CANMORE NORDIC CENTRE, Canmore, Alberta — Jessie Diggins’s ability to bury herself has been the lodestar of what is now a long and well-decorated career. Whether it was a high school–era Diggins finding new reserves of strength to track down additional rivals and gain more points for her Stillwater High Ponies, or early-2010s Diggins pushing herself to the point of exhaustion to bring home one of several memorable relay podiums, her capacity for suffering has never been in doubt. Google “Jessie Diggins pain cave” and see what you get; results there are not lacking.
Take that longstanding ability to push and add to it some tactical acumen and maturity, and what do you get? You get Diggins’s resounding victory in Friday’s 15-kilometre mass start skate race here in Canmore. Diggins was at the front of the race when it mattered, at the finish line, of course, but also at the intermediate bonus points — she took home a total of 130 World Cup points today after leading the field through both of those.
But Diggins was not leading the race much of the rest of the time. She was never far off the front, and when the stadium announcer mused that Diggins was looking “a little ragged” he may have been reading too much things. But she was, carefully and conscientiously, not leading the race when she did not have to. It was a mature and considered performance by an athlete who has been doing this at the highest stages of her sport for well over a decade now, but who nonetheless is continuing to add new skills to her repertoire.
Or as USST program director Chris Grover put it, “She’s got a ton of wherewithal in the races to put herself into the right position. And overall, I think she was really good about measuring her energy today and kind of reading who she was skiing around. And being able to kind of see what Sophia was doing and know that she’s going to be able to still have a lot of finish speed.”
Grover termed Diggins’s execution today “amazing.”
Let me turn things over to Diggins to narrate her race today, in particular its closing moments. Here is some video of that (slide two below). You can and should watch it for yourself, but I would characterize it as showing Delphine Claudel of France leading things out coming into the final downhill, Diggins using the draft to slingshot around her, and Diggins then skiing away down the finish lanes to cross the line with surprising composure/lack of collapsing into the finish zone as if she had been shot:
Here’s Diggins on how things played out for her:
“I kind of had a pretty fluid race strategy out there today,” she said at the finish. “I wanted to see what would happen. Warming up I was like, Okay, it’s really fast. So there’s a chance, even though it’s a really hard course, maybe it doesn’t string out because there is a draft and so I just think it’s going to come back together from the sprint downhill through the stadium, and it did.
“So halfway through the race I was like, Okay, so it’s like that. It’s gonna come down to a sprint finish. So I was making myself be patient, which is not my strong suit. But I just kept telling myself, like, be smart, be smart, trust your sprint finish. And so I knew the only chance I would have is either be leading by at least 20 feet, or don’t lead. And so when Delphine went I was just like, Yes, perfect. Perfect. So I got in behind her and got the slingshot that I wanted.”
I don’t really have much more to add to that, honestly: Diggins was patient, got the lead-out from Claudel she’d been hoping for, and dominated from there. The results speak for themselves.
That was actually a pretty un-Jessie-Diggins-like finish, another reporter suggested in the mixed zone. Like, you were on your feet, you were smiling?
“I know,” laughed Diggins. “That was weird.”
“It was one of the few races where I haven’t collapsed,” she continued. “And I think, for me, I was just trying to be really smart. There are a lot of races in the next 10 days and I’m trying to kind of play it like a game of chess. Trying to just ski smart, not just ski hard, but ideally do both.”
Did you have a little left at the end? came the follow-up.
*pause* “We’ll see, over the next couple of days, if I did the right thing or not.”
Today marked the 20th individual World Cup victory of Diggins’s career and the fifth this season, both all-time records for American nordic skiers.
Behind Diggins, but not all that far behind, Sophia Laukli crossed the line in eighth, after animating the race at the front for much of the second half.
“I did some more… ambitious tactics than I normally do,” Laukli said afterwards. “But it was fun.”
Laukli candidly expanded on the nature of those tactics, and the motivation behind them:
“Every mass start this year I’ve been in a massive pack at the end,” she said, “and my sprint abilities don’t allow me to be far up in that pack. Today I was feeling good. So I was like, Just go as crazy as you can and try to get the pack as small as possible. I’ll probably still be last in the pack at the end. But if it’s 10 people instead of 25, then that’s a lot better. So in that case, it worked.”
“If I were maybe being a little bit smarter, you want to get in behind” someone else, Laukli observed in a blunt self-evaluation of her race [in which, again, she was eighth in the world today].
“Jessie obviously nailed it; she’s very good at this now. She’s seasoned at knowing how to conserve and go when she needs to. So that’s like the ultimate goal, is to ski like that. For me, my strength currently is essentially going uphill. And that is it. So that’s what I’m gonna stick to.”
(Laukli graciously shared written comments via USSS as well, which largely track what she said in the mixed zone post-race. I would like to note, however, that she used the phrase “leading and going ham” to characterize her tactics today, which I appreciated.)
This article is too long already, and the men’s article before that was also too long, so let me run through some other American results, and the American athletes’ thoughts on them, with a little more efficiency here:
Rosie Brennan was 15th today. Julia Kern was 19th. Sydney Palmer-Leger, in her first World Cup in a few seasons, was 25th. Margie Freed, in her World Cup debut, was 29th. Mariah Bredal, also in her first World Cup, was right behind in 30th. Lauren Jortberg, in a rare but not first career World Cup distance start for her, was 35th, and was pleased with it. Alex Lawson was 36th. Emma Albrecht, the third and final American World Cup debutante in today’s field, was 40th. Alayna Sonnesyn was 43rd. Erin Bianco was unfortunately DNF somewhere on lap two. There were 47 finishers in the race.
Julia Kern: “It was definitely a tight start. I missed the break and I was weaving through people a bit so I was just in no man’s land. Which is not how I like to mass start, but it’s good practice to just charge on my own. … It’s been a really tough month. I went home early after Oberhof because I’ve been just dealing with post-flu, illness and lung issues. And so I’ve been trying to get back on that train. … Hopefully I figure things out soon.”
Kern added, when asked about the current vibes, “It’s awesome. So many loud fans; every time I came off a downhill I just got a surge of energy from all the cheering and it feels like home. I know next weekend will really feel like home, but just being in North America is really special.”
Sydney Palmer-Leger: “Classic is definitely my strong suit. And I’ve raced some incredible races here in Canmore doing classic, but this was technically my first skate distance World Cup. [She had previously done sprints and a skiathlon.] It was hard; there was a lot of accordion effects, so I kind of got stuck and had to just stand for a while. And then the pack kind of broke up for a little bit. So I was kind of leading this whole group for like a lap and a half. And then the conditions kind of slowed down at the top, but it was pretty good.”
Margie Freed (in written comments from USSS; everything else in this article is from athlete comments in the mixed zone):
“Race went out fast, and I just tried to hang on for the first lap. Then found a nice group to ski with and tried to ski smart, with a kick at the end! First Cross Country World Cup was so fun! Loved hearing the fans cheer ‘Go USA!’ throughout the warmup and race.
“Earlier this season I raced Biathlon World Cups which were way more overwhelming with shooting stress, so was happy to be able to relax with the ‘simplicity’ of just skiing. I also love having so many close friends & teammates here representing the US. It feels extra special to race in our home continent!”
Mariah Bredal: He first World Cup was “so fun,” and she was “super excited.” Her mom and dad were both on site for her debut, and were “cheering the loudest out there for USA. It means a lot.”
Lauren Jortberg: “It was very fun out there. I got into a pretty bad car accident a week ago, so I was not really sure how the body was gonna move, but it was pretty good.”
Alex Lawson: Today “was hard,” but racing in Canada “is awesome.” Lawson thrilled to have her parents in driving distance of the race, saying, “a lot of my family’s out here. It’s definitely comforting to have home fans out there cheering.”
Emma Albrecht: “I’m very excited. The whole race I just kept looking down and I was like, I’m in the U.S.A. suit.”
Today was Albrecht’s first time wearing the U.S.A. suit. Today was Albrecht’s first time representing the U.S. internationally, at any level. “I’ve never raced internationally ever,” she said. “So this is my first time. I never made World Juniors or Worlds or anything, so go big or go home, I guess.”
Today was not, however, the first time that Albrecht experienced her mother cheering for her at a ski race. Albrecht got a notably late-in-life start in nordic skiing, not contesting her first ever ski race until age 17 (i.e., five years ago). Her mother cheered for her then, and her mother cheered for her today.
“Looking back” on today, Albrecht said, “I am probably going to remember every lap just seeing my mom on the uphill and she was by far the loudest voice. Every time I heard her I just felt like I could finish the race as fast as I could.”
Albrecht added, “It’s really, really cool seeing all the super fast women that I’m racing against and get to just kind of train with, and put my boots on with, and do small talk. And Jessie Diggins put my glitter on today. So it’s super cool because these women are for sure my idols and to feel amongst them on the team is such an incredible feeling.”
It was “definitely a starstruck moment” to have Diggins apply her glitter, Albrecht said. “We’re from the same hometown so I have kind of known of her my entire life, just because of the community aspect of skiing. And I never thought in my life, I’d be on the same team as her. So definitely very starstruck.”
Finally, I probably owe Albrecht an entire follow-up article on her equipment woes — maybe come rest day on Monday — but suffice to say that she raced today on broken boots and taped-up poles. Both Salomon (boots) and Rossignol (poles) have been forthcoming and helpful, but there is simply less product available on short notice in this country than in Europe, and replacements were not immediately forthcoming. And so she did her World Cup debut with tape over her ski poles and a busted-up zipper on five-year-old boots. I’m stumping for donations for me at the bottom of this article, but, uh, maybe kick in a few bucks to Emma Albrecht as well so she can buy some new boots?
Racing continues here tomorrow with the skate sprint. Scheduled starters for the U.S. are (deep breath) Rosie Brennan, Jessie Diggins, Julia Kern, Sydney Palmer-Leger, Emma Albrecht, Renae Anderson, Erin Bianco, Margie Freed, Lauren Jortberg, Michaela Keller-Miller, Alex Lawson, and Alayna Sonnesyn.
— by Gavin Kentch. Gerry Furseth contributed reporting.
There are more reporters at these races than in Soldier Hollow for U.S. Nationals, but not that many, and I am probably the only one reliant on a GoFundMe to get here. Travel for in-person reporting is not cheap, and travel to anywhere from Alaska is particularly not cheap.
Last season’s GoFundMe is literally the only reason why I turned a profit in year one of Nordic Insights, and in turn the only reason why there is a year two of Nordic Insights for you to be reading now: I was okay with working for very little money to get this love letter to American cross-country skiing off the ground, but I didn’t want to lose money for the privilege of doing so. If you would like to support what remains a brutally shoestring operation, this season’s GoFundMe may be found here. Thank you for your consideration, and, especially, for reading.
