Johan Kjølstad lives in Trondheim and starts for Skogn IL . He made his international debut in March 2002 at a World Cup sprint in Oslo , where he was 48th. The following year he won the sprint title at the Junior World Championships in Sollefteå . From the beginning of his career, Kjølstad specialized in the sprint route and rarely started in endurance races. Quite surprisingly, the young athlete, who until then had only been used sporadically in the World Cup, won a sprint World Cup race in Nové Město na Moravě in January 2005 . He was able to repeat this success at the beginning of the 2005/06 season at the team sprint in Düsseldorf alongside Trond Iversen . From now on Kjølstad belonged to the top of the world in the sprint and achieved in the 05/06 season with fifth place in the overall sprint world cup his best result so far in this category. At the 2006 Olympic Games in Turin , he finished seventh in the sprint. A few weeks after the games, he finished his most successful World Cup season in 15th place in the overall World Cup standings. He was fifth in the Sprint World Cup ranking. Before the end of the season, Kjølstad was able to secure a second place in the team sprint in Sapporo .
In the years that followed, he found this achievement difficult to maintain. He started the 2006/07 season so poorly that he switched to the Scandinavian Cup for some races shortly afterwards. It was not until the end of January 2007 that he came back to the World Cup team in Rybinsk and reached rank 11 in the sprint. Towards the end of the season he was able to improve slightly and finished the sprint in Lahti in fifth. At the Norwegian Championships in 2007 he also crossed the finish line in fifth place, but this time over 50 km.
He started the new 2007/08 season with a second place in the team sprint world cup in Düsseldorf . On December 1, 2007, Kjølstad achieved his second individual World Cup victory in Kuusamo . It was his only victory and also his only single podium finish until the end of the season. In the new season 2008/09 he started even weaker than in the previous year. In Gjøvik , Kjølstad won the silver medal in the sprint at the Norwegian Nordic Ski Championships.
At the Nordic World Ski Championships in Liberec in 2009 , he won the silver medal in the sprint competition behind his compatriot Ola Vigen Hattestad and together with him the title in the team sprint. He finished the season a few weeks later after a weak 77th place at the season finale in Falun in 38th place in the overall World Cup standings.
In the 2009/10 season he just barely qualified for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver . There he was ninth in the sprint but again without a medal. In the following season 2010/11 Kjølstad secured another team sprint World Cup victory in Liberec. It was his last success.
After consistently poor results, he contested his last World Cup race in February 2012 in Szklarska Poręba . He finished the sprint race in 60th place. As a result, Kjølstad concentrated on starts at FIS races or in the Marathon Cup. In February 2014 he won the 50 km classic at the König Ludwig Run .
At the beginning of the 2015/16 season he finished third at La Sgambeda and second at the Jizera Mountains . In the further course of the season he came second in the Kaiser Maximilian run and won the Årefjällsloppet . At the end of the season he reached fourth place in the overall ranking of the Ski Classics . In January 2017 he finished second at the Marcialonga .
successes
Medals at world championships
2009 in Liberec : Gold in the team sprint, silver in the sprint
Norway
Nové Město na Moravě
Kuusamo
Stockholm
Dusseldorf