Ben Ogden - USA's First Men's Cross Country Skiing Medal (Silver) in 50 Years.

And he was hot on the Norwegian’s heels. Pretty awesome.

Klaebo is the Michael Phelps of cross country skiing though.

That acceleration by Klaebo up the hill is one of the most insane things I've ever seen

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I was in the 9th grade in 1976 watching the Winter Olympics and can remember watching the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo Winter Olympics and remembering. Wow what an accomplishment our first medal ever in Cross Country skiing and it's unbelievable that it has taken 50 years to get another medal. Hey, congratulations once again to Bill Koch and especially to Ben. What a monumental effort! Olympian

Unbelievable, that dude ran away from everyone with that move

Here’s a great explanation about how hard that is and what it takes to make that happen behind the scenes too.

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I've had a couple requests asking my family's take on this. First off, it's the first time someone on the USA Men's Cross Country team has gotten a silver metal in 50 years. Ben Ogden almost catching Klæbo is a huge leap forward for the US in this sport. The Norwegians dominate this sport every year. They are extremely well funded in this sport compared to the states. Biathalon was invented by the Norwegian army, as they patrol their border. Skiing is what they do, and part of their national defense. They grow up on skis. This is like if the Norwegians produced someone who could almost touch our Michael Jordan in basketball. This is their superstar. So hats off to Ben Ogden for the silver metal! That is NO SMALL THING!

But also, look at Klæbo here! When I asked my husband, and my pro skier son about this hill, the only word they both said was "insane."

Do you guys have any idea how hard this is? Not only do you have to have your wax just perfect (that's where the support team comes into play--and the wax job on these skis must have been a work of art and perfection for the conditions) he's just sprinting like the ground is flat. These hills are steep, and slippery. Moving this fast on a hill like that is truely insane. You use kick wax for hills like this, so your ski can grip the snow without gliding. The rest of your ski has glide wax for speed on the downhills. But for the uphills, there's an area of your ski where you put kick wax, and you have to literally kick straight down to engage that wax with the snow and grip. So not only is he going forward quickly, he's having to pound his foot downward in a hard kick with each step to grip the snow and not slip backwards. You don't lightfoot it up a hill, you pound up a hill. He's pounding, but making it look like he's lightfooting because it's so crazy fast. He gained 5 seconds on the rest of the skiers in just this one hill

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