónkahni 2002''), was an internation ...

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

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, was held on 9 February at

Soldier Hollow Soldier Hollow is a cross-country ski venue located at the mouth of a Soldier Hollow (Utah), hollow of the same name about southeast of Salt Lake City in Wasatch Mountain State Park in northwestern Wasatch County, Utah, Wasatch County, Utah, Un ...

. All 60 skiers began at once in a

mass start {{refimprove, date=February 2018 Mass start is a format of starting in some racing sports such as long-distance running in sport of athletics, speed skating, long-distance cross-country skiing and biathlon. There are usually many competitors in s ...

. 2002 was the first time that a mass start was held in the Olympics.

The Race

This was the first Winter Olympic cross-country event skied entirely as a mass start race. Previously, this event was held at an interval start. It was also the first cross-country event in Salt Lake City, starting shortly before the men raced 30 km. The

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

World Champion was

Bente Skari Bente Skari, née Martinsen, (born 10 September 1972) is a Norwegian former cross-country skier. She is one of the most successful cross-country skiers ever. Career She won her first Olympic medals in 1998, and won her first gold medal in the 20 ...

of Norway elected not to contest this race, even though she had been the dominant female cross-country racer over the past five years. The early leader in the race was Russian

Yuliya Chepalova Yulia Anatolyevna Chepalova (russian: Ю́лия Анато́льевна Чепа́лова; born 23 December 1976 in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Russian SFSR) is a former Russian cross-country skier. Early and current personal life Daughter of a cros ...

, but by 9 km, Italy's

Stefania Belmondo Stefania Belmondo (born 13 January 1969) is an Italian former cross-country skier, a two-time Olympic champion and four-time world champion in her career. Biography Debut Belmondo was born in Vinadio, in the province of Cuneo (Piedmont), the da ...

, the

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World Champion in the event, moved ahead, until her pole broke at 10.5 km. She dropped back to 10th place, but trailed the leader,

Larisa Lazutina Larisa Yevgenyevna Lazutina (russian: Лариса Евгеньевна Лазутина; née Ptitsyna, born 1 June 1965) is a Russian former professional cross-country skier. Career Lazutina was awarded the Holmenkollen medal in 1998 (shared ...

, by only 10 seconds. Belmondo was given a pole by a French official but it was very long, so she struggled for over 500 metres until an Italian coach gave her one of her own poles. She then powered ahead, caught Lazutina and won a narrow victory by 1.8 seconds. Behind them, Czech skier

Katerina Neumannová , ''Katerína'' , nickname = , variant forms = Katherina , related names = Caterina , seealso = Katarina, Ekaterina, Yekaterina, Katherine, Katrina, , wikt = , footnotes = Katerina (Greek: Κατερίνα, ''Katerína''; Russian ...

came in for the bronze medal. But Lazutina would not keep her silver medal. After the pursuit race, held six days later, she was found to have tested positive for darpopoietin, an

erythropoietin Erythropoietin (; EPO), also known as erythropoetin, haematopoietin, or haemopoietin, is a glycoprotein cytokine secreted mainly by the kidneys in response to cellular hypoxia; it stimulates red blood cell production (erythropoiesis) in the bo ...

analogue, and was disqualified in late 2003. Neumannová was moved up to silver medal, and Chepalova would get the bronze. Chepalova failed drug tests later in her career, but here Olympic results were left unaffected.

Results

The race was started at 09:00.Final results
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cross-country skiing at the 2002 Winter Olympics - Women's 15 kilometre mass start Women's cross-country skiing at the 2002 Winter Olympics Women's 15 kilometre cross-country skiing at the Winter Olympics