Sundling Victory, Diggins Victory Lap

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While the men’s 20 k Mass Start Freestyle (raced earlier in the day) was the source of anticipation and intrigue, the Women’s 20 k was more likely to become a glorious victory lap. At the very beginning of the 2025-2026 season, Jessie Diggins had announced that this season would be her last. The most decorated American cross-country skier—and the winner of three World Cup Overall Crystal Globes—would hang up her skis after the final race in March in Lake Placid. Back then, that final day was still many months and many miles away. Today, Diggins toed the starting line for the beginning of these final kilometers. The staging of a glorious victory lap was entirely  appropriate, and Diggins would make it one whether she won the day’s race, or not. That’s how she’s raced her entire career: joy in the competition, celebration in the victory, satisfaction in the effort, gratitude for the team. She’s left us breathless as many times as she has exhausted herself at finish lines, her effort as pure as the snow into which she has toppled after victories and defeats, alike. Her total effort and utter devotion could never have been in doubt. We have loved watching her give it all. Today, in Lake Placid, we were given one last precious opportunity to do so.

How ironic, then, that nature chose to rain, literally, on this parade. Spring conditions in the Adirondack Mountains are notoriously capricious. Lake Placid sits at the highest elevation of any village in the east, and the combination of elevation and proximity to both the Great Lakes and the Atlantic coast makes it a place for weathers to converge, for clouds to gather, where the mountains wear late-season robes of white, where the skies deliver showers of snow—and of rain. We’re often reminded that cross-county skiing is a winter sport—and racing through difficult conditions is the expectation, not the exception. So if there’s a victory lap to undertake, then a full-on storm of freezing rain seems like an appropriate way to do it.

20 k Mass Start

Fans knew who to watch: Frida Karlsson, Heidi Weng, and Diggins. And Diggins has a strategy that she folows in mass-start events: allow other to set the pace on uphills, even letting herself get gapped, only to close those gaps on subsequent downhills. When she uses that strategy, she keeps herself in contention for as long as possible.

At the 8 kilometer mark, those contenders remained together, and were in the company of numerous others who could play a part in the strategy of tis race. Astrid Oeyre Slind has begun to find the form that eluded her in Milano-Cortina,and Linn Svahn and Jonna Sundling lurked in the lead pack, hoping to be there at the end where their lightning-fast sprints could perhaps snatch victory from the distance specialists.

Karlsson set the pace in the early kilometers, but not at the uber-speed that has often been seen in women’s racing over the past few seasons. Weng came forward to take over the pace-making just prior to the bonus points line at 9 kilometers, moving Karlsson back into the pack where she is far less comfortable. So uncomfortable, in fact, that Karlsson immediately ran headlong into an unexpectedly fallen Slind. Both of them ended up in a tangle as Weng and the leaders glided away. Weng captured the bonus points that she needed to maintain her position on the podium of the Distance competition. Weng continued to push the pace, but all the logical contenders seemed capable of preventing her from breaking away.

Diggins moved to the lead at the 12 kilometer mark, using her fast skis and descending ability to glide to the front before powering up a mid-lap hill. Karlsson (who had weaved her way back to the lead) took up a position at Diggins’ shoulder. These two—along with Weng and Slind—would do their best to undo the strengths of the sprinters in the kilometers that remained. But with Diggins, Sundling, and Svahn still in contention, Karlsson and Weng were leaving things a bit late.

Karlsson, Weng, Diggins, and Sundling came through in order at the final bonus points line, seemingly less interested in those points than they were in positioning themselves for all that was likely to transpire in the final two kilometers. At the top of the final uphill, Norwegian Karoline Groetting surged to the lead. She was pursued by Karlsson and Weng, with Sundling and Diggins just behind. One kilometer to go, one major downhill to navigate . . .

Years ago—at the beginning of what was to become an historic career—a young and impetuous Jessie Diggins was often seen to lose control on downhills. She would ultimately overcome that limitation, becoming one of the best and most daring downhillers on the World Cup scene. Today in Lake Placid, though, Diggins past caught up with her. Every competitor would be exhausted at this point in a 20 k race, and maintaining control on any fast, winding downhill would be tremendously difficult. As the leaders descended a steep lefthand curve, Sundling picked an outside line that was especially fast. The video replay shows Diggins seeming to notice Sundling’s acceleration. The shift in Diggins’ posture made it clear that she felt the need to accelerate a bit, herself, but the extra step she took shifted her weight to the tails of her skis. Just like that, Diggins went down. Less than a kilometer from the end of the race—just minutes from the end of an astounding career—Diggins fell from contention. Not one to lie in the snow feeling sorry for herself while a race is going on, Diggins sprung to her feet and took off in pursuit of the leaders. Her race for today’s podium may have been over, but Diggins was far from being done with the racing. If only one kilometer remained in her career, Diggins intended to race her heart out over that final kilometer.

At the front, Sundling’s daring downhill move had produced the speed she needed, and she stormed off the front followed only by the other best sprinter, Svahn. Weng was game in giving chase, but she had no chance of catching the two Swedish speedsters. Sundling first, Svahn second, Weng third. Diggins would recover from her tumble on the turn to finish 12th.

The last fifteen years have represented a golden age in women’s cross-country skiing, and there is one skier, in particular, whose career has spanned those years: Jessie Diggins. From the dominance of Justina Kowalczyk, to the excellence of Marit Bjoergen, to the determination of Charlotte Kalla, to the brilliance of Therese Johaug, to the spotlight she shares with the truly dominant team of Swedes, Diggins has born witness to the best this sport has had to offer. From them, she learned her craft. With them, she elevated a sport and thrilled an audience. The sport will miss her exuberance and her joy, her silliness and her seriousness. Thank you, Jessie, Diggins, for doing your best, for leaving it all out on the course, and for taking us all with you on this glorious victory lap.

World Cup Final Women’s 20 k Mass Start RESULTS

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