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Cross-Country Skier Goes Sleeveless En Route to Sixth-Place Finish

Great Britain's Austin Musgrave showed off his arms during grueling performance.
Great Britain's Austin Musgrave finished sixth in his race Friday in Cortina.
Great Britain's Austin Musgrave finished sixth in his race Friday in Cortina. | Mitch Goldich on X

Great Britain's Austin Musgrave finished sixth in the men's cross-country 10km freestyle on Friday but made quite an impression by exercising his right to bare arms out on the course. Musgrave warmed up with his upper half sheathed like everyone else but when it became go-time, he relieved himself of the constrains presented by skin-tight layer, which allowed his pole-holding arms to swing easy and unencumbered.

The race-time temperature was around 15-degrees Celsius so it wasn't particularly uncomfortable out there. Still, anyone who has taken a tumble onto some exposed skin into snow knows that it hits entirely different.

Here's video of his finish:

Musgrave shared the mountain with Norway's Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, who collected his record-tying eighth gold medal. Mathis Desloges of France won silver and Klaebo's Norweigan teammate, Einar Hedegart, took bronze. But none of them were as bold sartorially as the Brit.

Musgrave is an ironman in the sport as the Milan Cortina Games are the fifth of his decorated career.


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Kyle Koster
KYLE KOSTER

Kyle Koster is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated covering the intersection of sports and media. He was formerly the editor in chief of The Big Lead, where he worked from 2011 to '24. Koster also did turns at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he created the Sports Pros(e) blog, and at Woven Digital.

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