Therese’s Olympic Dilemma

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Therese Johaug’s Olympic dilemma is fairly straightforward. It’s this: why bother? She’s done everything there is to do in the sport of cross-country skiing—World Cup Crystal Globes (which she certainly won’t chase in 2026), Tour de Ski (which she probably won’t enter in 2026), World Championship glory (though 2025’s fistful of silver medals was not the result she’d hoped for), Olympic Medals (which she’s likely to win more of in 2026, but not enough to become the winningest skier ever). There’s just not much more for Johaug to win in 2026.

Johaug’s retirement has been put on hold—for the moment, at least—and she hasn’t yet announced her Olympic intentions. They’re holding a spot for her on Team Norway. They should: she’s one of the most successful, most talented, most dominant cross-country skiers of all time. She’s a shoe-in for Olympic medals in 2026. Among her Norwegian teammates, only Astrid Oeyre Slind seems capable of challenging Johaug in distance events.

What is her goal, anyway? What does she have to gain by coming back for yet another Olympic Games? She can’t surpass Marit Bjoergen’s historic total of Olympic medals (not without continuing on to 2030, anyway). And she certainly can’t get back the Olympic opportunities lost during her suspension in 2018. Hasn’t she already won basically everything there is to win for a cross-country skier specializing in distance races? She won the Olympic Team Relay in 2010. She swept the distance races in 2022  (30 k Mass Start, 15 k Skiathlon, 10 k Interval Start). Maybe Johaug still sees the potential to win all of her individual Olympic events in Val di Fiemme: Skiathlon, 10 k Freestyle, 50 k Classic. Or perhaps Johaug just loves to train and ski. Regardless of her reasons, one thing certainly remains true: she’s still one of the very best in the world, still one of the very best of all time. And the Olympic races will be better, more exciting, and more consequential if she’s racing them. If she decides to race . . .

It seems Johaug may have one remaining goal in mind: win the Olympic 50 k Classic in order to soothe the sting of having been defeated in the 50 k at the 2025 World Championships in Trondheim. If she’d won the World Championship 50 k, she probably would’ve retired on the spot. But with that goal having been left unrealized in 2025, maybe Johaug needs more. She’s been World Cup Champion in both Overall (three times) and Distance (five times) classifications, but if she has her sights set on Olympic victories, she’s unlikely to care much about scheduling enough World Cup races to claim another Crystal Globe. After a career in which she has amassed 160 World Cup podium performances, she’s not likely to prioritize rounding up a few more.

Should she come back one more time? Should she risk another year of effort and training for a goal that may continue to prove elusive? Should she undertake another season of separation from her young daughter? She loves to race, she lives to compete, and her endurance—and her ability to recover—are legendary. If there’s an historic medal to be awarded in 2026, it won’t be a surprise to see Therese Johaug being one of those who shows up to vie for it.