TESERO, Italy, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Sweden dominated the women’s skiathlon in the first cross-country skiing race of the Milano Cortina Games, as Frida Karlsson took gold and compatriot Ebba Andersson clinched the silver medal on Saturday.
Norway's Heidi Weng captured bronze in the race, which features 10km of classic skiing followed by a 10km freestyle.
Karlsson and Andersson raced closely together in the classic portion of the competition in a quartet dominated by Scandinavian skiers, but broke away as the freestyle segment got under way.
Karlsson finished 51 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher, with time to grab the Swedish flag and wave at the crowd before crossing the finish line.
”That was the moment when it hit me. I was like, ’OK, this is for real’, said Karlsson.
"I had so much fun out there today and I am really proud of my whole team who have made this happen. The skis were super and the body felt amazing."
Third-place finisher Weng came in almost one minute and 27 seconds behind Karlsson.
"I feel like I didn’t have such a good race in the classic part, but in the skating (freestyle) part I had so much power. It was an amazing feeling," she told media following the race.
The win marks the first individual medal for 26-year-old Karlsson, who won bronze in the women's relay at Beijing 2022. She is 25th in the overall World Cup standings.
World Cup leader Jessie Diggins of the U.S., seen as a contender for a podium spot, fell on a sharp downhill turn early in the race in a crash that also took out Norway’s Karoline Simpson-Larsen, and failed to catch up to the leading packs.
Diggins trailed at 14th in the classic part of the race, but made up time on the freestyle, her strongest discipline, to finish eighth.
"I was really, really encouraged by the skate half but the classic half, the things out of my control, did not go very well," Diggins told reporters.
She added that the crash was not the biggest problem in the race, but said it was a difficult place to fall.
"Unfortunately, it was a tough spot where you lose all your momentum," she said.
(Reporting by Liz Hampton and Tommy Lund in Tesero; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Ken Ferris)
