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Petter Northug
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2-time Olympic XX ski champion admits to possession of cocaine, speeding

Associated PressAug 18, 2020, 6:16 AM EDT
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OSLO, Norway — Two-time Olympic cross-country skiing champion Petter Northug has admitted to possessing cocaine, speeding and driving under the influence.

The Norwegian great, who won two gold medals at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and is a 13-time world champion, retired from the sport in 2018.

“I made a big mistake,” the 34-year-old Northug wrote on Facebook. “I was driving way too fast and was also taken to the emergency room for blood test. In addition, the police found a smaller amount of drugs at my house. It’s about cocaine.”

After being stopped for speeding, police searched his home and found the cocaine.

On Monday, prosecutor Silje Haugerstuen Bergsholm told Norwegian news agency NTB that Northug is facing preliminary charges for speeding for driving 168 kph in a 110 kph zone, driving while under the influence of a substance and possession of narcotics.

Preliminary charges are one step short of formal charges. No date for a trial was immediately set.

“I am despair and afraid of what the future will bring, and incredibly sorry for all those who I have now disappointed, again. I know it will now be a criminal case. Then I will take responsibility for what I have done,” Northug wrote Friday, a day after the offenses.

In 2014, Northug crashed his car in Norway while driving under the influence of alcohol. He fled the scene and later apologized for the accident in which a male passenger broke his collar bone.

UCI looks for new host for 2020 World Road Cycling Championships

Chloe Dygert
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By OlympicTalkAug 12, 2020, 1:30 PM EDT
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The International Cycling Union (UCI) is looking for a new host for the 2020 World Road Cycling Championships due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Switzerland can no longer host the week-long event in late September after a national decision to extend a ban on events with more than 1,000 people through next month.

Amid reports the competition has been canceled, the UCI clarified Wednesday that it still hopes to hold it in some form, perhaps without some of the junior or senior races.

It now seeks an “alternative project,” preferably still in Europe and on the same dates (Sept. 20-27).

Worlds were due to start in Switzerland on the same day that the rescheduled Tour de France ends, though the senior elite men’s races are typically not on the first three days.

The Tour de France is still scheduled to start Aug. 29.

Last year, American Chloe Dygert starred at road worlds, winning the time trial in dominant fashion. Other world champions in Olympic events: Annemiek van Vleuten (road race), Rohan Dennis (time trial) and Mads Pedersen (road race).

MORE: Chloe Dygert had the most dominant ride in history. It still drives her nuts.

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Kenya’s best to race Norway’s best on different continents in June track meet

Ingebrigtsen, Cheruiyot
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By OlympicTalkMay 26, 2020, 8:35 AM EDT
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Kenya’s top 1500m man is expected to run with a team in Nairobi. Norway’s fastest will be together at a stadium in Oslo. The two contingents will face off in a virtual 2000m team event during the June 11 Impossible Games, the most significant track and field meet since the coronavirus pandemic began.

Organizers of the meet held in Oslo, typically part of the top-level Diamond League circuit, are billing the Norwegian team to include all three Ingebrigtsen brothers — Henrik (2012 European champion), Filip (2017 World bronze medalist), and Jakob (second-fastest in the world in 2019).

The Kenyan team is “Team Cheruiyot,” named after world champion Timothy Cheruiyot, though organizers did not confirm in a press release that Cheruiyot will be part of the squad that races. Later, World Athletics reported that the Kenyan team will include Cheruiyot, plus 2017 World champion Elijah Manangoi.

In the 2000m competition, each team will have five runners. The winner will be the team with the best overall time for three runners, which sounds similar to long-track speed skating’s team pursuit.

Again, the Kenyans will be racing in Nairobi. The Norwegians at the Bislett stadium. A broadcast stream will be a split screen.

“This will be the first virtual race at such level in the history of athletics,” according to a press release.

Also, Therese Johaug, the reigning World Cup overall cross-country skiing champion, will run a 10,000m on the track, organizers announced Tuesday.

Johaug, 31, is one of the world’s dominant athletes. Last season, she notched 20 World Cup victories, 17 more than any other woman. She did so after being banned from the PyeongChang Olympics after testing positive for a steroid found in a cream given to her by a team doctor to treat sunburned lips.

Johaug also has some distance-running credentials. Last year, she won the Norwegian national title in the 10,000m, clocking 32:20.86 to rank 88th in the world. The Olympic qualifying standard is 31:25.

Also slated for the June 11 meet with limited athletes and no fans in the stadium: world 400m hurdles champion Karsten Warholm of Norway, the top two ranked pole vaulters in history — Swede Mondo Duplantis and Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie — and world discus champion Daniel Stahl of Sweden.

Duplantis is expected to be at the Oslo stadium, while Lavillenie will pole vault remotely from his home in France. Warholm was announced last month to race the 300m hurdles, eyeing the fastest time in history in the non-Olympic event, in a solo race.

This year’s Diamond League season has been readjusted to start in August.

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MORE: Seb Coe: Track and field needs more U.S. meets