Cross-country skiing at the 2006 Winter Olympics – Men's team sprint


The Men's team sprint cross-country skiing competition at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, was held on 14 February, at Pragelato. This was the first time the team sprint was contested in the Winter Olympics. Each race featured teams of two, with each skier completing 3 laps of a 1325-metre course.
Norway, with Tore Ruud Hofstad and Tor Arne Hetland, had won the competition at the 2005 Nordic skiing World Championship, the only time it had been skied in the World Championship prior to the Turin games, but that was in free technique. The most recent team sprint event in classic technique had been in Canmore, Canada, on 18 December 2004. Jens Arne Svartedal and Eldar Rønning won that race for Norway's first team. However, despite this good Norwegian record, it was the Sweden's Thobias Fredriksson and Björn Lind who pipped Norway to the title.

Results

Semifinals

Fifteen teams were entered in the two semifinals, with the top five in each advancing to the final.
;Semifinal 1
RankCountryAthletesTimeNotes
1Thobias Fredriksson
Björn Lind
17:34.0Q
2Dušan Kožíšek
Martin Koukal
17:34.9Q
3Martin Bajčičák
Ivan Bátory
17:36.1Q
4Keijo Kurttila
Lauri Pyykönen
17:39.2Q
5Nikolay Chebotko
Yevgeniy Koschevoy
17:42.6Q
6Katsuhito Ebisawa
Yuichi Onda
17:46.6
7Priit Barusk
Anti Saarepuu
18:07.4
8Nejc Brodar
Joze Mehle
18:34.4
9Ivan Bilosyuk
Vitaly Martsyv
18:50.4
10Tian Ye
Li Geiliang
18:57.4
11Zsolt Antal
Mihai Galiceanu
18:04.3
12Sebahattin Oğlago
Muhammet Kızılarslan
19:46.5
Sergei Dolidovich
Alexander Lasutkin
DNS

;Semifinal 2
RankCountryAthletesTimeNotes
1Jens Arne Svartedal
Tor Arne Hetland
17:22.1Q
2Ivan Alypov
Vasily Rochev
17:22.2Q
3Jens Filbrich
Andreas Schlütter
17:22.6Q
4Freddy Schwienbacher
Giorgio Di Centa
17:26.2Q
5Maciej Kreczmer
Janusz Krężelok
17:27.1Q
6Devon Kershaw
George Grey
17:31.2
7Chris Cook
Andrew Newell
17:54.9
8Reto Burgermeister
Christoph Eigenmann
18:00.5
9Johannes Eder
Juergen Pinter
18:12.2
10Choi Im-Heon
Park Byung Joo
19:40.0
11Damir Jurčević
Denis Klobučar
19.43.1
Hovhannes Sargsyan
Edmond Khachatryan
DNF

Final

The top three teams separated themselves from the pack fairly easily, with Sweden finishing just 0.6 seconds ahead of Norway to take the gold medal.
RankCountryAthletesTime
Thobias Fredriksson
Björn Lind
17:02.9
Jens Arne Svartedal
Tor Arne Hetland
17:03.5
Ivan Alypov
Vasily Rochev
17:05.2
4Jens Filbrich
Andreas Schlütter
17:14.0
5Keijo Kurttila
Lauri Pyykönen
17:21.5
6Nikolay Chebotko
Yevgeniy Koschevoy
17:25.1
7Maciej Kreczmer
Janusz Krężelok
17:26.3
8Martin Bajčičák
Ivan Bátory
18:30.9
9Freddy Schwienbacher
Giorgio Di Centa
18:31.3
10Dušan Kožíšek
Martin Koukal
18:49.6