Therese Johaug of Norway wins the first gold medal of the 2022 Olympics.

Therese Johaug of Norway won the first gold medal of the Beijing Games on Saturday, dominating the 15-kilometer skiathlon after opening a commanding lead midway through the race that determines the world’s best all-around skier.

The 33-year-old Johaug, a 14-time world champion and three-time Olympic medalist, left the field behind after the first half of the race, which is skied half in the “classical” up-and-down skiing style and half in the less-regimented “skating” style.

The World Cup leader, Natalya Nepryayeva of Russia, held off Teresa Stadlober of Austria in a close battle for silver and bronze. Nepryayeva edged Stadlober by a second, but both finished more than 30 seconds behind Johaug, whose winning time was 44 minutes 13.7 seconds.

The American Jessie Diggins, a hero of the 2018 Games after her dramatic closing leg delivered gold in the women’s team sprint — “They’ve given it everything on the Klaebo bakken!” — finished sixth, nearly a minute behind Johaug.

The gold is Johaug’s second in an Olympic race, joining a collection that includes a relay gold from the 2010 Vancouver Games and a silver and bronze from Sochi in 2014.

She missed the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, however, while serving a doping suspension for testing positive for a banned steroid in 2016. Johaug and Norwegian skiing officials blamed the result on a team doctor’s mistake, claiming he had accidentally given her the substance, that was contained in a lip balm.

But the international ski federation pressed for a longer ban, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport agreed, extending her suspension to 18 months.

Since winning her Olympic gold in 2018, Diggins has become one of the most feared skiers in the world, a wiry spark plug with seemingly limitless reserves of energy that force her competitors into submission and propel her to the finish when a race is on the line.

But in addition to altering the worldview of dozens of American skiers, her 2018 victory also thrust Diggins into a rare role for a female athlete: as the de facto captain of a team made up of men and women, and the leader of her sport in the United States.

She is the skier who organizes the team-building activities during training camps, like watching “The Great British Bake Off” or a Bob Ross video during team painting night, or choreographing yet another team dance. She’s the one who fields teammates’ questions about training and life on the World Cup circuit, and one whose success the younger competitors, both men and women, hope to emulate.

“I want to look back on my career and not have it be just, ‘Wasn’t I great?’” Diggins said. “I want to be able to say I used my time wisely.”

She will have several more chances to medal in Beijing.