Olympics-Crosscountry-Joensson wins crazy bronze

By Dmitriy Rogovitskiy ROSA KHUTOR, Russia, Feb 11 (Reuters) - With an aching back and hardly any energy, Swedish cross country skier Emil Joensson had almost given up hope of winning a medal in Tuesday's sprint event at the Sochi Olympics. Already exhausted after getting through to the qualifiers, he quickly fell back to last place in the six-man final, when his luck suddenly turned. Ahead of him, three of his rivals - Marcus Hellner, Anders Gloeersen and Sergey Ustiugov - collided and fell on a bend, opening the way for him to ski past them and snatch an unlikely bronze medal. "This was the craziest race in my life," Joensson said. "I had used up all my strength in the previous qualifying races, my back hurt and I was also guilty of a false start. "I came out of the turn, saw a bunch of skiers and heard screams that I had a chance of a medal. I regained my strength and pushed myself to the finish. "I did not understand what was happening around me, my back hurt. Only when I heard the shouts of the judges did I realize what had happened." The gold medal was won by Norway's Ola Vigen Hattestad while the silver went to Joensson's fellow Swede Teodor Peterson although it was the bronze medallist that had everyone stumped. "There were some really strange results today," said Aleksey Petukhov, who reached the semi-finals. "Emil Joensson had not won anything before - but now he is an Olympic bronze medalist. I do not know what to say!" Joensson won a bronze medal in the sprint at the 2011 world championships and a silver in the team event at last year's titles. The 28-year-ol said he felt that he was owed some good fortune after struggling for the past season and was unsure whether he would race again in Sochi. "I had a really bad season and had not won anything. Nevertheless I think I was due some luck and today it happened," he said. "I am so tired today and I am not sure if I will compete in the team sprint. "Three of my countrymen are also excellent sprinters and the coach has to choose two. There is a whole week to decide who will compete". (Reporting by Dmitriy Rogovitskiy; editing by Julian Linden)