Veerpalu retains title

ByEurosport

Published 17/02/2006 at 11:03 GMT

Andrus Veerpalu successfully defended his Olympic title in the men's 15km classic race to give Estonia their third cross-country gold medal. Lukas Bauer of the Czech Republic put in a great effort to claim the silver medal while Germany's Tobias Angerer p

Estonia's Andrus Veerpalu (Reuters)

Image credit: Reuters

Veerpalu battled round the blizzard-struck 15km course in a time of 38 minutes and 01.3 seconds to send the many Estonian supporters into crazed ecstasy.

CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING 2005-2006 Torino 15 km - Estonia - Andrus Veerpalu

Image credit: Reuters

"It's a very small country so it's very special for us to have three golds," said Veerpalu,

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"It's a very special day for me. All the rest of the competition here was just training for this. This is the start of the season for me - the Olympics," he confessed.

What started off as light snow turned into a wind-driven snow storm making skiing extremely tricky in certain parts of the course notably on the muscle-burning climbs.

"I'm very surprised," he said. "When I woke up this morning, opened my window and saw the conditions I thought it was very bad for me."

With the difficult weather conditions sweeping across the course the service teams were called into action again for the preparation of equipment and wax choice to get maximum performance out of the skis.

"Today was difficult for the service team but ours did a good job so I'm very happy" said the Olympic champion.

Lukas Bauer made it across the line 14.5 seconds off the pace while a tired-looking Angerer gave it his all to drive down the final 100 metres to eventually cross the line 19.2 seconds behind the winner.

CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING 2005-2006 Torino 15 km C - Czech Republic - Lukas Bauer

Image credit: Reuters

The 2002 Salt Lake City 15km gold medallist Veerpalu burst into action spurred on by his fellow compatriot Kristina Smigun's double gold win and paced his first two kilometres well.

Things started to form from just under ten kilometres as the Estonian started clocking the times to beat at all the intermediate posts with Bauer, Angerer and Russia's Vassilli Rotchev giving hard chase.

CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING 2005-2006 Torino Veerpalu

Image credit: dpa

Veerpalu kept his rhythm and pace to take it all the way to line, grabbing top spot and setting the final time to beat.

All he had to do then was agonizingly wait to see if his time was good enough to hold of the skiers bringing up the rear.

Rotchev was looking good throughout the 15km but coming down the final straight it was clear that there wasn't enough left in him to challenge the Estonian for Gold. He would have to settle for Silver medal position.

Unfortunately for the Russian that was not going to last.

Bauer always looked as though he could fight for the top spot following some very fast intermediate times, only seconds behind the times set by Veerpalu.

The Czech eventually crossed the line edging Rotchev into temporary bronze position, but Angerer was still to come.

CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING 2005-2006 Torino 15 km C - Germany - Tobias Angerer

Image credit: Reuters

Germany's number one started to falter with one kilometre to the line. He started to lose time and looked increasingly tired on his legs.

But renowned for his last 100 metres the German didn't disappoint onlookers as he started to double pole his way to the line with aggression and focus making up some lost seconds.

CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING 2005-2006 Torino 15 km C - Germany - Tobias Angerer

Image credit: Reuters

It was not good enough though to edge the top two out of their gold and silver positions, but it was good enough however to push Rotchev off the podium and collect bronze, his first Olympic medal in an individual event - Angerer won bronze with the German relay team at Salt Lake City four years ago.

CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING 2005-2006 Torino 15 km C - Men's Podium

Image credit: Reuters

The Norwegian team came seriously unstuck during Friday's race with the highest performance coming from Frode Estil in 17th position, a huge one minute and 38.3 seconds off the pace.

Estil won silver in this same event in Salt Lake City.

For the first time since the Winter Olympics began in 1924, the Scandinavians failed to win a medal in this event; the highest ranked Scandinavian was Johan Olsson of Sweden who came sixth.

Friday's race also marked the Winter Olympic debut of Ethiopia, whose only athlete, Robel Teklemariam came in 84th out of 97 finishers