Jessie Diggins celebrates successful the Girls’s 20 km Mass Begin FIS World Cup snowboarding competitors in Falun, Sweden, on Sunday.
Anders Wiklund/TT Information Company/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
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Anders Wiklund/TT Information Company/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
Jessie Diggins celebrates successful the Girls’s 20 km Mass Begin FIS World Cup snowboarding competitors in Falun, Sweden, on Sunday.
Anders Wiklund/TT Information Company/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
Essentially the most dominant cross-country ski racer in U.S. historical past, male or feminine, has accomplished it once more.
Competing on Sunday in Falun, Sweden, Jessie Diggins, age 32, received her second World Cup title in a sport lengthy dominated by Europeans.
“My solely objective was to have essentially the most enjoyable,” mentioned Diggins after her win, in a statement released by the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team. “I wished to ski a courageous race and put my entire coronary heart on the market and that is what I did.”
Diggins, whose hometown is Afton, Minn., and who typically trains in Vermont, first received an Olympic gold medal in South Korea in 2018.
She’s been a powerhouse ever since. She made historical past as the primary American lady to win an total World Cup title, often called the Crystal Globe, in 2021.
Then she captured silver and bronze medals on the Beijing Olympics in 2022.
Now she’s received a second World Cup title, competing in a sequence of races that started in November 2023. She capped a dominant season with Sunday’s win within the 20 km freestyle race.
Cross-country snowboarding combines explosive energy, method and endurance.
Lately, Diggins — like different athletes — has spoken publicly concerning the emotional challenges of competitors, together with her personal battle with an consuming dysfunction.
Diggins said before this year’s season that she had suffered a relapse of the situation, after 12 years in restoration.
“It has been quite a lot of ups and downs and it hasn’t been simple,” Diggins mentioned in her assertion on Sunday. “It has been a tough 12 months and that is why it is so particular that we did it collectively,” she mentioned of her group.
Diggins is essentially the most profitable U.S. athlete to aim to compete in a sport the place European athletes maintain large benefits. Cross-country snowboarding is way extra fashionable and professionally profitable in Europe, particularly in Nordic international locations.
Not like most different top-tier American cross-country ski racers, Diggins has managed to maintain successful. After her newest victory she credited her coaches and teammates.
“I am actually happy with how the season ended, however I am much more happy with my group for being there for me,” she mentioned.