BY KAREN BOSSICK

Sun Valley’s John Steel Hagenbuch got his second bid for Olympic gold Sunday in the men’s cross-country 4x7.5-kilometer relay at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Tesero, Italy.

Vermont’s Ben Ogden, who celebrated his silver medal on Tuesday with a backflip off the podium, led the relay, skiing tough to keep the Americans in medal contention. Two-time Olympian Gus Schumacher of Alaska took up the second leg of the classic ski half of the relay under blue skies.

Hagenbuch entered the third leg skate skiing, wearing just his ski bib in the warm temperatures and an American flag stamped on his forehead. Zak Ketterson of Minnesota finished the relay, but the day belonged to Norway’s Johannes Klaebo, who has utterly crushed it in this year’s Winter Olympics.

“King Klaebo,” as he’s been dubbed, anchored his team’s relay and reached speeds of 11.5 miles per hour running straight up what’s known as “The Climb,” leaving everyone behind in the…well, snow…as he won his fourth gold medal at the Milan Cortina Games

It was his ninth gold medal in cross-country skiing and a Winter Games record as he eclipsed the previous record held by three retired Norwegian athletes: Bjorn Daehlie, Marit Bjoergen and Ole Einar Bjoerndalen.

France took silver and Italy, bronze. The Americans, who saw a 50-year drought of Olympic medals end with Ogden’s silver earlier this week, took sixth.

OTHER IDAHOANS DO WELL

Jaelin Kauf, who grew up in Teton Valley between Driggs, Idaho, and Grand Targhee ski resort, won silver in women’s moguls on Wednesday. Kauf, who also won silver at the 2022 Beijing Games, finished behind American freestyle skier Elizabeth Lemley.

Then Kauf picked up her second medal of the Milan Cortina Games—her third overall—winning silver in the first-ever women’s dual moguls final on Saturday.

Breezy Johnson didn’t medal in her final run—the women’s Super G—but she did get gold of sorts as her boyfriend dropped to a knee at the finish line and asked her to marry him. Yes, her wedding ring featured a white gold band, which was punctuated with white and blue sapphires.