Cross-country skiing-Stomach bug skewers Klaebo's last chance at gold

ZHANGJIAKOU, China : A stomach complaint prompted Norwegian skier Johannes Klaebo to cut short his final attempt at winning gold in the men's 50 km freestyle mass start on Saturday at the Beijing Games, ending an otherwise successful Olympics on a sour note.

Klaebo, who stopped his race just after the 20 km mark, told reporters he had contracted a stomach bug that had derailed his preparations and that he had only decided to compete when the race was shortened to 30km from 50km because of high winds.

"I have been being more on the toilet than I have been sleeping the last couple of days," Klaebo said bluntly.

"Yesterday I didn't manage to go to the stadium at all, I just lay down in the bed and was totally flat out.

"I've been struggling a lot with the stomach, that was the problem, for sure, so it's sad to have this type of finish to the Olympics," he added.

Klaebo said he was happy overall with his haul of two gold medals, a silver and a bronze from the Beijing Games.

"I'm for sure really satisfied with the Olympics, especially the 15k, which was a good race for me and defending the sprint (that he won in 2018) and the team (sprint gold), so I would say it's been really nice, and I hope we can manage to do more in the future," he said.

The 25-year-old paid tribute to teammate Simen Hegstad Krueger, who bounced back from a positive COVID-19 test to take a bronze medal in his only race of the Games.

"It's very impressive we all know what he can do in the higher altitude like we are here, that's something he managed really, really good," Klaebo said.

"So for him to take a bronze medal today. It's really impressive and something he really really deserves."

(Reporting by Philip O'Connor; Editing by Himani Sarkar)