Johannes Hosflot Klaebo
Norway
Cross Country Skiing
Overall Ranks
#5 among Norwegian Olympians
#4 among Cross Country Skiers
#4 among Male Norwegian Olympians
#3 among Norwegian Cross Country Skiers
#2 among Male Norwegian Cross Country Skiers
Olympic Results
2018
Sprint - Gold
Relay - Gold
Team Sprint - Gold
2022
Sprint - Gold
15 km - Bronze
Relay - Silver
Team Sprint - Gold
2026
Sprint - Gold
10 km - Gold
50 km - Gold
Skiathlon - Gold
Relay - Gold
Team Sprint - Gold
Total
Events - 16
Gold - 11
Silver - 1
Bronze - 1
Johannes Hosflot Klaebo was born on October 22, 1996 in Oslo, Norway, and grew up in Trondheim, where he learned to ski, being coached by his grandfather, who still coaches him today. He made his international debut at age 18. He earned his first bronze medal in the world championships in 2017 in the sprint event, just before his Olympic debut in 2018.
His first Olympic event was the skiathlon, which was 15 km of classical skiing, followed by 15 km of freestyle after a change of skis. The leaders all remained together for nearly the entire race, but in the final 5 km, one of his teammates broke away, and a few other soon took pursuit, but Klaebo remained behind in the pack, and finished in 10th place.
The next event was the sprint, his strongest event, and he was favored to win. He was #2 in qualifying, then won both of his heats to advance to the final race, where he led almost the entire race, and finished 1.3 seconds ahead of the other medalists to win his first Olympic gold, and in the process he became the youngest gold medalist in cross country skiing ever.
In the relay, Klaebo was given the anchor leg. Norway was in 5th place after the first leg, and 4th at the halfway point, but Simen Hegstad Kruger, who had won the skiathlon, ran the fastest leg of the competition to give Norway a 1-second lead before the final leg. Klaebo allowed the French skier to pass him, and eventually the Russian as well, and was content to draft off of them for most of his leg, before sprinting past them on a late downhill stretch and running away to win the gold by 10 seconds.
In the team sprint, two skiers take turns running 3 legs each in a relay, and Klaebo was paired with Martin Johnsrud Sundby, who had 4 previous Olympic medals. They easily qualified for the final, then stayed with the main pack for the first half of the race, when Klaebo took off ahead of the group, and no one immediately followed. On Sundby's final leg, a couple of teams closed the gap early on, but then he pulled away near the end, and Klaebo put it away on his final leg, winning the gold by almost 2 seconds over the Russians. He finished his first Olympics with 3 gold medals.
In 2019 and 2021, he won World Championship gold medals in those exact 3 events both times, cementing himself as one of the best in the world. At the 2022 Olympics, he again started with the skiathlon, and once again the result was disappointment, as he could never get out of the pack, and ended up finishing in 40th place.
His next event was the sprint, where he was the defending champ and favorite. He qualified in third, won his first heat, then finished 6 seconds behind Federico Pellegrino of Italy, the defending silver medalist, in the semifinal, but both made the final. Those two led the final from the start, with Terentyev from Russia just behind, but they ditched him on the home stretch, and then Klaebo finished strong, beating Pellegrino by 0.26 seconds to repeat as gold medalist, the first to ever do so in that event.
Next was the 15 km race, and he started off slowly, sitting in 20th place a quarter of the way through, but then he shifted into another gear and started passing people, and by the end of the race, he had moved up to take the bronze medal, 14 seconds behind the silver, and 12 seconds ahead of the next skier.
In the relay, Klaebo was again assigned the anchor leg. The Russian team took a huge lead early, and never allowed anyone to get near them, winning the race by just over a minute. Norway was in second place through the entire race, but Klaebo had to hold off a serious push from France on the final lap to earn the team a silver medal, which he did by 9 seconds.
In the team sprint, Klaebo was paired with newcomer Erik Valnes, and through the first 5 legs, the race was very tight, with less than a second separating Norway, Russia, and Finland, but Klaebo was able to create a gap on the final leg, then sprint to the finish, and won the race by 2.5 seconds over the Russians to win his fourth medal and second gold of the games.
He also competed in the 50 km race, which ended up being shortened to 30 km due to weather, but after falling far behind halfway through, he dropped out and didn't finish the race. It was something he wouldn't let happen again. In 2023, he won his same 3 golds at the World Championship, giving him a triple three-peat, plus two silver in the longer events, and then in 2025, he won gold in all 6 World Championship events, foreshadowing the 2026 Olympics.
Klaebo was favored in every event in Milan-Cortina, even the skiathlon, where he had struggled in his previous two tries. In this one, he was in second place at the halfway point, where they switch skis, then sat behind Hugo Lapalus of France for most of the second half before finally passing him with just over a kilometer to go and holding the lead the rest of the way, winning the gold by 2 seconds in the end.
In his favorite event, the sprint, he led after qualifying for the first time, then won both of his heats to advance to the final, where his only real competition ended up being American Ben Ogden, who was a complete surprise. The pair stayed together for nearly the entire race, before Klaebo took the lead on a late hill and pulled away for a victory of 0.87 seconds.
In the 10 km race, Klaebo started out a little behind, sitting in 12 at the quarter mark, but had moved up to 2nd place behind teammate Einar Hedegart with 2.5 km to go. At that point, Hedegart didn't have much left in the tank, and Klaebo pulled ahead in the last kilometer and ended up winning by nearly 5 seconds to take his third straight gold and 10th career medal overall.
Klaebo skied the anchor leg in the relay for the third straight Olympics, and this time Norway was a huge favorite, thanks to Russia not being allowed to compete, and Klaebo being so dominant. His part of the race hardly mattered, as Norway led from start to finish, with Klaebo taking a 12 second lead to start his leg and stretching it to 22 by the end as they won gold easily.
Klaebo was paired with Hedegart in the team sprint, and they nearly didn't make it out of qualifying, as Hedegart finished his leg in 25th place, but then Klaebo dominated his leg, and moved Norway up to 2nd to reach the final. In the final, they were in 3rd after Hedegart's first leg, but then Klaebo took the lead on his first leg, and they never gave it back. Finland and Italy both challenged for the lead at some point, but neither could take it, and Norway won by 1.37 seconds.
The final event was the longest, the 50 km. Klaebo had failed to finish it at the previous Olympics, but this time, he and two Norwegian teammates skied in a group ahead of everyone else throughout the entire race, before Klaebo pulled ahead on the final climb and won the gold by 8.9 seconds, becoming the first Winter Olympian ever to win 6 golds in the same Olympics.
Klaebo is still the best cross country skier in the world, and is sure to compete for more gold medals in the future, but right now, he is #2 in Olympic history with 11 gold medals, and has 13 medals overall, and only a few poor performances in previous Olympics have kept him from being among the top 25 of all time, but he has a good chance to get into that range going forward. As it is now, he is already one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
