Jessie Diggins kicked off the final weekend of her cross-country skiing career by clinching her fourth World Cup overall season title.
Diggins, the best U.S. cross-country skier in history with four Olympic medals, finished fifth in a 10km classic race won by Swede Linn Svahn at the Stifel World Cup Finals in Lake Placid, New York.
That was enough to mathematically secure the overall title for a third consecutive year.
“I was tasting blood the whole second lap, so that’s fun,” Diggins said with a chuckle after racing through snowfall. “I was proud of my effort, and I was really happy with how I skied. I think it was one of my best 10km classics of my life, and that’s a great way to end it.”
Diggins went into these three-race finals with a 342-point lead over Swede Moa Ilar in the standings that take into account results in sprints and distance races over the November-to-March World Cup.
A skier can win a maximum of 345 points at Finals, so Ilar needed to win Friday’s 10km and have Diggins finish 48th or worse to keep the race alive going into Saturday’s sprint and Sunday’s 20km (broadcast schedule here).
Diggins is the first cross-country skier to three-peat since Poland’s Justyna Kowalczyk (2009-11). The only woman to win more overall titles was Russian Yelena Välbe with five in the 1980s and ‘90s.
Diggins, a 34-year-old from Afton, Minnesota, announced before this season that it would be her last.
Diggins is one of two North American cross-country skiers to win a World Cup overall title along with fellow American Bill Koch in 1982.
Lake Placid marks the second time in the last 25 years that the cross-country skiing World Cup stops in the U.S. Minneapolis hosted races in February 2024.
