Vibeke Westbye Skofterud is a Norwegian cross country skier who has been competing since 1999. She won gold in the 4 x 5 km relay at Vancouver in 2010. Her best individual finish at the Winter Olympics was 8th in the 30 km event at Salt Lake City in 2002. Skofterud won a complete set of 4 x 5 km medals at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships and earned her best individual finish of 13th in the 5 km + 5 km double pursuit in 2003. Her first individual victory came in a pursuit race in Norway in 2006. In 2012 Skofterud became the first Norwegian to win the Vasaloppet official ladies class. She sat a new record time, 4.08,24, more than 8 minutes faster than the previous record from 1998. This was the first time ever she competed in a race as long as 90 km. The 2012/2013 Word Cup season proved to be difficult for Skofterud, due to illness and injuries, and she was forced to quit the season half-way trough. She made a come-back on the national team the following winter, but her results were less than satisfactory. After failing to qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics, Skofterud announced her retirement from the national team, in favour of a career in ski marathon. [More at Wikipedia]

April 20th, 1980 in Askim  /  Died:   Jul 29th, 2018