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As the world rings in the New Year, the U.S. Stifel Cross-Country team was hoping that flipping the page on the calendar wouldn’t flip their momentum. The team has been on a roll. On the men’s side, Ben Ogden sat in third overall in the Tour de Ski (TDS) standings going into racing today. On the women’s side, the picture was even brighter: Jessie Diggins (USA) sat atop the TDS standings, seven seconds ahead of Victoria Carl (GER), and 11 seconds ahead of Linn Svahn (SWE). Rosie Brennan (USA) was in sixth, only 24 seconds away from a podium spot.
In Monday’s 20 k Freestyle Pursuit, Diggins would put her first place standing on the line. The Pursuit race is an exciting format: the skier with the overall lead starts first and then each successive skier starts after them, separated by the amount of time they are trailing in the overall standings. For Diggins—who has made a career of chasing down skiers—it meant she would be the one being chased. With Carl and Svahn starting so close to Diggins, it was expected that the competition for the top spot would be fierce throughout the race, and that Carl and Svahn would work together to quickly chase down Diggins.
But for Diggins, today’s race in Toblach turned into another signature moment in her career. She started the race like she was shot out of cannon and never let up for one second. She turned in one of the most dominant performances of her career, and never let the rest of the field get close to her. Tactics and strategy were tossed aside. Early on, Diggins sent a message: if the rest of the field wanted to catch her, they would have to pay a mighty high price to do so.
Diggins ended up winning by over 46 seconds, extending her lead over Carl. Ultimately, the fastest skier on the day was Astrid Oeyre Slind (NOR), but it was definitely Diggins who dominated the field.
For Rosie Brennan, it was a difficult day. She ended up losing significant time and finished over two minutes behind Diggins. She is now 15th in the Tour. Sophia Laukli had the ninth fastest time of the day, and now stands 21st in the Tour, 3:13 off of the lead. Novie McCabe had the 25th fastest time and is in 27th place, with Julia Kern 44th, and Samantha Smith 47th.
There are no Canadian women left competing in the Tour.
Women’s 20 k Freestyle Pursuit
At the beginning of the race, Svahn quickly closed the gap on Carl. They would ski together to try reeling in Diggins, but Diggins had other ideas. She put her foot to the accelerator right from the start, and in the time it took for Svahn to close on Carl, Diggins had already put six seconds on the pair. The pace of Diggins’ start was ferocious: a mere 1.4 kilometers into the race, she had lengthened her lead to 21 seconds. It was clear that all the potential strategies of group racing were off the table for her; she would go hard from the start and push the entire way. By 4.4 kilometers, Diggins had extended the lead to 28 seconds over the chase group. It was like a heavyweight prize fighter coming out and throwing nothing but haymakers right from the start. It was hard to believe the intensity of Diggins start, and it was a reasonable question to ask whether Svahn and Carl were going to give up on catching Diggins and concentrate on the fight for second, or whether Diggins had gone out too hard?
At every time check, the gaps just kept getting larger. In a mere seven tenths of a kilometer, Diggins had put another six seconds on the chasers, and was now up by almost 35 seconds! The longer the race went on, the more Diggins appeared to be skiing in a world of her own. More time checks; more of a gap. At 8.8 kilometers she was over 40 seconds ahead of Svahn and Carl.
Behind Diggins, Svahn and Carl were not giving each other an inch. They continued to ski within a second of each other and were 30 seconds ahead of the chase group behind them.
As Diggins was continuing to surge, Brennan was beginning to slip. She had started 28 seconds behind Carl and was now almost a minute back. Brennan ended up having a tough day. “I did what I believed was the best prep over the break,” said Brennan. “For whatever reason my body isn’t responding the way I hoped. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the tour is that things can change on a dime so I’m doing my best to move on and keep hope.”
Diggins was relentless in imposing her will on the field; her lead just continued to grow and at 13.2 kilometers it was over 53 seconds. As long as Diggins could keep herself together, the only remaining questions would be whether the second chase group could close on Carl and Svahn to challenge them for the podium, and whether any of the women in the second group could put time into Diggins .
As Diggins continued to punish the field, Carl and Svahn were fighting to keep the remaining chasers behind them. At 14.6 kilometers they had a 24 second lead over the rest of the field. The second chase group of Frida Karlsson (SWE), Heidi Weng (NOR), Emma Ribom (SWE), and Astrid Oyre Slind (NOR), began to turn the screw and increased their pace. They were gaining time on Carl and Svahn and were even starting to put a little time into Diggins.
Carl and Svahn continued to work together, but their lead over the chasers had been reduced to a scant 10 seconds. With only 2.4 kilometers left, it appeared they would be swallowed up by the other chasers, who were now close enough where they could see Carl and Svahn. Meanwhile, the two chasers were giving every ounce of energy to hold off the second chase pack with Karlsson at the lead of that group.
With half a kilometer to go, Carl decided that it was time to commit her last reserves into play to avoid being caught up in a sprint finish. She pushed ahead of Svahn to create a gap of six seconds. Simultaneously, the second chase group was putting in a big surge and gaining time on everyone. While she had the race in hand, Diggins was losing a bit of her cushion in the overall TDS standing to some of the women in the chase group.
The chase pack soon had swallowed up Svahn, though Carl’s earlier strategy of separating herself from the pack was now paying dividends.
Diggins charged into the finish, winning by forty-six seconds over Carl, who was able to maintain her separation going into the stadium and crossed the line two seconds ahead of the chase pack. As the remaining pack of skiers charged to the finish, Svahn and Sundling surged to the front in an all-out sprint with Svahn bettering Sundling in a photo finish.
It was a glorious, gutsy day for Diggins, and race fans had been treated to an enthralling spectacle.
“That was so hard.” Diggins commented after the race. “I went out and skied as hard as could. I wanted to ski a brave race; try and go out hard and see what I could hold.” Without being asked, Diggins answered whether she had gone out too hard. “I was blown out the last two laps,” she said. “I couldn’t really feel my legs, but I did hear my family out there cheering and a lot of other families from the U.S., and that kept me going. I just kept looking for every second. I crossed the line with nothing left, and that was the goal.”
Diggins also revealed that she had a bit of drama before the race’s start. While practicing on a fast icy downhill she took a dramatic tumble. “I slid maybe 100 meters,” she said, admitting that she even needed to change out her poles before the start. “I got it out of the way . . . It had me running scared in the race. I guess it got me going.”
Impact of Tour de Ski Standings
Even with as good a day as Diggins had holding off the field, she actually lost some time to the skiers in the chase group. Slind (NOR), Karlsson (SWE), and Weng (NOR) all ended up with slightly faster race times than Diggins. But Diggins’ TDS lead is still substantial. She now leads Victoria Carl by 47 seconds, and Svahn and Sundling (SWE) by 48 seconds. Slind and Heidi benefited today from skiing in the pack, and while they didn’t cross the finish line first, they are lurking 52 and 53 seconds back. It’s a considerable lead for Diggins, but certainly not insurmountable.
The next stop on the Tour is Davos, Switzerland. The American team has generally performed well there. “I’m excited to go back to Davos,” said Diggins. “That’s a hard Sprint, so it will be day to day.”
It was a thrilling day of racing for fans and for team USA.
Tour de 20 k Ski Freestyle Pursuit Results
