Yle brainstorms ways to stop Johannes Klæbo — watch the skiing superstar’s reaction

Johannes Høsflot Klæbo appears to be in dominant form. Yle Sport’s experts’ suggested ways to stop him crossed into the “slightly” gray area — and the result was a short, humorous video that was also shown to the superstar himself.

Johannes Høsflot Klæbo has now taken two gold medals at the Milano‑Cortina Olympics — his latest coming in Tuesday’s classical sprint. He seems to have the recipe to repeat his feat from last year’s Trondheim World Championships where he walked away with gold from every possible distance contested on home snow.

Yle Sport’s skiing analyst Aino‑Kaisa Saarinen predicted before the Games that essentially only the 10 km time trial in the skate/free technique is an event where other athletes could realistically be considered favourites besides Klæbo — in that format he can’t simply break away from everyone with his devastating finishing speed.

Yle Sport experts Kalle Lassila and Matias Strandvall, reporting from Val di Fiemme where the Olympic XC races are held, brainstormed various ways a rival might try to stop Klæbo. They packaged the ideas into a short, tongue‑in‑cheek video that was shared on social media.

The clip presented five different proposals:

1. Hanging‑on tactic

2. Blocking

3. Flashing/distraction

4. Grabbing/holding tight

5. Scaring/sudden startle

After Klæbo’s Tuesday gold was secured, Yle Sport showed the video to the Norwegian star himself. He said the first idea sounded difficult and the fifth was clever, but he clearly had a favourite.

“Sprint is the worst mentally. You have to be on and off all the time, and when you succeed it feels even better. But to answer your question, I think I would choose option four,” Klæbo said when reacting to the clip.

—Translated and adapted from the original Finnish Yle article. The original piece also links to a related Yle story in which Aino‑Kaisa Saarinen explains that only the 10 km time trial looks like a real stumbling block for Klæbo at these Games.