Norway's Marit Bjoergen claimed her third gold during the 4X5-km cross country relay race Whistler Olympic Park today going beyond her own wildest dreams.
"I didn't dream I would get one gold medal, and now I have three, so this has been wonderful for me," said Bjoergen, who came in on the anchor leg.
Bjoergen had such a commanding lead that she allowed herself to grab a Norwegian flag from the stands before jumping over the finish line with a final time of 55:19:5, 24.6 seconds ahead of silver medalist Germany and 30.4 ahead of bronze medalist Finland.
She made it happen with teammates Vibeke Skofterud, Therese Johaug and Kristin Steira.
It's the fourth medal for the cross country racer, who had already won gold in the women's 1.4-km sprint classic and 15-km pursuit as well as bronze in the 10-km race.
Bjoergen was sixth in the World Cup standings, so her triple win is a little bit of a surprise, but not shocking to many who have followed her career from the time she started competing at age seven and organized training at age twelve.
She was named Athlete of the Year for 2005 in Norway, as voted by the Norwegian sports journalists. And she hired her own public relations specialist to help deal with the media.
"The media pressure is quite large in periods, and I'm also supposed to train during all of this, and it sometimes gets to be too much," she has said.
