{"id":488925,"date":"2026-02-18T23:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/488925\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T23:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:58:07","slug":"very-good-dog-invades-course-but-falls-short-of-medal-glory-at-winter-olympics-winter-olympics-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/488925\/","title":{"rendered":"Very good dog invades course but falls short of medal glory at Winter Olympics | Winter Olympics 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

A local dog has missed out on a historic cross-country medal at the Winter Olympics<\/a> despite a lung-bursting surge in the homestretch.<\/p>\n

Nazgul, who according to NPR lives at a nearby hotel in Tesero, broke on to the course on Wednesday morning and sprinted for the line<\/a> behind Croatia\u2019s Tena Hadzic as she came to the end of the qualifying race for the women\u2019s team cross-country sprint. Even if he had completed the entire race, Nazgul\u2019s time would not have counted as he is male. And a dog.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018Am I hallucinating?\u201d Hadzic said of her encounter with Nazgul, a Czechoslovakian wolfdog. \u201cI don\u2019t know what I should do, because maybe he could attack me, bite me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once Nazgul had taken in the cheers of the adoring crowd, he was captured by race officials. Hadzic took the incident in her stride.<\/p>\n

Nazgul greets his fellow athletes after the race. Photograph: Hannibal Hanschke\/EPA<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that big deal, because I\u2019m not fighting for medals or anything big,\u201d she said. \u201cBut if that happened in the finals, it could really cost someone the medals, or a really good result.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greece\u2019s Konstantina Charalampidou suggested that Nazgul made the error of concentrating on his quest for fame instead of executing his race strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was chasing the camera that goes up and down the finish line. He was cute but not aggressive,\u201d she said. \u201cI wanted to pet him, but I didn\u2019t have the time and I couldn\u2019t find him afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nazgul\u2019s owner told NPR<\/a> the two-year-old was probably looking for company rather than athletic glory.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was crying this morning more than normal because he was seeing us leaving \u2013 and I think he just wanted to follow us,\u201d the owner told NPR<\/a>. \u201cHe always looks for people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nazgul, who is a very good boy, is yet to comment on his performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A local dog has missed out on a historic cross-country medal at the Winter Olympics despite a lung-bursting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-488925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}