It was also the year in which cross country competitions had the freestyle (or skating) technique debuted and that electronic timing returned to scoring the results in tenths of a second after Sweden's Thomas Wassberg edged out Finland's Juha Mieto by 0.01 seconds in the men's 15 km event at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. The timing of the event in tenths of a second has continued as of 2011 in all Nordic skiing events.
The year 1980 saw the introduction of freestyle (or skating) technique in cross country skiing, and electronic timing was reintroduced to record results in tenths of a second after Thomas Wassberg of Sweden edged out Juha Mieto of Finland by 0.01 seconds in the men's 15 km event at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. This timing system has remained in use for all Nordic skiing events since then, up to and including 2011.