By Máximo Steverlynck
Jessie Diggins added another win to her palmarès earlier Sunday, skiing to a great win in the final race of the Goms World Cup stop. U.S. women finished well across the board, with Sophia Laukli skiing to 5th place and Rosie Brennan following close behind for 7th place. The fifth place for Laukli is her best career World Cup result, non–Alpe Cermis category.
Diggins’s victory came down to an exciting sprint finish against Frida Karlsson. Approaching the finishing straight in second Diggins held a deep free skate several beats longer than Karlsson, conserving energy while drafting behind the Swede. Coming into the start of the finish lanes, Diggins moved around Karlsson, then skied away from her over the short finishing straight for the win. It was adroit tactical racing from an athlete who has excelled in multiple race formats this year, but who likely remains at her best on downhill finishes in skate races. Diggins’s win, which you can watch in the second slide above, was impressive, but at some level not a surprising outcome when she approached the finish area with Karlsson carrying that much speed. Diggins first claimed a podium in a distance race longer than a 5km freestyle back in January 2016; she’s been doing this for a long time now.
Diggins took the win by 0.6 seconds. Following Karlsson in third place was Nadine Fähndrich of Switzerland, earning her 10th career podium in front of the home crowd.
Today’s racing was defined by a ripping and somewhat icy track, seeing speeds well in excess of 50 km/h on downhills. The winning time was under 40 minutes for the men, and slightly over 45 minutes for the women, on a course that was a full 20km long and had a stout 193 meters of climbing on each 5,042-meter loop.
It’s a miracle there weren’t heavy crashes, but there were certainly some near misses (see GIF below). Hilariously, the guy on the far left here (emphasis on “far”), Candide Pralong of Switzerland, received a verbal warning from the jury under ICR 343.6.1, for failure to follow the marked course. He was one of eighteen such verbal reprimands over the course of the weekend, evenly split between men and women. Make of that what you will.
Diggins spoke about the race and her condition in comments provided by USSS: “To be honest, I didn’t actually have that much faith in my very top speed,” she said. “So it was a really cool surprise to feel like, Okay, I’m able to make my body work the way I want it to. Granted, top speed after racing for 20km is very different from top speed in a sprint. But I was just really happy to have been able to come out of that final corner with the speed that I was hoping to have.
“The last couple k’s in that race, I was just going as hard as I could. And definitely flooded legs. It was quite painful. I was just really happy because this is the first series of races this weekend since my crash in the Tour where my ribs haven’t hurt, and that was really nice. I felt like my energy was back. Also, I just want to give a shoutout to our wax techs. It is one of our wax tech’s birthday today, Eli [Brown], and he had some incredible cheering out there.”
Show cheering? Show cheering.
Brennan also spoke in comments provided by USSS, lending some insight into how she’s feeling at the end of this block of racing: “I was happy with my finish,” Brennan said. “I’m definitely missing some gears to accelerate, feeling a little more like I had one strong pace. So when people started fading, I was able to maintain my pace.”
Johannes Høsflot Klæbo is solidly back on form, winning his second race in as many days. He outsprinted Simen Hegstad Krüger for the win; the end of his race looked similar to Diggins’s, as the dominant skate sprinter simply waited for the point at which he decided to pull out from behind Krüger and walk away for the win. Klæbo crossed the line in just 39:25.2 for an incredible average speed of 30.44 km/h. Rounding out the podium was Jules Lapierre of France, taking his third career podium.
Gus Schumacher led the American men, placing 14th on an extremely fast day. In comments to Nordic Insights, he spoke about his race, recent successes, and how he’s feeling going into the rest period:
“I’m feeling good, definitely felt like those were some races that I needed to do to continue building back after sickness, and I’m really glad they went well. Excited to be going home for a bit of a break and volume block, and get that intensity back in with a ton of racing in North America! Gonna find chunks to train when I can and just let the races do the sharpening so I can hopefully hold some fitness all the way through.”
Behind him in 18th was Scott Patterson, also breaking into the top 20 for the men in his best individual result this World Cup season.
“Today was a solid day,” wrote Patterson via USSS. “I was hoping for a good one following a tough weekend in Oberhof. 20k skates have been one of my strong suits so I knew today had potential. I tried to ski smooth but stay near the front. That worked well until the leaders started really pushing the last lap. I didn’t quite have the speed and energy but still quite satisfied with a strong result to finish off this European block.”
Also racing for the American men today were Ben Ogden in 35th, Kevin Bolger in 42nd, Zak Ketterson in 43rd (just losing the Team Birkie sprint), and Peter Wolter in 49th. Sammy Smith in 45th rounded out the field for the American women.
There is now a nearly two-week break in the World Cup schedule, a rarity at this point in the season. Athletes will scatter to various homes and training bases, then reconvene on this continent (!) for races in Canmore from February 9–13, then in Minneapolis on February 17–18. Nordic Insights will be sending multiple representatives to each venue; stay tuned.
