Just how good is the best cross-country skier ever? We put his Olympic accomplishments into running terms to find out and to provide some perspective.

It’s hard to conceptualise the difficulty of some Winter Olympic sports. Hurtling oneself through a halfpipe on a snowboard, landing triple corks? It must be difficult, of course. Lacing up skates and landing a quad axel looks really hard, obviously. But how hard?

Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo won all six Winter Olympic cross-country ski events…

If you have no experience in these sports, you can certainly respect what athletes are accomplishing at the Winter Olympics. But it’s almost impossible to have a real feel for it. However, if you’re a runner watching cross-country skiing, you have more ability to understand the history that’s being made at the 2026 Winter Games than you may think.

Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo won all six Winter Olympic cross-country ski events, bringing his career Olympic gold medal count to 11 and setting a new record in the process. He has won a total of 13 Olympic medals, including one silver and one bronze. Swimmer Michael Phelps has 10 gold medals.

Sounds incredible, right? But put what Klaebo has achieved into running terms, and your jaw will hit the floor.

The running/cross-country skiing comparison first came up during these Olympics when a video of Klaebo hauling in the classic sprint went viral. On the final climb, he shifted into a gear only he can access, dropping the pack and securing gold. He was clocked running uphill, on skis, at a 3:18/kilometre pace. Putting Klaebo’s pace into running terms resonated. Avid runners and those who bowed out of their running careers with the middle-school mile test can all feel that sensation. We all know it’s like to push for a sub-3:30, 4:00 or 5:00 kilometre. And that’s without skis on.

Cross-country skiers know that this running comparison is a natural one. The aerobic demands of both sports make running a key aspect of cross-country ski training. Some elite skiers have even competed in both, like Sophia Laukli, who competed for the United States in cross-country skiing at the 2022 Olympics and is also a world-class trail runner.

Therese Johaug is a six-time Olympic medalist in cross-country skiing, and also won the 10 000-metres at Norwegian track nationals in 2019 and 2020. Before becoming a three-time Olympian in cross-country skiing, Dorcas Wonsavage was a dual-athlete at Middlebury College, winning the 1985 individual cross-country running NCAA title by 36 seconds.

Olympic running and skiing compete at similar distances, too. Klaebo’s goal at the Winter Olympics was to sweep the cross-country ski events – four individual races and two relays. He raced distances of 1.6, 7.5, 10, 20 and 50 kilometres. What he achieved is comparable to a runner trying to win the 1 500, 5 000, and 10 000 metre events and the marathon – all at the same Olympics.

The runner closest to achieving this is Sifan Hassan, one of the most versatile runners of the modern era. She took home bronze in the 1 500 metres and gold in both the 5 000 and 10 000 metres in the 2020 Tokyo Games. During the next Olympic cycle in 2024, Hassan won the marathon and earned bronze in the 5 000 and 10 000 metres.

If you dig further back into Olympic results, you can find a few other runners with this versatility and dominance. Like Czechoslovakian runner Emil Zatopek, who won the 5 000, the 10 000, and the marathon at the 1952 Games in Helsinki. Go back a few more decades, and you’ll find Paavo Nurmi. In the 1924 Olympics in Paris, the Finn won five gold medals in track and cross-country events (some of which are no longer in existence). His wins ranged in distance from 1 500 to 10 000 meters. He didn’t compete in the marathon that year.

Skiers grow up competing in both sprints and distance racing. Like runners, it’s natural to end up specialising to a degree. Some skiers predominantly compete in the sprints at the Olympics, while others will race the distance races and not enter Olympic sprint competitions.

Klaebo, however, does it all – better than anyone. To capture how wholly improbable this level of dominance is, think about Klaebo as if he were an Olympic runner. Your jaw is on the floor, right?

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