By Liz Hampton
DENVER, Dec 2 (Reuters) – When Jessie Diggins clipped into her cross-country skis for her first Olympics more than a decade ago, she had little idea of the impact she would come to have on the sport.
Now, as she prepares for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, all eyes – and expectations – are on her.
The 34-year-old from Afton, Minnesota has changed the face of cross-country skiing for American athletes, inspiring younger skiers and proving that the United States is capable of landing podium spots.
She’s won three Olympic medals – including the first-ever U.S. gold in the sport – and taken three overall World Cup titles, among countless other accolades.
The upcoming Games, her fourth, carry even more weight after Diggins announced last month that she would be retiring at the end of the season after the World Cup finals in Lake Placid, New York in March.
“My first Olympics, I came with no pressure, no expectations,” Diggins told Reuters in an interview. That changed, she said, after winning the team sprint with Kikkan Randall in the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, clinching America’s first-ever gold medal in a near-photo finish.
“There was a lot of pressure on me to medal. Because I knew I could, and it was very possible,” she said of the subsequent Games in Beijing in 2022.
Cross-country skiing hardly gathers the fanfare of rival winter sports like ice hockey, figure skating or even downhill skiing. That is in part because Americans have lagged behind European competitors, like Sweden or Norway.
However, Diggins is changing that, making it commonplace to find American skiers in top-ten places in competitions.
“The biggest thing she has done has helped U.S. skiers believe that they can be the best in the world,” said Piotr Bednarski, Director of Sport for the Loppet Foundation, a non-profit organisation that hosted the World Cup in Minnesota in 2024.
Going into this season, Diggins had stood on the World Cup podium 79 times and had 29 victories to her name. In her first World Cup race weekend of this season, she finished second in the 20km mass start free event in Ruka, Finland, and came fifth in the 10km classic skate.
“Jessie Diggins has definitely made people take U.S. skiing a bit more seriously. Before her, the U.S. wasn’t seen as a team that would fight for the podium every weekend,” said Polish skier Karolina Kaleta, who also competed while studying at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“I think she’ll be remembered for helping the U.S. become a more serious part of the World Cup scene,” she added.
GLITTER UP
Diggins’ impact on the team and sport goes well beyond her results.
At any given youth cross-country ski race across America, there will be young athletes with glitter painted across their cheeks – something for which Diggins is known.
She has nearly a quarter of a million followers on Instagram, and regularly posts quirky TikTok dance videos with teammates while on the tour circuit.
“I feel extremely fortunate to have Jessie in my whole career,” said teammate Julia Kern at the Team USA Media Summit in New York in October.
Diggins has also become known for her advocacy around mental health and climate change.
She is a board member with Protect Our Winters, a non-profit focused on climate advocacy, and has worked with the Emily Program, an organisation that helped Diggins deal with her eating disorder.
As Diggins lunges into her final season, she says one of her main goals is to be present and enjoy herself.
“I’m proud of how hard I’ve worked to lead a team as well as how I’ve worked to help change an entire sport’s culture around mental health — how we talk about it, how we’re allowed to ask for help and how we help athletes in need,” she said in a statement after announcing her retirement.
“I’ve tried to become the advocate and role model that 18-year-old Jessie needed.”
(Reporting by Liz HamptonEditing by Christian Radnedge)
