Dario Cologna of Switzerland won with outstanding performance 15 km Free. He dominated the race and deleted the rest of the start field. Pietro Piller Cottrer (ITA) took silver medal with a time gap of 24.6 sec. Tough fight between Bauer (CZE) and Hellner (SWE) took place for bronze. Hellner started very fast and was leading in first kilometers. He could not keep the pace till finish. Thus Lukas Bauer (CZE) with his consistent pace captured bronze. He lost on Cologna 35.7 sec. Marcus Hellner finished 4th.
With this gold medal, the 23-year old Dario Cologna makes history. It is the first ever gold medal for Switzerland at the Olympics. "I can still not believe. It was a great race, I had good material and could have an controll on the race." As for Kalla, it was also the first ever victory in the first ever Olympic race.
Also Pietro Piller Cottrer where smiling all over the face in the finish of the 15 km:" "Obviously I'm really happy about my Silver. All my season wasn't that excellent. My goal was to get a medal. The greatest satisfaction is to have a goal and reach it."
"During the race I had a big problem," commented bronze medalist Bauer. "I said, 'Ah, today is a bad day and I have no chance for a medal. When I saw Marcus is losing time, I said, 'I have this chance and I must fight for a medal'. It was a little bit sucks for him."
All in all it was a great Cross-Country day at Whistler Olympic Park with six different nations on the podium.
