Sweden wins gold and silver, Canada's Beatty eliminated in quarter-final of sprint freestyle
27-year-old from Whitehorse, Y.T., was lone Canadian to advance to quarter-finals
A single Canadian made their way to the knockout rounds in the cross-country skiing sprint freestyle race at Beijing 2022, as Dahria Beatty reached the quarter-finals with a top 30 result in the qualifying round, before finishing fifth in her quarter-final heat.
The only Team Canada athlete from the Yukon, Beatty finished 28th in qualifying, becoming the only one of the four Canadian women's skiers to move onto the knockout heats.
Sweden's Jonna Sundling won the women's competition of 92 athletes, with her teammate Maja Dahlqvist capturing the silver medal. American Jessica Diggins took home bronze, becoming the first American skier to win an individual cross-country skiing medal at the Olympics.
Canada's Beatty, 27, finished the qualifying round in 28th place, an improvement on her PyeongChang 2018 result, where she missed the knockout rounds, finishing 42nd.
In the men's event, Canada's Graham Ritchie missed out on the top 30 by 0.45 seconds, finishing 35th, while teammate Antoine Cyr of Gatineau, Que., finished further down the rankings in 56th place.
Norway's Johannes Klaebo won the gold medal in the men's event, making most of the absence of recently-crowned skiathlon champion Alexander Bolshunov, and defending his Olympic title. Italian Federico Pellegrino won the silver medal, while Alexander Terentev of the Russian Olympic Committee took the bronze. 1.31 seconds split Klaebo's gold, and the podium's edge.
"The last few weeks were quite stressful," said Klaebo, about a Norweigian team that dealt with a COVID-19 outbreak. "Being able to defend Olympic gold from last time, and having this amazing fight with Federico [Pellegrino] today, it was a lot of fun."
Beatty will continue searching for her first Olympic medal, after picking up her best-ever individual Olympic result with a 25th place. One of Canada's top sprint skiers, she finished 16th at World Cup races in Planica, Slovenia and Dresden, Germany in 2019.
Cross-country skiing continues at Beijing 2022 with the women's 10km classic race on Feb. 10 at 2:00 a.m. ET, streaming live on CBC Gem, the CBC Sports app and CBC Sports' Beijing 2022 website.
