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Jessie Diggins

Falla Earns Sixth Drammen Victory on Home-ground; Kern leads Americans in 7th, Three in Top-20

This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and the 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. Returning to Norway after last year’s coronavirus induced hiatus, the World Cup picked up with a 1.2-kilometer classic city sprint in Drammen. With the Russian and Belarusian athletes banned from...

Inside the hardest race of Diggins’ life: a unique post-30 k interview with FasterSkier in Zhangjiakou

On February 20th, Jessie Diggins made Olympic history yet again, taking second in the 30 k mass start skate to round out the colors of her medal collection. Gold in the freestyle team sprint in 2018, silver in the 30 k skate, and bronze in the individual skate sprint. Now thirty years old, Diggins is the most successful American cross country skier in Olympic history. She has spent over a decade rising to the top...

Johaug Sneaks Inside Nepryaeva’s Mark for the 10 k Interval Start Classic Win; Brennan Leads U.S in 8th

  This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and the 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. An iconic venue, Lahti’s ski jumps rise out of the pine forest from atop the rolling hills, tucked between the many lakes of the region in southern Finland. After...

Sundling Leads a Swedish Podium Sweep in Freestyle Sprint, with Diggins in Fourth and Kern Eighth

This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and the 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. Snapping back after a week away from racing, the World Cup resumed in wintery Lahti, Finland with a 1.6 kilometer freestyle sprint. The American women made their presence immediately known,...

Opinion: Get your commentary off our bodies

The following was submitted by reader Ivy Spiegel Ostrom in response to the New York Times coverage of Jessie Diggins earning an Olympic bronze medal in the individual freestyle sprint. FasterSkier published a story expressing some of the early reactions to the NY Times piece here, along with an opinion piece by our contributor Ben Theyerl here. The viewpoints expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect that of FasterSkier’s staff or sponsors. We fully...

Diggins Brings Home a Second Silver for USA in Windy 30k; Johaug Earns her Third Gold of the Games

This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and the 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. Sunday morning, battling through ripping winds, the women delivered an impressive and dramatic final cross-country event to close out the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. For the first time, skiing further...

Rosie Brennan won’t take home medals from Beijing. She still helped change U.S. cross-country skiing.

ZHANGJIAKOU, CHINA — Jessie Diggins’ silver medal, the best-ever individual Olympic finish by an American woman, is what most people will remember from Sunday’s Games-ending cross-country ski race. Here’s why you should remember Rosie Brennan, too. Brennan, 33, may lack Diggins’ magazine covers and national endorsement deals. But she performed at ever-so-close to the same level in Beijing, and came heartbreakingly close to the medals. First, there was Brennan’s fourth place in the Games-opening individual...

“Chill with the judging”: Jessie Diggins has a message for Mikaela Shiffrin’s trolls

ZHANGJIAKOU, CHINA — American alpine racing superstar Mikaela Shiffrin struggled at the Olympics, failing to bring home any medals. Last week, she posted a message to social media broadcasting some of the hateful criticism she’d received during the Games, telling her audience that “there will always be turkeys” and that it’s “not the end of the world to fail.” Cross-country star Jessie Diggins, after winning a silver in her final race of the Games —...

The Devon Kershaw Show: Team sprint showdown in Zhangjiakou

Wednesday’s Olympic team sprint offered another thrilling set of races at the venue in Zhangjiakou — we’re back to break down an epic performance by the German women, a critic-silencing race from Norway in the men’s event and a U.S. women’s result that left a medal just out of reach. Thanks to everyone for sending in questions and feedback — we’re trying to keep our heads above water on the homestretch here, but you can...

Germany outsprints Sweden and the ROC for gold and a second team medal; Brennan and Diggins fifth for USA

This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and the 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 team sprint: two skiers racing three laps each at roughly 1.5-kilometers a piece with a long climb thrown into the middle of the course and temperatures in the single...

Opinion: “Her! I do the same sport as her!” Jessie Diggins won a Medal, Who She Is Goes Way Beyond That

Diggins’ historic accomplishment was glanced over by the giants of American media, falling back into harmful tropes that are all-too-common regarding women athletes. Reflecting on it re-centered how meaningful her vulnerability in sharing her struggle to overcome an eating disorder was to the skiing community, and was a source of strength for me. The Olympic sprint race on Tuesday in Beijing was perhaps one of the most nuanced and complex races in Olympic history. We...

In harsh Olympic glare, Gus Schumacher demonstrates how to struggle with grace

ZHANGJIAKOU, CHN — Imagine being 21 years old. You’re in a foreign country, 4,000 miles from your family, where you can’t really socialize. Thousands of people are scrutinizing your job performance. Your job performance is not meeting their expectations, nor is it meeting yours. Reporters are asking for an explanation, and you don’t really have one. Welcome to U.S. cross-country skier Gus Schumacher’s world at the Beijing Olympics. Schumacher, who’s seen as America’s Next Great Hope...

Stepanova Anchors ROC to Gold in the Women’s 4 x 5 k Relay; USA 6th

This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and the 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.   A relay medal evaded the American women’s 4 x 5-kilometer team for another Olympic quadrennial today, as Hailey Swirbul, Rosie Brennan, Novie McCabe, and Jessie Diggins finished sixth,...

An accountant, a summer flooring salesman and an Estonian helped Diggins deliver bronze. Here’s how.

ZHANGJIAKOU — Patrick Moore is a cheerful accountant from Edmonton, Alberta. Tim Baucom spends his summers working sales for a Vermont plank flooring company. Oleg Ragilo runs a cosmetic shop in Estonia with his wife. Jessie Diggins, the American cross-country ski star, couldn’t have won her Olympic bronze without them. Moore, Baucom and Ragilo all belong to America’s nine-member ski service team here — a mix of mostly paid staff and a couple of volunteers like Moore....

Athletes weigh in on NY Times statement that Diggins looks like a “sprite” relative to her competition 

On February 8th, cross country skiing made the New York Times headlines as Jessie Diggins collected an historic bronze medal in the 1.5-kilometer freestyle sprint. No American woman had ever won an individual medal in cross country skiing, and no American cross country skier of either gender had won multiple Olympic medals. Diggins had earned gold in 2018 racing the freestyle team sprint with partner, and current NBC analyst, Kikkan Randall.  Normally, attention given to...

U.S. coaches face “impossibly hard” choices for women’s relay selection

ZHANGJIAKOU, CHINA — American cross-country ski coaches face a high-stakes dilemma over the next 24 hours as they choose which members of their deep, talented women’s team will race Saturday’s four-person relay at the Beijing Olympics. The U.S. women have a fair shot at a medal in the event, in which each woman skis a five-kilometer leg. But don’t envy the American coaches, who are still pondering which of six athletes will fill the last two...

Johaug Wins Second Gold in a Close Race; Diggins Leads Americans in 8th

This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and the 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. Thursday morning saw the third women’s cross-country race in the Zhangjiakou stadium. On the docket, a 10-kilometer individual start classic with two laps of a challenging 5 k course. After a...

(Results Brief) Johaug Takes Gold By Narrow Margin Ahead of Finns; Diggins 8th, Brennan 13th

Stay tuned for in-depth race coverage, coming soon. The third women’s cross country ski competition of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games featured a 10-kilometer interval start classic competition.  Starting as the second athlete in the seeded group in bib 36, Therese Johaug (NOR) set a high bar, her tempo quick and her breathing labored as she worked every meter of the course to finish in 28:06.3. The next two seeded bibs, both of Finland,...

Inside the Medal Ceremony: Jessie Diggins brings home bronze.

The first. With a perfect storm of tactics, technique, and peak race form, Jessie Diggins fought to the line to finish third behind Swedish sprint phenoms Jonna Sundling and Maja Dahlqvist in the women’s 1.5-kilometer freestyle sprint. This historic result makes her the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in an individual cross country ski event.  “It’s overwhelming, but in a good way,” Diggins said in the press conference. “It’s just really emotional...

Diggins Writes History as First American Woman to Earn Individual Olympic Medal With Bronze in the Freestyle Sprint

This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and the 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 History: A survey of the last five Olympic cycles shows a clear trend in American women’s sprint results: upward. In the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City, no Americans...