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Gold medallist Norway's Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo smiles as he celebrates during a podium ceremony for the men's cross country 50km mass start final event of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games at Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium in Lago di Tesero (Val di Fiemme) on February 21, 2026. ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP hide caption
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ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP
LAGO DI TESERO, ITALY — The Winter Olympics officially have a new king.
Norwegian cross-country skier Johannes Høsflot Klæbo cemented his place Saturday as the winningest athlete in the history of the winter Games, claiming an unprecedented sixth straight gold medal in Italy — this time in the 50-kilometer marathon.
Going into Saturday's event, Klæbo's five medals at this Olympics left him tied with American speedskater Eric Heiden for the most golds in a single Games. With 11 golds in his career after Saturday, Klæbo now trails only American swimmer Michael Phelps for overall Olympic titles — though he still has some work to do to catch up with Phelps' 23 victories.
In Saturday's race, Klæbo used his trademark finishing sprint to drop teammate Martin Løwstrøm Nyenget on a steep final climb, giving him enough of a cushion to wave to the crowd on the homestretch.
The result gives Klæbo 12 straight gold medals, going back to last year's World Championships in his home city of Trondheim in Central Norway. He also won every event at that competition.
He said the magnitude of his Olympic accomplishment sunk in after he crossed the finish line. After taking his skis off, Klæbo sat hunched over, staring into the snow, before standing up and congratulating his teammates and the rest of the finishers.
"There's so many choices you're making every single day to be able to be at your best. And for me, today, to be able to crown this Olympics with the 50 K-k and doing it my way, it's special," Klæbo said at a news conference later. "All those emotions are kind of hitting you at the same time."
No one compares
Others at the cross-country ski trails in Lago di Tesero were also trying to wrap their minds around Klæbo's exploits: outclassing all his rivals in events as short as a three-and-a-half minute sprint and as long as Saturday's two-hour marathon.
"I don't really feel like there's another athlete in the world that can compare to that scope of athleticism," Gus Schumacher, an American cross-country skier who claimed a silver medal earlier in the Games, said after finishing Saturday. "It's really insane."
Coaches and athletes, after Klæbo's sixth win, expressed a clear consensus that the Norwegian now owns the title of greatest cross-country skier of all time.
Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo, of Norway, left, and Individual Neutral Athlete Savelii Korostelev compete in the cross country skiing men's 50km mass start Classic at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Tesero, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026. Evgeniy Maloletka/AP hide caption
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Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
"We have never seen a better athlete on skis than him," said Anders Byström, a coach from rival Sweden. "Not pretty sure — I'm really certain about that."
As Eirik Nossum, one of Norway's coaches, put it: "This is what we will be talking about when we're old, to our grandkids."
While Klæbo has made many of his Olympic victories in Italy look easy, observers said that what's most impressive about his performances are that they were actually hard-won.
Earlier in his career, Klæbo was a strong sprinter, but he didn't always have the fitness or endurance to vie for medals in longer races.
From sprint specialist to all-around achiever
Up until this year's Games, he'd never been able to win one of the formats on the Olympic schedule: the 10-kilometer race in cross-country's skating technique. Klæbo said his victory in that event was the product of a long-term training plan he developed with his grandfather that was specifically geared toward boosting his fitness. Focused blocks of training at high altitude helped, too.
"Over the years, we have tried to build the stamina," Klæbo said. "I think that has worked out well."
Experts said Klæbo has mastered both the big picture of cross-country skiing, as well as the small stuff — details like finding the fastest path around downhill corners.
"He has skills and technique and all these other things that no one has," said Jostein Vinjerui, a Norwegian who coaches the United Kingdom's team at the Olympics. "He's done a hell of a job."
Erik Valnes, a Norwegian teammate, said that Klæbo can beat his rivals even when he's not at his best — which Valnes said was the case at some of the races at the Olympics.
Klæbo acknowledged that some of his race-winning efforts exhausted him, including one that left him holed up in his hotel room playing video games the day afterward. Before Saturday's race, he had cold symptoms and a team doctor assessed him before starting, according to the Norwegian tabloid VG.
Nyenget, who ultimately placed second Saturday, set an intense pace in the race's early stages — and when he asked his teammate to help push, Klæbo wasn't capable.
"I said no," Klæbeo said. "Because I was too tired."
But he still had enough energy left for the final sprint, and relegated Nyenget to second.
Nyenget and other athletes acknowledged that it can be a little frustrating to compete in the Klæbo era.
But they also said that the ski king pushes them all to be better.
Emil Iverson, who's also from Trondheim, spent much of the past year shadowing Klæbo in an attempt to boost his own fitness and skills — even traveling to a training camp in Utah with him. After placing third and winning his first individual Olympic medal Saturday, Iverson credited his friend with putting him there.
"It's just fun to compete with the best skier ever," Iverson said. For others "to take the silver and bronze, that's the best of the rest — and I think we should just be happy about that."
Many of the athletes and coaches interviewed Saturday said they think Klæbo likely would have found success whatever sport he'd chosen, though not everyone agreed.
At a news conference after Saturday's race in biathlon — a sport that combines skiing and precision riflery — the winner, France's Océane Michelon, pointed out that she'd never seen Klæbo practicing. And Tereza Voborníková of the Czech Republic, the bronze medalist, said she was keen for the Norwegian to try.
"It would be really interesting to see it," she said. "And personally, I would really like to see him on the shooting range."
