One Final Climb: Diggins Victorious in Tour de Ski

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com.

The Tour de Ski does not end so much as it compresses. By the time the women turned onto the ribbon of snow climbing Alpe Cermis, the race had already been going on for a week—measured not only in kilometers and seconds, but in fatigue accumulated quietly overnight, in sore muscles, achy backs, and in confidence gained or lost one race at a time.

The final climb has a way of making those invisible things visible. It is steep enough to strip racing of pretense, long enough to punish impatience, and familiar enough that every skier arrives with memories—good ones, bad ones, and some they would rather forget. On Sunday afternoon in Val di Fiemme, the climb again became what it always is: less a finish line than a reckoning.

For Jessie Diggins, that reckoning ended in confirmation. Diggins finished second on the stage, protecting her margin with experience and restraint, and secured her third career Tour de Ski overall title. It was not the loudest way to win. It was, however, the truest.

A Climb That Decides Everything

Stage 6 of the women’s Tour de Ski—10.0 kilometers, mass start, freestyle—began with the tension that always precedes Alpe Cermis. Some skiers arrived still dreaming of a stage victory. Others were guarding seconds earned days earlier. Still others were simply hoping to make it to the top without the climb turning overly cruel.

The early kilometers unfolded with relative calm. The pace was honest but controlled, the group compact as it flowed through the lower valley before turning uphill. On Alpe Cermis, there is no hiding, but there is strategy: when to let others go, when to follow, and—most importantly—when not to.

The decisive moves came as the gradient steepened and the field stretched into a long, thin line. Norway’s Karoline Simpson-Larsen skied with precision and patience, gradually asserting herself as the strongest on the day. She crested the final meters alone to win the stage in 37:05.3, earning the biggest single-day victory of her World Cup career.

Behind her, the race unfolded with quieter drama. Diggins, who entered the day with a commanding overall lead, skied with calculation. She resisted the temptation to respond immediately when others surged, choosing instead to manage the climb in segments. When the grade lessened and the gap narrowed late, she allowed herself to push hard enough to secure second place, but not so hard as to invite disaster.

Diggins crossed the line 8.8 seconds behind Simpson-Larsen, followed by Norway’s Heidi Weng in third at +14.4. The stage podium reflected the day’s effort, but it was Diggins’ second place that carried the most weight.

“Dying at the Right Moment”

Diggins’ approach to Alpe Cermis was shaped by experience—and memory.

“I was trying to be smart and safe in terms of the overall Tour,” she said afterward. “And then when I realized we were close enough, I thought, okay, now I can empty the tank. But I’ve paced it badly before where I blow up, and that last 600 meters is the slowest of your life.”

It is a detail only veterans tend to mention: not the steepest pitch, but the final few hundred meters, when legs that have already been pushed too far simply refuse to respond. Diggins has lived that mistake. On Sunday, she avoided it.

“I was trying to ski it smart and make sure I was dying at the right moment,” she said.

That restraint—so often invisible to spectators—was the difference between managing the Tour and risking it. The margin Diggins had built over five stages gave her room to think clearly. The climb rewarded that clarity.

The Meaning of a Tour

In the mixed zone at the top, Diggins spoke not with relief so much as appreciation—for the work, the people, and the endurance the Tour demands.

“The Tour de Ski is one of the hardest things to win,” she said. “When you win the Olympics, it’s amazing—it’s really special. But that’s one race. The Tour is day after day after day. You have to put it together back-to-back, under cumulative pressure. That’s really hard. It’s hard on you, and it’s hard on the team.”

Her emphasis, repeatedly, returned to the collective effort. She spoke of team energy, of support staff, of consistency rather than dominance. It was a reminder that Tour victories are not seized in moments, but constructed patiently across an entire week.

Diggins finished the Tour with a total time of 2:11:26.1, winning the overall by more than two minutes over Austria’s Teresa Stadlober. It was not a victory defined by a single attack or a single stage, but by accumulation—time gained when others faltered, mistakes avoided when margins were thin.

Kern’s Quiet Confirmation

For Julia Kern, Alpe Cermis offered something different: clarity.

Kern finished 14th on the stage, 2:01.0 back, after a Tour that reflected both progress and unfinished business. She described the climb as meeting—or exceeding—her expectations.

“Every year it’s a little different with who’s still left in the Tour,” Kern said. “But I’m taking away from today that my fitness is there. I just need to fine-tune some of the sprinting gears. That’s very trainable at this point in the season.”

Her assessment mirrored her results. Kern was consistently strong in the distance races throughout the Tour, finding rhythm and confidence as the days passed. The sprint stages, by contrast, left her frustrated.

“I was a bit bummed with my sprint days for sure, and hungry for more,” she said. “But at the same time, I had consistently good, strong distance races. Halfway through the Tour, I started to find my race legs again.”

It is a pattern Kern recognizes—slow starts, gradual momentum, strength revealed in longer efforts. In an Olympic season, that trajectory matters more than any single result.

The Bib Battles

Beyond the overall, the final climb also settled two secondary competitions that added layers of tension to the Tour’s closing act.

The climber’s bib—awarded for cumulative performance on the Tour’s toughest ascents—went to Teresa Stadlober, who accumulated 45 points across the week. Diggins finished second in the standings with 39, underscoring how consistently she handled the steepest terrain without ever needing to gamble on a single climb.

The sprint standings, marked by the silver bib, remained unsettled until the final stage, where one final set of bonus points was awarded at the beginning of Alpe Cermis. Sweden’s Maja Dahlqvist emerged with the title at 53 points, ahead of Switzerland’s Nadine Fähndrich and Sweden’s Johanna Hagström. Diggins finished fourth in the sprint competition—another reflection of her Tour: competitive everywhere, decisive where it mattered most.

Pain, Reconsidered

Late in the mixed zone, Diggins reflected on something more personal—how different this climb felt compared to recent years.

“The last two years I’ve been so injured that I was in so much pain outside of racing,” she said. “So for it to be only painful during the race was like, wow—that’s kind of nice.”

It was not a dramatic declaration, but it carried weight. The Tour de Ski magnifies everything: fatigue, doubt, confidence, pain. To arrive at Alpe Cermis feeling capable—rather than simply enduring—marked a shift.

She laughed when she added that she told herself, mid-Tour, that she would “never do this again.” Then she smiled at the familiar uncertainty that defines the race.

“You never know how you’re going to feel every day on a Tour,” she said. “And today I felt really good. One of the best I’ve ever felt on the final climb.”

The American Picture

For the U.S. women, the Tour ended with a sense of coherence. Diggins’ overall victory provided the headline, but Kern’s steady distance form pointed toward depth and durability within the team.

Kern’s immediate plans reflect that long view. She will return home to Richmond, Vermont, for two weeks—prioritizing recovery before resuming training on familiar snow.

“I did this last year, and it worked really well,” she said. “Just getting off World Cup, getting a lot of recovery the first week, being in my own bed.”

From there, she will rejoin training camps and racing with an eye toward sharpening for the Olympics. It is a plan built on patience rather than urgency—much like Diggins’ approach on Alpe Cermis.

What the Climb Leaves Behind

When the last skier crested the climb and the finish corral emptied, Alpe Cermis returned to stillness. The Tour de Ski had done what it always does: clarified things.

It clarified that Jessie Diggins remains one of the sport’s great stage racers—capable not just of winning races, but of managing weeks. It clarified that Julia Kern’s fitness base is real and growing, even if some pieces still need refinement. And it clarified, once again, that the Tour is not about brilliance alone, but about survival, intelligence, and trust in process.

Diggins did not win the final stage. She did something harder. She won the Tour by knowing exactly when not to.

At the end of the longest climb of the week, that knowledge mattered most.

Women’s Alpe Cermis Climb RESULTS

Women’s 2026 Tour de Ski FINAL STANDINGS

 

Love Stories Like This? Help Keep Them Coming.

Feature stories like this one take time, access, and care to produce. If you value thoughtful storytelling and independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a Voluntary Subscriber. Your support directly fuels the work we do to cover the people, places, and moments that make our sport special.

Join the FasterSkier community!