Cross-country skiing at the 2002 Winter Olympics – Women's 30 kilometre classical

Women’s 30 kilometre classical at the XIX Olympic Winter Games
Venue	Soldier Hollow
Dates	24 February
Competitors	52 from 17 nations
Winning time	1:30:57.1
Medalists
Gabriella Paruzzi  Italy Stefania Belmondo  Italy Bente Skari  Norway

The Women's 30 kilometre classical mass start cross-country skiing competition at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, United States, was held on 24 February at Soldier Hollow. This was the final women's event of the 2002 Olympics cross-country program.

All skiers started at 30 second intervals, skiing the entire 30 kilometre course.

The race

The early leader in this race was Russian Larisa Lazutina, the 1999 World Champion and 2001 Holmenkollen champion in the event. She won the race by almost two minutes over Italian Gabriella Paruzzi. Lazutina led at every checkpoint and had the fastest intermediate split for each time check. Stefania Belmondo of Italy finished third and Norwegian Bente Skari finished in fourth place.

After the competition, it was confirmed that Lazutina had tested positive for darpopoietin, an erythropoietin analogue, and was disqualified from all events in the 2002 Winter Olympics. Her teammate, Olga Danilova, who had originally finished eighth had been sanctioned for doping two months earlier and was also disqualified. This brought Paruzzi up to gold medal, her first individual olympic medal. The silver medalist became Italy's Stefania Belmondo while Skari won the bronze. For Belmondo this was her 10th Olympic medal, equaling the Winter Olympic record for women held by Soviet/Unified Team skier Raisa Smetanina, both trailing only Norway's Bjørn Dæhlie, who won 12.

Results

Rank	Name	Country	Time [h:min:s]
	Gabriella Paruzzi	Italy	1:30:57.1
	Stefania Belmondo	Italy	1:31:01.6
	Bente Skari	Norway	1:31:36.3
4	Anita Moen	Norway	1:31:37.3
5	Valentina Shevchenko	Ukraine	1:33:03.1
6	Viola Bauer	Germany	1:33:25.1
7	Kristina Smigun	Estonia	1:33:52.7
8	Vibeke Skofterud	Norway	1:35:02.3
9	Yuliya Chepalova	Russia	1:35:37.4
10	Natascia Leonardi Cortesi	Switzerland	1:35:46.8
11	Svetlana Nagejkina	Belarus	1:35:51.6
12	Petra Majdic	Slovenia	1:35:51.8
13	Marit Bjørgen	Norway	1:37:02.6
14	Nina Kemppel	United States	1:37:08.7
15	Svetlana Shishkina	Kazakhstan	1:37:14.5
16	Oxana Jatskaja	Kazakhstan	1:37:25.3
17	Irina Terelia	Ukraine	1:37:32.9
18	Antonella Confortola	Italy	1:37:47.4
19	Olga Savialova	Russia	1:37:47.4
19	Laurence Rochat	Switzerland	1:38:24.2
21	Sumiko Yokoyama	Japan	1:39:48.8
22	Wendy Kay Wagner	United States	1:39:54.8
23	Annmari Viljanmaa	Finland	1:40:47.9
24	Elin Ek	Sweden	1:40:48.2
25	Madoka Natumi	Japan	1:41:06.0
26	Kamila Rajdlova	Czech Republic	1:41:57.7
27	Amanda Fortier	Canada	1:42:08.1
28	Natalja Zjatikova	Belarus	1:42:18.0
29	Irina Skripnik	Belarus	1:42:49.1
30	Milaine Thériault	Canada	1:42:56.9
31	Elena Antonova	Kazakhstan	1:43:37.6
32	Marianna Longa	Italy	1:44:02.5
33	Jaime Fortier	Canada	1:44:26.2
34	Barbara Jones	United States	1:45:18.7
35	Midori Furusawa	Japan	1:45:50.0
36	Svetlana Deshevykh	Kazakhstan	1:46:18.1
37	Olena Rodina	Ukraine	1:46:51.2
38	Anna Dahlberg	Sweden	1:46:51.3
39	Katerina Nash	Czech Republic	1:48:52.6
40	Luan Zhengrong	China	1:49:37.7
41	Hou Yuxia	China	1:49:45.8
42	Tomomi Otaka	Japan	1:50:00.3
--	Satu Salonen	Finland	DNF
--	Marina Pestrekova	Ukraine	DNF
--	Manuela Henkel	Germany	DNF
--	Anna-Carin Olofsson	Sweden	DNF
--	Ulrika Persson	Sweden	DNF
--	Larissa Lazutina	Russia	DSQ
--	Olga Danilova	Russia	DSQ
--	Vera Zjatikova	Belarus	DNS
--	Sara Renner	Canada	DNS
--	Aelin Peterson	United States	DNS