Cross-country skiing at the 1980 Winter Olympics – Men's 15 kilometre

Józef Łuszczek of Poland was the 1978 World champion and Nikolay Bazhukov of the Soviet Union was the defending champion from the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria.[2]

Each skier started at half a minute intervals, skiing the entire 15 kilometre course. The race developed into the closest duel in the history of cross-country skiing.[2] Thomas Wassberg of Sweden and Finnish veteran Juha Mieto fought a tight battle for the gold medal. Wassberg started last of the 63 participants, half a minute behind Norwegian Ove Aunli. Mieto, wearing bib 54, started half a minute behind the reigning world champion at the distance, Polish skier Józef Łuszczek.

Wassberg started fast, and at the 5 km mark he had caught Aunli by 30 seconds and was in the lead, three seconds ahead of Mieto.[2] Łuszczek also had a strong opener, only ten seconds behind the leader, closely followed by the 19-year old West German Jochen Behle and the 30 km winner Nikolay Zimyatov. At 10 km Wassberg had increased his lead to 4.8 seconds. Mieto, still in second place, had almost caught Łuszczek, starting half a minute in front of him, but the Pole was still in third place, now 30 seconds behind Wassberg. Aunli had been able to adjust his speed by following Wassberg and advanced from 13th to fifth place. Only two seconds separated the four fastest skiers behind Wassberg and Mieto 5 km from home. Behle had dropped down to ninth at 10 km and was out of contention for the medals.

Juha Mieto passed Łuszczek and left him behind before crossing the finish line in 41:57.64, beating Zimyatov's time by 36 seconds.[2] Thomas Wassberg, still skiing together with Aunli, was told 500 m from home that he had a one second lead over Mieto, and, fighting desperately, crossed the finish line in 41:57.63. He won the race by the closest possible margin, one hundredth of a second.[3] Aunli secured the bronze medal for Norway, beating Zimyatov by 5 seconds.

Wassberg proposed to Mieto that they could cut their medals in two parts and then melt them together as a mixed gold-silver medal. Mieto politely thanked him, but said no to the idea, and ended the 1980 season by winning the unofficial Cross-Country World Cup for the second consecutive time. The International Ski Federation (FIS) decided shortly after the 1980 Olympics that all times in cross-country races would henceforth be rounded to the nearest tenth of a second.[3]

Sources:[4][1]

Rank	Bib	Name	Country	Time	Deficit
	63	Thomas Wassberg	Sweden	41:57.63	–
	54	Juha Mieto	Finland	41:57.64	+0.01
	62	Ove Aunli	Norway	42:28.62	+30.99
4	41	Nikolay Zimyatov	Soviet Union	42:33.96	+36.33
5	14	Yevgeny Belyayev	Soviet Union	42:46.02	+48.39
6	53	Józef Łuszczek	Poland	42:59.03	+1:01.40
7	2	Alexander Zavyalov	Soviet Union	43:00.81	+1:03.18
8	33	Harri Kirvesniemi	Finland	43:02.01	+1:04.38
9	30	Oddvar Brå	Norway	43:05.64	+1:08.01
10	5	Lars Erik Eriksen	Norway	43:11.51	+1:13.88
11	29	Thomas Eriksson	Sweden	43:11.88	+1:14.25
12	40	Jochen Behle	West Germany	43:16.05	+1:18.42
13	58	Vasily Rochev	Soviet Union	43:16.86	+1:19.23
14	51	Jean-Paul Pierrat	France	43:32.53	+1:34.90
15	59	Ivan Lebanov	Bulgaria	43:37.32	+1:39.69
16	49	Bill Koch	United States	43:38.56	+1:40.93
17	44	Benny Kohlberg	Sweden	43:39.22	+1:41.59
18	10	Sven-Eric Danielsson	Sweden	43:41.21	+1:43.58
19	11	Kari Härkönen	Finland	43:50.31	+1:52.68
20	27	Pertti Teurajärvi	Finland	43:59.08	+2:01.45
21	31	Wolfgang Müller	West Germany	44:02.54	+2:04.91
22	36	Stan Dunklee	United States	44:03.84	+2:06.21
23	39	Jiří Švub	Czechoslovakia	44:20.15	+2:22.52
24	50	Jiří Beran	Czechoslovakia	44:27.78	+2:30.15
25	22	Tim Caldwell	United States	44:30.41	+2:32.78
26	7	Peter Zipfel	West Germany	44:38.23	+2:40.60
27	55	Franz Renggli	Switzerland	44:38.66	+2:41.03
28	47	Paul Fargeix	France	44:39.94	+2:42.31
29	38	Konrad Hallenbarter	Switzerland	44:42.12	+2:44.49
30	48	Tore Gullen	Norway	44:42.73	+2:45.10
31	60	Maurilio De Zolt	Italy	44:43.19	+2:45.56
32	15	Hansüli Kreuzer	Switzerland	44:44.66	+2:47.03
33	12	Jim Galanes	United States	44:46.48	+2:48.85
34	3	Giorgio Vanzetta	Italy	44:52.18	+2:54.55
35	4	Alfred Schindler	Switzerland	44:52.93	+2:55.30
36	52	Dieter Notz	West Germany	44:54.11	+2:56.48
37	56	Alf-Gerd Deckert	East Germany	45:00.40	+3:02.77
38	45	Khristo Barzanov	Bulgaria	45:05.21	+3:07.58
39	37	Giulio Capitanio	Italy	45:10.40	+3:12.77
40	1	František Šimon	Czechoslovakia	45:12.09	+3:14.46
41	43	Ivo Čarman	Yugoslavia	45:14.32	+3:16.69
42	17	Gerard Durand-Poudret	France	45:47.26	+3:49.63
43	42	Shiro Sato	Japan	46:15.29	+4:17.66
44	20	Miloš Bečvář	Czechoslovakia	46:18.13	+4:20.50
45	8	Dominique Locatelli	France	47:06.72	+5:09.09
46	25	Tone Ðuričič	Yugoslavia	47:38.45	+5:40.82
47	21	Haukur Sigurðsson	Iceland	47:44.00	+5:46.37
48	19	Luvsandashiin Dorj	Mongolia	48:05.78	+6:08.15
49	35	Charles MacIvor	Great Britain	48:37.57	+6:39.94
50	23	Lin Guangho	China	48:38.36	+6:40.73
51	13	Þröstur Johannesson	Iceland	49:37.75	+7:40.12
52	9	Michael Goode	Great Britain	49:47.20	+7:49.57
53	28	Emiliano Morlans	Spain	50:42.33	+8:44.70
54	32	Ingólfur Jónsson	Iceland	50:51.50	+8:53.87
55	6	José Giro	Spain	51:30.06	+9:32.43
56	34	Marcos Luis Jerman	Argentina	52:02.42	+10:04.79
57	24	Philip Jacklin	Great Britain	52:14.17	+10:16.54
58	46	Kim Nam-young	South Korea	53:05.55	+11:07.92
59	18	Hwang Byung-dae	South Korea	53:05.60	+11:07.97
60	26	Martín Tomás Jerman	Argentina	53:38.47	+11:40.84
61	61	Matías José Jerman	Argentina	55:50.51	+13:52.88
	16	Giampaolo Rupil	Italy	DNF
	57	Kim Dong-hwan	South Korea	DNF

• Final results (International Ski Federation)