Jessie Diggins’ golden career, from early success to Olympic glory, in photos
· Yahoo Sports
After 15 seasons, four Olympic medals, seven world championship medals and four World Cup season titles, American cross-country skiing great Jessie Diggins is calling it a career.
The 34-year-old Diggins, who clinched her third straight crystal globe as the overall World Cup season champion Friday, will compete in her last race Sunday in Lake Placid, N.Y. A celebratory lap with fans will follow.
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Diggins arrived on the big stage in the early 2010s after a promising junior career and delivered on the hype, famously winning the nation’s first and still only cross-country Olympic gold at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. She’s added three Olympic medals since, and U.S. teammates Ben Ogden and Gus Schumacher won the first medals for American men in 50 years at this year’s Games in Milan Cortina, pointing to a legacy of team building that she’s proud to leave.
As Diggins steps away, here’s a look back at her career in photos.
2008: The early days
Born in Minnesota, Diggins (pictured above in 2008) was a walk-on at age 13 to the cross-country ski team at Stillwater Area High School, just outside the Twin Cities, and quickly became a star, shooting to the top of the state rankings and winning big races. She was added to the U.S. junior team in 2010.
2011: First world championships
Diggins’ first taste of the biggest stage, she made the U.S. team for the world championships in 2011 at age 19. She posted top-30 finishes in the skiathlon and sprint events and was ninth as part of the 4X5-kilometer relay team with Kikkan Randall (with whom she’d later make Olympic history), Holly Brooks and Elizabeth Stephen.
2012: First World Cup podiums
Diggins made her first podium in January 2012, midway through her first full season on the World Cup tour, a second-place finish in team sprint with Randall. Her first five career top-three finishes all came in team events, including a relay in Gällivare, Sweden, in November 2012 with Randall, Brooks and Stephen (pictured). Her first win came in a team sprint with Randall the next month.
2013: A golden world championship
At the end of her third full season on tour, Diggins went to the world championships in Val di Fiemme, Italy, in February 2013 and won gold in the team sprint, again pairing with Randall. It was the first-ever gold medal for the U.S. at the cross-country world championships and the first of seven world-championship medals Diggins would win over the next 12 years.
2014: Olympic debut
At 22, a year after her world championship triumph, Diggins competed in her first Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Despite winning team sprint gold with Randall at those worlds, the U.S. paired Sophie Caldwell with Randall at the Olympics instead because the race was in the classic style rather than Diggins’ stronger freestyle. Diggins’ best finish in Sochi was eighth in the skiathlon.
2016: First individual win
Her fifth full season on tour brought a breakthrough for Diggins, as she leapt from a top-25 overall skier into the top 10. She finished eighth overall in the World Cup standings and won her first individual race, a 5-kilometer as part of the weeklong Tour de Ski in January.
2018: ‘Here comes Diggins!’
In the most indelible moment of her career, Diggins chased down Sweden’s Stina Nilsson in the final meters to win gold with Randall in the team sprint at the Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. After achieving the same feat with their win at the world championships five years earlier, it was also the first Olympic gold in U.S. cross-country history. NBC broadcaster Chad Salmela’s enthusiastic call of “Here comes Diggins!” has become one of the most iconic in U.S. Olympic history.
2019: A different kind of inspiration
A few months after that Olympic gold, Diggins revealed that she had been dealing with an eating disorder, seeking help from a treatment center called “The Emily Program,” whose name and logo she began sporting on gear the following season (like on her hat here, while celebrating a bronze medal at the 2019 world championships). Her openness about her struggle and advocacy for healthy eating and other causes has won her many fans for more than what she achieved on the race course.
2021: The best in the world
After world championship and Olympic gold, Diggins had one big career mountain left to climb — winning the World Cup title. At 29, in her 10th full season, she conquered the top circuit at last, also winning the prestigious Tour de Ski for the first time (pictured).
2022: Another Olympic high
At her third Games in Beijing, Diggins added an individual silver and bronze to complete her set of Olympic medals. The bronze came in the sprint, the silver in the marathon — a 30-kilometer in her preferred freestyle technique on the final day of the Games.
2023: An individual world title
In Planica, Slovenia, Diggins bested two of her top rivals on the tour — Sweden’s Frida Karlsson and Ebba Andersson — to win gold in the 10-kilometer freestyle, still the only individual world championship or Olympic gold in U.S. cross-country history.
2024: A home World Cup race
In large part due to Diggins’ efforts, the World Cup tour visited her home state of Minnesota in 2024, the first cross-country World Cup event in the U.S. in over 20 years. She placed third in a 10-kilometer race in Minneapolis during a season in which she set career-highs in wins (six) and podiums (12) and captured her second crystal globe as the overall season champion.
2025: Second straight World Cup title
Diggins, at 33, matched her career high with six victories and took home the crystal globe as the overall champion for the second straight year and third time overall. She also won for the first time in the classical technique in a 15-kilometer mass start race during the Tour de Ski.
2026: One more Olympic medal
Diggins fell and injured her ribs during her first Olympic race last month in Milan Cortina, but she bounced back to take an inspired bronze in the 10-kilometer race, falling to the ground in agony after the final push. It capped Diggins’ career with a fourth and final Olympic medal.
2026: A World Cup title for the road
In the last weekend of her racing career, Diggins clinched her third consecutive World Cup overall title to leave the sport on top. Her final tally of major accolades (with one race to go Sunday): four Olympic medals, seven world championship medals, four World Cup overall titles, 33 World Cup wins (31 individual), 90 World Cup podiums (79 individual).
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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