Cross-country skiing at the 1980 Winter Olympics – Men's 50 kilometre
The men's 50 kilometre cross-country skiing competition at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, United States, was held on Saturday 23 February at Mount Van Hoevenberg, Essex County, New York. Sven-Åke Lundbäck of Sweden was the 1978 World champion and Ivar Formo of Norway was the defending champion from the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria.
Each skier started at half a minute intervals, skiing the entire 50 kilometre course. Of the 43 athletes who started the race, 6 did not finish. Nikolay Zimyatov of the Soviet Union took his third Gold medal of the games after winning the 30 kilometre and being part of Soviet Union's winning 4 × 10 km relay team.Results
Sources:
Rank | Bib | Name | Country | Time | Deficit |
| 41 | Nikolay Zimyatov | | 2:27:24.60 | |
| 38 | Juha Mieto | | 2:30:20.52 | |
| 14 | Alexander Zavyalov | | 2:30:51.52 | |
| 47 | Lars Erik Eriksen | | 2:30:53.03 | |
| 6 | Sergey Savelyev | | 2:31:15.82 | |
| 28 | Yevgeny Belyayev | | 2:31:21.19 | |
| 20 | Oddvar Brå | | 2:31:46.83 | |
| 36 | Sven-Åke Lundbäck | | 2:31:59.65 | |
| 21 | Asko Autio | | 2:32:25.57 | |
10 | 18 | Franz Renggli | | 2:33:27.56 | |
11 | 33 | Matti Pitkänen | | 2:34:09.04 | |
12 | 40 | Jean-Paul Pierrat | | 2:34:13.07 | |
13 | 37 | Bill Koch | | 2:34:31.62 | |
14 | 10 | Heinz Gähler | | 2:35:11.20 | |
15 | 2 | Anders Bakken | | 2:35:33.26 | |
16 | 8 | Thomas Eriksson | | 2:36:33.85 | |
17 | 42 | Józef Łuszczek | | 2:36:38.05 | |
18 | 5 | Pertti Teurajärvi | | 2:36:44.08 | |
19 | 22 | Giulio Capitanio | | 2:37:01.40 | |
20 | 23 | Jim Galanes | | 2:37:09.64 | |
21 | 12 | Peter Zipfel | | 2:37:09.74 | |
22 | 46 | Dieter Notz | | 2:37:47.41 | |
23 | 44 | Jiří Beran | | 2:37:51.58 | |
24 | 32 | Kjell Jakob Sollie | | 2:38:06.07 | |
25 | 39 | Roberto Primus | | 2:38:10.10 | |
26 | 24 | Alf-Gerd Deckert | | 2:38:13.53 | |
27 | 17 | František Šimon | | 2:39:53.03 | |
28 | 4 | Franz Schöbel | | 2:40:25.96 | |
29 | 30 | Josef Schneider | | 2:40:49.68 | |
30 | 26 | Jiří Švub | | 2:40:53.94 | |
31 | 11 | Michel Thierry | | 2:41:38.26 | |
32 | 1 | Gianfranco Polvara | | 2:41:51.58 | |
33 | 27 | Stan Dunklee | | 2:42:20.20 | |
34 | 35 | Erik Gustavsson | | 2:43:39.93 | |
35 | 29 | Paul Fargeix | | 2:45:39.70 | |
36 | 19 | Luvsandashiin Dorj | | 2:48:22.97 | |
37 | 34 | Shiro Sato | | 2:48:33.02 | |
| 7 | Philippe Poirot | | | |
| 9 | Doug Peterson | | | |
| 15 | Stig Jäder | | | |
| 25 | Gaudenz Ambühl | | | |
| 31 | Maurilio De Zolt | | | |
| 45 | Konrad Hallenbarter | | | |
| 3 | Þröstur Johannesson | | | |
| 13 | Tone Ðuričič | | | |
| 16 | Haukur Sigurðsson | | | |
| 43 | Khristo Barzanov | | | |