Bulgarian Daniel Peshkov finished in 42nd place in the 50-kilometer mass start in the classic style in the last men's cross-country skiing competition at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, BTA reported.
The 23-year-old Peshkov, who is a debutant at the Winter Games, was 40th after 33 kilometers, but lost two more positions by the finish, finishing in 2:18.52.0 hours.
He still made the strongest individual performance of the Bulgarians in cross-country skiing at Milan-Cortina 2026, after the highest ranking so far was that of Mario Matikanov, who came in 49th in the interval start of 10 kilometers.
The last time a Bulgarian reached the final in the marathon distance of cross-country skiing was at the 2014 Sochi Games, when Andrey Gridin was 41st.
The current world champion in the discipline from Trondheim 2025, Johannes Klaebo (Norway), continued to rewrite Olympic history. He triumphed again and won his sixth gold medal out of six cross-country skiing events at the Games, thus breaking the record for titles at a single Winter Olympics held by American speed skater Eric Hayden, who won five in five events at the 1980 Lake Placid Games.
Klaebo also now has 11 gold medals from the Winter Olympics, surpassing the achievement of his compatriots Marit Bjorgen, Bjorn Deli and Ole Einar Bröndalen, who have eight each, on February 15.
After the 20th kilometer of the distance, the three Norwegians Klaebo, Emil Iversen and Martin Nyengeth gradually increased the pace and began to open up a lead, with initially only the world vice-champion in the youth mass start from Ligna 2022 Saveliy Korostelov being closer to them, but gradually and the 22-year-old Russian fell behind, with the gap between him and the Scandinavians exceeding 40 seconds in the middle of the distance, and at the 30th kilometer it was already about 2 minutes.
About four kilometers before the finish, Klaebo and Njenget attacked and quickly built up a lead of over 10 seconds over Iversen, thus making it clear that only the two remained in the fight for the title.
Klaebo made a powerful attack on the last climb before the finish and built up a serious lead to finish first in 2:06:44.8 hours. The 33-year-old Nienget finished second in 8.9 seconds, completing a full medal haul from Milano-Cortina 2026 after winning gold with Norway's relay team and bronze in the skiathlon.
Oberstdorf 2021 world champion Emil Iversen (Norway) won bronze in 30.7 seconds. Iversen, 34, won his first individual Olympic medal and the third of his career after winning gold with the relay team at the current Games and silver with the Norwegian quartet at Beijing 2022.
Norway already has a record 17 gold medals from a single Winter Olympics.
Only 43 of the 62 starters managed to finish.